Gus Meade

Guthrie "Gus" Turner Meade Jr. (May 17, 1932 – February 8, 1991) was an American folklorist of early country music^[1] and Kentucky fiddle music.^[2][3]

Early life and education

Meade was born in Louisville, Kentucky^[4] to Sarah Isabel Ballard and Guthrie Turner Meade Sr.

Career

Meade served in the US Air Force where he started his career as a computer programmer and systems analyst. In 1965, he began working at the Library of Congress Folk Music Archives.^[5] During the summers, Meade would travel to Kentucky to record and research Kentucky fiddlers, as well as conduct interviews.^[6]

For the remainder of his life, Meade researched and collaborated with other fiddle and traditional folk music scholars, annotating a comprehensive discography of some 14,500 recordings. This work was published in "Country Music Sources", which was finalized and published shortly after his death in 1991.^[7] The Guthrie T. Meade Collection is housed in the Southern Folklife Collection in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.