Stanley Hicks 3-String Model Appalachian Dulcimer (1984), made in Vilas, North Carolina, natural finish, oak top and back, cherry sides, handmade gig bag case.
Watauga County, North Carolina was home to many of the torchbearers of American traditional music and Appalachian storytelling, but Stanley Hicks in particular was a master of his many crafts including storytelling, flatfooting, and of course instrument making. From humble beginnings as the child of English immigrants, Hicks taught himself how to build banjos and dulcimers like his father and grandfather before him. Like other resourceful mountain instrument builders, Hicks made use of the easily attainable tone woods on his property and likely used the skins of whatever critter was for dinner that week.
This is a pretty straightforward but very nicely constructed example of a classic 3-string Appalachian dulcimer made with a lovely figured oak top and back with what appears to be cherry sides and accents. Matching hand carved tuners are nestled into what appears to be a cherry headstock with each individual tuner numbered. The strings pass over original, minimally worn frets through the relatively thick bridge to a single metal nail endpin. It has a traditional hourglass shaped body and the ever-charming heart shaped soundholes.
Hicks was a vital part of the region's folk music community writ large and an avid storyteller, a tradition that holds a lot of weight in Appalachia and earned him several regional and national accolades. He went on to be recorded by the likes of Alan Lomax and was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow in 1983, the highest national honor for folk art. He passed away in 1989 only a few years after the construction of this banjo, building instruments and making music until the end of his life. Today his instruments are considered among the higher quality examples of the mountain banjo and Dulcimer tradition, and among the more sought after of this style of instrument.
Length is 35 in. (88.9 cm.), 6 3/8 in. (16.2 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 3 1/4 in. (8.3 cm.) in depth at deepest point. Scale length is 27 in. (686 mm.). Width of nut is 1 1/4 in. (32 mm.).
This is a particularly excellent playing, sounding, and looking example of a higher quality genuine handmade dulcimer. The oak top appears minimally scuffed with only small evidence of play and thoughtful care through the years and the whole unit held close emits a faint, beautifully sweet, woody aroma. Hicks offered superior buildmanship and a tone much more robust and pleasant than many of the common kit-made dulcimers at the time though there remains a charming "folksiness" to the work after decades of autodidactic lutherie. This one was made later in his life and is even more refined than other dulcimers we have played from his workshop.
The oak back is clean as well, as are the matching flamed maple tuners (each faintly inscribed 1, 2, 3, and 4 on the end) and the frets show only small traces of wear with plenty of life left in them; there are a couple small scuffs on the edge of the cherry fingerboard. There is absolutely no mistaking the identity of this dulcimer as Stanley Hicks marked it not twice but thrice: his name and the date are found on a label in a lower soundhole, written in pencil in the upper soundholes, and carved as he customarily did on the back of the headstock. It would almost certainly have not left the shop in an original bag or case, but it now cozily resides in an specially ordered Amish-made dulcimer bag. Excellent Condition.
