John Morgan Salyer was one of the last of the great traditional fiddlers of eastern Kentucky. He was born into an extraordinary musical world that flourished in rural isolation before the days of recording technology and that had largely disappeared by the middle of the twentieth century. We know that world largely through legend, but because John Salyer's family had the foresight and dedication to record his playing some fifty years ago, a piece of the old music of eastern Kentucky has been kept alive.