Photo by Nathan Bingle
Zach Lemhouse
Claim to fame: Fiddle player with a set list that dates back to the American Revolution.
Day job: Staff historian for the Culture and Heritage Museums of York County (CHM) and director of the Southern Revolutionary War Institute, a research library dedicated to oft-forgotten battles of the Southern Campaign during the American Revolution.
Hometown: York.
Fiddle or violin?: “A violin has strings; a fiddle has strangs,” Lemhouse jokes. “There’s no difference.”
On his bookshelf: Between books on the American Revolution, education theories and scores of sheet music, you’ll find several comic books. “I’m more of a DC fan than a Marvel fan. Especially Batman.”
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When Zach Lemhouse plays the music of 18th and 19th centuries for visitors at Historic Brattonsville, it’s more than just the notes of a bygone era that fill the space. He’s hoping his passion for history and love of learning ring through loud and clear.
As the son of two teachers in the Clover public school district, family vacations usually included historic sites across the state. That fostered an interest in the past, and after graduating from Winthrop University, he followed his parents into education, teaching history to middle school students for five years before joining the staff at CHM.
Musically, the 32-year-old Lemhouse started taking violin lessons when he was 7 after seeing a fiddle player in an “old-time band” perform traditional gospel tunes at a Sunday camp meeting.
“I saw it and fell in love with it,” says Lemhouse, who learned by playing classical music and, about 20 years ago, started playing Scottish and Irish folk songs alongside his mentor, Nash Lyle. Each summer, he also teaches at the Jink and Diddle School of Scottish Fiddling in North Carolina.
“I’m an educator,” he says. “I may not be in the classroom anymore, but I’m a teacher. To effectively transfer knowledge from one person to another. That’s what I did in the classroom and, absolutely, that’s what I’m doing at Brattonsville.”
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In addition to performances at Historic Brattonsville, Lemhouse is also a member of three Bluegrass bands: the WBT Briarhoppers (established in 1934 and inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2020), the Whippoorwill String Band, and the Cottonwood Bluegrass Band.
As staff historian for the Culture & Heritage Museums, Lemhouse's interviews with top bluegrass and Americana bands will be featured in this year's Southern Sound Radio concerts, live performances recorded at the McCelvey Center in York and broadcast every Saturday in November from 8 to 10 p.m. on all S.C. Public Radio stations. The 2022 lineup includes performances by Della Mae (Nov. 5), Chatham County Line (Nov. 12), Ruthie Foster (Nov. 19) and Steep Canyon Rangers (Nov. 26). In the interviews, band members reflect on the evolving nature of traditional music and discuss historical crossovers of genres that encompass the roots music of the Carolina Piedmont.
Find your South Carolina Public Radio station and livestream details at southcarolinapublicradio.org. The full interviews are also available on the Culture & Heritage Museum's YouTube page.
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