Sam Carrell
Sam Carrell worked briefly as an apprentice with Bill Davis (see below). Davis, with his then wife Jean Davis (Schilling), were a well-known act on the folk scene in the late 60s/early 70s. Davis made and played an unusual fiddle-shaped dulcimer – broad and shallow – which had a much more balanced sound than the small historic hourglass dulcimers. He made thousands of dulcimers in fully built or kit form.
Carrell tells his story as follows:
“I met a dulcimer maker, Bill Davis—long since dead, in Gatlinberg, Tenn., after I moved there from my home in Florida , A VERY LONG STORY, & he asked me to work for him in his shop in East G[atlin]berg. I started with him in March of 1974 & quit in Sept of the same year. Let’s just say we had irreversible differences! I opened my own business, across the mountains, 25 miles away [Townsend, gateway to the Great Smokey Mts], in 1975. I closed the business & my wife & I moved back to Florida in 1984 to be with our very ill parents.
Here’s how I learned to make his dulcimers—He took me into his shop, pointed out a dulcimer & said you’ll be making that. The ONLY thing I ever saw him do was turn the tuning pegs on an old Shopsmith wood lathe, fit them to the “peg head” of a dulcimer, fit a nut & bridge & then put on the strings & tune it up. I had to figure everything out myself by studying & measuring a dulcimer. His dulcimers had the extra fret & I eventually figured out what it was for. It made perfect sense to me at the time —“open tuning for the Mixolydian Mode”, easy for learners to use & understand.
I developed the “Teardrop” style completely on my own & from my own ideas. Ditto the sound holes you see in all my dulcimers. The Wormy Chestnut that I used was over 100 yrs old. It came out of the Joyce Kilmer National Forest near Franklin, North Carolina. It was/is the best sounding of all the woods I used for sounding boards.
I made approximately 1300 to 1500 mountain dulcimers & at least 200 other instruments including Hammered dulcimers, Swedish Humles, Psaltrys, acoustic Guitars & many other instruments. I actually make a few instruments every year some guitars, Mountain Dulcimers & the odd instrument upon request.”
Carrell moved back to Florida in the mid-80s and became a building contractor. He died a few years back, in ?2019.
2.62 1981 Sam Carrell – 5 String Fiddle-Shaped – £Sold
Wormy chestnut top/walnut back, fiddle-sided dulcimer by Sam Carrell. Marked (in pen): “American black walnut/ w wormy [?] chestnut top/ January 1981/ Made by Sam Carrell/ Towsend, Tenn.” And in other soundhole: “Handmade for/ Marvin Dunenfeld”.
Striking reddish chestnut top with prominent grain, neatly bookmatched walnut back; long, elegant walnut peghead and five large lathe-turned walnut pegs; hollow box fingerboard, supported by central reinforcement. Top is thin but reinforced by delicate internal struts, especially under potentially fragile lower bout f-hole. Upper soundhole is simple flower-like group of drill holes. Wheat ear incised decoration in strum hollow, none on headstock. Fiddle-edge construction with top and back overlapping sides; fiddle shape, with upper and lower bout extending equally and narrow waist; thinnish brass frets with original 6+ fret; protruding chrome screws as string anchors; wooden nut and floating bridge. NOT signed on the back as some of my other Carrells are.
Overall length 39¼”, upper bout 7¼”, lower bout 7¼”, side depth 1¾”, FBW 1½”, VSL 28¼ (medium/long scale), weight 2lbs 2oz (975g). Original 6+ fret. Fitted currently with 0.011/0.015/0.026w.
This has exactly the same characteristics as my other Carrells: it is light, rigid and very responsive to the strings – the whole dulcimer vibrates on your lap. It sounds loud but clear, with excellent response from both treble (shallow body) and bass (large volume). It is sweet when played softly but can also be driven hard. Has a low action on original floating bridge, with near-perfect intonation. Pegs work well but will always be sensitive to changes in the environment. Part of me would recommend it is kept as originally conceived, even returned to its four courses with two separate wound strings – my 1982 Carrell wormy chestnut/walnut is set up like this and sounds glorious. On the other hand, it could also be updated to provide a slightly compensated bridge (to improve the DAdd intonation still further) and geared guitar-style tuners. With the updates, it would be a close match with the much-fancied modern-day Clemmer dulcimers, currently $600 and upwards in this configuration.
