A Madison County native, Arvil Freeman is a welcome sight at bluegrass concerts and clogging events. That's because he's been a professional fiddler for 30 years. After beginning as an old time fiddler, he switched to bluegrass and played every weekend for years at Bill Stanley's Barbecue Restaurant, nationally known for its traditional bluegrass and clogging entertainment. Currently he hosts Asheville's Shindig On the Green every summer.
Freeman plays for his audience.
"When you play the melody in a song so that people can recognize it, you're doing something!" Freeman told Marc Pruett in an interview with Pick 'n' Grin magazine in 1978. "A musician has to play for the people who are listening, and not just for the other musicians."
