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Although their career as a duo was brief, Darby and Tarlton were important to country music. Darby's bluesy vocals and acoustic guitar were complemented by Tarlton's slide guitar and his harmony singing. The pair would influence their contemporaries and later artists. Tom Darby was born in 1890, possibly in Columbus, GA. His family was musical - his father and a number of uncles played fiddle. Tom took up the guitar at around the age of ten. He first worked on the family farm, music being ever-present. At some point he left home to travel. He was living just outside Columbus when he first met Jimmie Tarlton. Jimmie Tarlton was born in 1892, near Cheraw, SC. His family was restless - by his teens he'd lived in Georgia and North and South Carolina. Thus he assimilated many styles of music. The family was musical - his father, for example, played a fretless banjo. His mother, a singer, had learnt a number of 'family' songs, some of which turned up in Jimmie's 'song-bag'. At around the age of nine or ten he took up bottleneck style guitar playing. The young Jimmie spent his time working the fields, finding time for music by playing at dances in the intervals. In search of a living from music, he left home around the age of 17. He supplemented his musical income by working in cotton mills. Tarlton moved on, at one time spending a spell in New York's Bowery district. Later he was in Texas, where again, he found work in cotton mills or in the fields. Apparently he wasn't above earning money from playing poker. It was probably about this time that he may have seen and heard his first steel guitar. Tarlton's travels continued. He visted Arkansas, Mexico and California, where he met Hawaiian guitar picker, Frank Ferera. Although Tarlton did include some of Ferera's techniques in his later work, he argued he'd devised his own style prior to hearing anyone playing Hawaiian fashion. Those are the people. The music's just as fascinating.