Few traditional instrumentalists have offered as innovative and unusual a technical approach to their instrument as Kentucky mountain dulcimer artist, I.D. Stamper. It was not until I.D. was in his thirties that he built and began to play his first dulcimer, having first mastered the harmonica and 5-string banjo as a youth, but it quickly became his first love and trademark.

Stamper was born in Arkansas, where his family moved following the big lumber boom in the late 19th century.  In 1912 they returned to their native Letcher County, Kentucky where “Ike” lived until his death in 1986. Starting in the coal mines as a “chalk eye” (apprentice to a more experienced miner) as a young teen, he worked nearly forty years in the mines until he left the “bad air” for a safer and better paying job as a maintenance man in a Louisville children’s hospital.  But all the time music was his first love.

Louise Stamper was a fine singer, dancer, entertainer, and old time banjo player.  Passing her skill and enthusiasm on to her large family, the Stamper household was a center of musical activity in their community.  I.D. and his eight brothers and sisters were quick learners and often entertained their father’s fellow miners and lumber mill workers as they passed the house on their way to work.  The harmonica was I.D.’s first instrument, “leant on a dare,” followed quickly by the banjo and guitar.  He even “sawed a little on the fiddle.”  I.D. and his brothers had a band that played at many of the local dances and even “played down” the then-popular Dock Boggs and his band at a Whitesburg bank opening.  But it was his contact with his mother’s relative, the legendary Uncle Ed Thomas, the roving dulcimer builder and player, that struck Ike’s fancy to the instrument that was to become his hallmark.

It wasn’t until the 1940s that I.D. finally put together his first dulcimer – from a butternut log his father brought in for firewood.  He fashioned his first instrument after his recollection of Uncle Ed’s design, but, by his own admission, “improved on it.”  I.D. Stamper constructed over 500 instruments during his lifetime, with buyers from California to England.

But it is I.D.’s music that brought him so much attention. Like many white traditional musicians from eastern Kentucky, I.D. was heavily influenced by the blues. Using a huge instrument (well over three feet long and over eighteen inches wide), tuned in an old-fashioned minor key, and utilizing the soulful and exacting use of the noter, Stamper blended white dance music and black blues offering the only blues dulcimer most people have ever heard.  His rarely-heard versions of “Darlin’ Corey,” “Lost John,” and “Little Pink” act as a musical roadmap to a time and a life that most people can contact only in books.  In addition, he was a uniquely warm and compelling performer whose love of music and people were a joy to participate in.

Following a brief career (in his retirement) of performing extensively at local festivals, colleges, and folklife events at national parks (in addition to declining invitations to both the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife and the National Folk Festival) Parkinson’s disease all but ended his ability to play. People's sole opporunity to appreciate and album of I.D.'s music lies in the recording, Red Wing, for June Appal.

In 1975, Appalshop's record label - June Appal Recordings - received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to produce records from field recordings of traditional musicians from the region. Called the Appalseed Field Project, the program was operated under the direction of musician and producer John McCutcheon.  The project focused on recording and distributing skilled traditional Appalachian musicians who had previously gone undocumented.  One of those skilled, previously unrecorded musicians was I.D. Stamper, the Letcher County, Kentucky Appalachian dulicmer player and luthier, whose playing was widely admired.

Red Wing (JA010, 1977) was recorded by John McCutcheon, June Appal founder Jack Wright and musician John Harrod with a Nagra IV and Stallvox recorder using Beyer Dynamic and Neumann microphones. Tracks include:

The Appalshop Archive recently preserved the original ¼-inch magnetic audio recordings of Red Wing, and is currently working on re-releasing the album on CD in late summer of 2007. To pre-order your own copy of the CD now, please go to the Appalshop Store. Appalshop Films also released Sourwood Mountain Duclimers – a short film featuring I.D. Stamper and John McCutcheon, who play music together, swap tunes, discuss musical traditions and demonstrate the difference between hammered and mountain style dulcimer.  Please drop us a line if you have questions to chunter@appalshop.org.

Ear Tickling Music
An Interview with I.D. Stamper by Jack Wright
From Mountain Review, a publication of Appalshop, Inc.
Vol. 3, No. 4 February 1978
Reprinted with permission from Jack Wright

"Most of my tunes I learned from my mother, she was singing all the time. She was a dancer, too. She'd dance to her own music," recalls Isaac D. "I.D." Stamper, a 70 year old dulcimer player from Letcher County, Kentucky. I.D. Is also an excellent dulcimer builder and has built over 500 that are scattered across the country in practically every state .... Click here to read more.

Old band with I.D. Stamper on left