“I remember watching him and thinking, if I had to describe a Shakespearean character, it would be Tommy. He was big then, and he had that kind of Falstaff quality to him—red hair, and a red beard. He was amazing looking, and the word that comes to mind is probably charismatic. You looked at him, and you had to look back, because he had such a presence, he just exuded this personality.”

—original Red Clay Rambler pianist Mike Craver, on the father of the band, Tommy Thompson. Quoted by Hal Crowther in “The Last Song of Father Banjo,” from the collection Gathering at the river: notes from the post-millenial south, LSU Press, 2005.