For more than 50 years, Eddie Pennington has had his thumb in some musical pie.
Whether it was on his dad’s fiddle at 9 years old, or his own ornate guitars picking like they used to do at the turn of the 20th century in Muhlenberg County’s coal country, the Princeton native and 2001 National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellow knows how to keep a tune.
So to see his life’s work and efforts on display at the Princeton Art Guild — courtesy of director Melissa Peek — has been a humbling, heartfelt journey into his past, present and future.
For the last two weeks, and for two weeks more, a small percentage of Pennington’s guitars, pictures and awards have been available for the public eye. Scores have already been in to pay a visit, and scores more will come.
Just as it seemed like the exhibit could hold no more, Pennington said he’d unearth another treasure or relic within his collection — bringing back untold memories worth remembering and sharing. Times spent playing in the Library Congress, The National Mall in Washington D.C, The Kennedy Center or the local Pennington Festival, which ran from 1997-2017.
His NEA Heritage Fellow award ranks among his top accolades, as he shares it with the likes of bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, blues guitarist and singer John Lee Hooker, banjo player Earl Scruggs, Appalachian fiddler Clyde Davenport and bluesman B.B. King.
It’s high company to be among, but not higher than the friends and family he’s made along the way. His son, Alonzo, is a successful accompaniment to Pennington and an award-winning guitarist in his own right, and Pennington’s grandson, Trigg County’s Caleb Coots, might not be far behind the curve.
Something this exhibit has done for Pennington is, perhaps, invigorate him a bit artistically. In his words, health has played a big factor this last handful of years, but 2021 has been particularly kinder to him.
He recently performed at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society Convention in Nashville, and he’d like to see the Pennington Festival revived at some point — though he well knows the undertaking and magnitude of such an event.
More pressing than the return of the Pennington Festival, or any possibilities around it however, is his desire to record an album with his grandson in Coots — someone he says has uncannily picked up those old thumb-picking styles born in Muhlenberg County nearly a century ago.
The Princeton Art Guild is open Tuesday-Saturday from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
Family pickin’
One of the more enjoyable parts of Pennington’s career has been the ability to pass on his skill set to a son, grandson and granddaughter throughout the years.
But the comical part about it is that in Pennington’s own childhood, he had to wait until he was old enough to handle an instrument.
