This Thursday, a program called The Music of Surry County will be featured on UNC-TVs Folkways program hosted by David Holt willing air on PBS at 9:30 p.m.

The Folkways premier explains how a group of fiddle and banjo players from Surry County created a worldwide impact on old-time music.

“The old-time music of Surry County has been so influential in the world of traditional music. In fact, oddly enough, Tommy Jarrell was a focal point for that music, but there are many great musicians from Surry County. That music has spread and influenced old-time music around the world. Anybody who plays American, traditional, old-time music, probably plays some of the Surry County style. I’m talking about any country you go to and all through the United States. It’s a very important part of our musical heritage right there in Surry County, so we wanted to do a show describing that and talk about how influential the music has been and how great it is,” Holt said.

Surry County music originates from English, Scotch-Irish and African-American musical traditions. The intense, driving style and contagious enthusiasm for old-time music by one of its most widely known forces, Tommy Jarrell, inspired generations of musicians.

Holt said a good portion of the show was filmed during the Mount Airy Fiddler’s Convention last June. He came back two other times to film different aspects of local music heritage.

He said the program will be aired many times over the course of the next few years.

“It will make people aware that Surry County is really a hub or focal point for traditional mountain music. The very intense driving style of the music has affected people around the world who play traditional music.”

Holt became interested in the music of Surry County when he came here to meet Tommy Jarrell in the early 1970s.

“I saw Tommy go from a fairly unknown fiddler in a small North Carolina town to becoming known world-wide. I was fascinated by how that happened and I wanted to do a piece about that. The fact that this man had no telephone and no car and still affected old-time music worldwide is pretty remarkable,” Holt said.

Examples of the music and vintage footage of Jarrell, from the noted film Sprout Wings and Fly, fills this episode of Folkways. Alice Gerard, Wayne Jarrell, Verlon Clifton, Frank Bode, Kelly Epperson, Paul Brown and the late Mike Seeger help tell the old-time music story.

Thursdays, at 9:30 p.m., this month, UNC-TV will offer four new episodes of its series Folkways.

Since its 1982 debut, Folkways delves deep into the state’s time-honored traditions. As a slightly higher-tech version of great folklorists before him, Grammy Award-winning musician/storyteller David Holt seeks out the people striving to keep North Carolina’s folk history alive. For some viewers, it’s an altogether new experience; for others, it helps continue connections generation to generation.

Following the premier episode featuring Surry County, the next show will show the energy of square dancing, flat footing, and clogging from a Swannanoa Gathering at Warren Wilson College steps up on Dance. Then, David Holt sits down with a longtime friend and seven-time Grammy winner on Conservations with Doc Watson. May’s Folkways’ finale finds two eastern North Carolina pastors sharing their different styles for spreading musical messages of faith on Gospel Music.

The program can be downloaded for free from UNC-TVs Web site. It can also be viewed and downloaded from iTunes.

Contact Mondee Tilley at mtilley@mtairynews.com or at 719-1930.