By BRADLEY RICE, WCHS
CHAPMANVILLE, W.Va. (CIRCA via WCHS) If you aren't familiar with the name Liam Farley, it's only a matter of time.
The 9-year-old fiddle-playing phenomenon from Logan County in West Virginia has been tearing it up since he was 4, and he's already played for dignitaries and large crowds and won several competitions in West Virginia and around the country.
"He got fascinated with the fiddle when he like 3 and a half (years old), and all the way up until he was about 4 years old, he kept saying, 'I want to fiddle. I'm going to be a fiddle player,'" said his mom, Tabitha Farley. "He started lessons at about 4 and half, and he just kind of took off with it."
Like lots of children, the prodigy started his "career" by playing pretend but not with a toy violin.
"I started playing by getting a little plastic guitar and getting a drumstick and acted like I was playing a violin," Farley said.
Farley, along with his playing companion and grandfather Phillip Farley, who plays the guitar, have played at several large bluegrass festivals, Tamarak, the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame and for the West Virginia Power, a minor league baseball team.
He also got to meet and play with members of Sleepy Man Banjo Boys, and they signed his violin.
Farley won first place in the "youth old-time fiddle" category at the 2018 Vandalia Gathering and played for West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice at the annual Christmas party at the governor's mansion.
Farley has videos on YouTube and his own Facebook page.
Right now, he said he'd like to pay fiddle as an adult, but he has other career aspirations as well.
"Being a fiddle player, a marine biologist and a paleontologist," Farley said of the full plate he'd like to take on.
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