Stanley Hicks 4-String Model Appalachian Dulcimer (1983), made in Vilas, North Carolina, serial # 1183, natural finish, Chestnut, 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 available that week.
This is a particularly elegant example of a classic 4-string Appalachian dulcimer made with a nicely un-wormy chestnut top, back, and sides: the whole of the dulcimer down to the hand-carved friction tuners. This is a four-stringed dulcimer, with the highest melody string doubled for an even chimier sound. The strings pass over original, minimally worn frets over the bridge and through a thick chestnut tailpiece with four holes. It has a traditional hourglass shaped body and some particularly folkloric and 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. This one is particularly light and resonant; perhaps the many picturesque tiny extra holes in the wood contribute to that!
Length is 35 1/4 in. (89.5 cm.), 6 1/2 in. (16.5 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 3 1/4 in. (8.3 cm.) in depth at deepest point.
This is a well-preserved example of a higher quality genuine handmade Appalachian dulcimer. The richly dark-stained chestnut body is in largely great shape with just a few scrapes and scuffs here and there (primarily on the back). Hicks offered superior buildmanship and a tone that is 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.
There are a couple scuffs and dings on the back from where it has rested in laps and on tables over the years; the chestnut tuning pegs and thin scroll headstock are well-maintained and the frets show only small traces of wear with plenty of life left in them. This instrument is authenticated as being from the Hicks workshop twice over both with a label inside the soundhole and the customary etching behind the headstock bearing his initials and the date of manufacture. 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.
