Biography:Enos Canoy

Biographical notes
 ENOS CANOY (1909-1970). Magee, Simpson County, central Mississippi fiddler Enos Canoy learned to play the fiddle at age 12, and made his first fiddle out of a pine box. Enos's father died when he was age four, and he learned most of his music from his uncle, Love Kennedy, and Robert Runnels, a Simpson County musician. He had also decorated the fiddle he played at his 1939 Library of Congress field recording session, with hand-tooled and painted figures. Enos played in a family band, formed around 1937, with his cousin, Tim (mandolin) and Tim's wife Lola (guitar), calling themselves The Canoy Wildcats, and they were the first string band to play on Mississippi radio. Canoy and his family were also called the Enos Canoy Band (Bea and Sadie Canoy sang country and gospel songs), and they played at schools, town fairs and political rallies. In 1939 they were recorded for the Library of Congress by recordist Herbert Halpert, on a collecting trip to Mississippi. In the 1940's and 50's Enos and the Canoy Wildcats played a weekly half-hour show on WRBC in Jackson, Miss.. This iteration of the family band included Enos's two sons, Durwood and Herbert, and Jean Canoy played the guitar. Bea had left to get married, so Jean and Sadie sang together.