About Don

1985 fa4504 1

Jan 12, 1930 - Jan 10, 1998

1996 FLORIDA FOLK HERITAGE AWARD

Don Groom was a Cherokee Indian and Florida songwriter. Born in Cherokee, North Carolina, Don later went on to study journalism and taught at the University of Florida in Gainesville. His songs are sung at festivals and campgrounds throughout Florida. He wrote songs about Native Americans, Florida and about being a good human being. He was appreciated for his original songs, as well as his wit, humor, and sincerity.

Born in 1930, Don Grooms was raised in Cherokee, North Carolina. He came from a family with Cherokee and Appalachian heritage. As a child, he played a cornstalk fiddle, a cigar-box banjo, and a $3 Silvertone guitar. At age 10, Grooms began playing for square dances and at 14 he belonged to a dance band that played pop tunes. Grooms became a professional journalist and moved to Florida to teach journalism at the University of Florida. While in Gainesville, Grooms was influenced by Will McLean, which motivated him to return to songwriting and playing guitar. He became a fixture at the Florida Folk Festival, where he performed on stage alongside Florida Folk Troubadours Gamble Rogers, Jim Billie and Will McLean. Grooms received the Florida Folk Heritage Award in 1996. Don produced five recording projects with various Florida musicians

A career as a journalist led Grooms from Dallas to Los Angeles, Washington DC, and ultimately Gainesville. In Dallas, he worked for the Associated Press, wrote publicity at an advertising agency, and edited the Southern Methodist University school newspaper. For a time, he specialized in print journalism, working with the American Bar Association, a tourist magazine in North Carolina, the Citizen-Times in Asheville, North Carolina, and a semiweekly newspaper in Waynesville, NC. Returning to Dallas, he worked as a radio and television reporter and covered the 1960 presidential election. After working for Lyndon Johnson in Dallas and Washington DC, he taught journalism at the University of Florida, where he increasingly concentrated upon dramatic and documentary writing for television.

In Gainesville, Grooms returned to the guitar and songwriting, which was influenced by the work of Will MacLean. Several of his productions for WUFT-TV, including Shawnaboktahatchee and A Farewell to Hogtown, related to folk cultural topics. He also programmed a singer-songwriter radio show at the University radio station. Grooms retired in 1993 after 31 years teaching and died on January 10, 1998.

Florida Memory - Don Grooms, 1930-1998