About Dwight Diller
”There is something extremely important about what Dwight strives to teach, which many students can’t or don’t want to see. We live in a culture that is fixated on the foreground (notes, technique, tunes, etc.), and yet Dwight struggles to reveal the background (silence, rhythm, cultural context, etc.). This background is the source of the power and drama of the music. It gives life and makes the music breathe. It provokes rather than distracts, confronts rather than pacifies. This is why the old music can be offensive. It doesn’t sit nicely within or beside our contemporary culture. Most people only teach the foreground and most people only ever “get” the foreground, because it is the easiest part of music to acquire. It is easy to point to; it’s tangible, but it is also superficial. The foreground is important only to the degree that it points to the background, to make the background leap out. This is what it means to for the music to “get” you–to be seized by the power of the old music. What Dwight seeks to teach isn’t mere metaphor; it isn’t just talk. It is precisely what is deepest, most poignant, and most real about the music.” Dr. Bradley Park
About Dwight: Dwight Diller, born in August 17, 1946 in Rand, just east of Charleston, West Virginia. Learn more about his early life.
In the late 1960s, Dwight Diller developed close relationships with the Hammons family of Pocahontas County, an influential traditional mountain family whose music and oral traditions became internationally recognized for their cultural significance. In 1970, Diller helped introduce members of the Hammons family to the Library of Congress, contributing to broader recognition and preservation of Appalachian traditional music and storytelling.
According to the Library of Congress, There are “8 hours of field recordings of instrumentals, songs, and stories performed with banjo, fiddle, guitar, and fiddlesticks, spoken, and sung by William Moses “Mose” Coffman, the Hammons family, and others. Recorded in Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties, West Virginia, by Dwight Diller and Carl Fleischhauer from 1970-1972. The collection includes interviews with Maggie Hammons Parker and Burl Hammons about their biographies and family history and storytelling by these and other Hammons family members and 1 linear inch of audio logs and notes about the recordings.”
His friendship with the Hammons family brought wider attention to their rich musical traditions and cultural heritage. Through years of field recordings and personal interviews, he helped document their stories, songs, and way of life. His work played a significant role in a landmark Library of Congress study of the family, published in 1973, ensuring that the Hammonses’ contributions to Appalachian folk culture would be preserved for future generations.
Additionally, recordings of the Hammonses were released by WVU Press, the Library of Congress, Rounder Records, Dwight Diller, and the Augusta Heritage Center of Davis & Elkins College.
He taught banjo and fiddle for almost four decades. He is considered one of the pre-eminent West Virginia musicians of his generation. Following Dwight Diller’s passing February 14, 2023, Dwight’s non-profit YewPine Cultural Traditonas became steward of his extensive archival materials, educational recordings, media library, teaching resources, and ongoing preservation initiatives. Today, the organization continues working to preserve, organize, and provide educational access to Appalachian traditional music, oral history, recordings, photographs, and related cultural materials for future generations.
