Acie Cargill has been called one of America's finest songwriters.  His material crosses the defined genres; folk, rock, blues, country, rockabilly, old-timey,  western swing, and bluegrass. He has done  them all and there are albums available in each category that demonstrate Acie's songwriting skills.  He is a member of American Mensa.

        Two times  the quality of his production work has been recognized by being put up for grammy nominations.  His traditional banjo style is called the Tyler drop thumb and he has been recorded for the Library of Congress by Mike Seeger.  Acie is considered the master of this style.

        His available music begins with the Family Gathering cd recorded with an Ampex 602 at a churchyard gathering when he was about 10 years old and playing with the pros.  The music is very much in the old-time Kentucky tradition with southern saw fiddling and Acie on the drop thumb.  The tunes include The Battle of Shiloh, Old Molly Hare, The Cherry Tree, Eddyville Prison, Courting Betsy Brown, Ginny Git Around, and Black-eyed Susie.

        His bandmates on this recording included remants of  the Cargill Brothers string band of two generations back and some of the Tyler family musicians.  The Cargill's had gone north to Chicago as backstage musicians with the WSM barndance and Acie's grandfather Acie was the fiddler.

        In 2001, Folk Legacy released a superb album of the music of Acie's grandmother, Hattie Mae Tyler Cargill who was the last of the Kentucky Tyler family ballad singers and she taught Acie many of the old traditional tunes and melodies on the lap dulcimer when he was a boy.  The album features Debra Cowan, Susan Ruth Brown, and Kristina Olsen.  Some of the songs include Barbara Allen, The Dear Companion, Omie Wise, Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender, Wagoners Lad, Bachelor's Lament, Keep Your Garden Clean, and a wonderful touching poem from Hattie Mae, My Kentucky Home, with John Wright playing  Acie's tune Road to my Home on the banjo.

        To date Acie has recorded only one other album of his old family music.  That would be In The Willow Garden, and this has been reviewed as his finest work,  Some of the featured performers include Susan Ruth Brown, Elma Tuomisalo, Sally Anne Merrill, John Wright, Margaret Tyler, Cora Thiele, and Patrick Guinee.  Song of the songs include Black is the Color, Geordie, The House Carpenter, Rose Connally, Cukoo Bird, Pretty Peggy-O, Darby Ram, and what Acie calls "the most authentic version of Shady Grove because my family lived there".

        Acie does regional cd's with songs and recollections about a certain area.  An example is Northwest Indiana.  There are songs about Valparaiso and it's famous Orville Redenbacher Popcorn Festival, the dunes, early settlers, The Chellbergs, the great Whiting Fire, Diana of the Dunes, The South Shore Line, the Gary Works, The Hammond Tech State Basketball Championship, and John Dillinger's Crown Point escape, His other regional cd's include Calumet on Chicago's far southeast side and Historic Pullman, also on Chicago's southside.

        Because so much of his family settled in Oklahoma, Acie considers himself somewhat of an Okie and has done 4 cd's about his adopted state, Red Dirt,  In Old Oklahoma,  Oklahoma Roots, and Oklahoma Cowboy, honoring his late cousin Henson Cargill of Skip A Rope fame.

        Acie recorded a children's record called Midkids with Abby Teffeteller and Evelyn Cheruvelil, then one for the old-timers called Old Favorites, one for college age  Back To School and one for the boomers, Reflections on the Middle Ages.   Country Songs  is a collection of songs Acie wrote that were  recorded by various artists, including Johnny Cash.

        Some of Acie's most recent work include Rocking the Blues,  Bluegrass and Kentucky Blues, Iraq, Philippines, Old-Timey Giants with maestro Steve Rosen ( a long time pal) and a live recording Going to McDonalds.

        Acie's mother was a church organist for 65 years so he grew up with a lot of musical exposure in the house. His dad was friend's with Woody Guthrie and one of Acie's fondest memories was "sneaking out to the porch and listen to them play music and laugh and talk late in the night.  That could be why I do it every night now myself.  And I still have one of Woody's hats that he forgot.  And an old guitar he kept here to use.  He was a funny guy and us kids called him Woody Woodpecker."