comparing Fiddlers to Violinists in Country Music

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 2 Oct 2012 11:04 am

Jerry Hayes wrote:Eddie, as far as violinists being too "mechanical and precise".... I guess you haven't heard Itzak Pearlman play. I hope I spelled his name right as he's a very "soulful" player IMHO for a classical violinist.............JH in Va.

Since you asked (sort of):

(before I get jumped on as a "spelling Nazi")

It's Itzhak Perlman.
(and, incidentally, Pinchas Zukerman)

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 3 Oct 2012 9:36 am

I defy anyone who has carefully listened to those 1960 era Hank Thompson instrumental albums to defy that those fiddle players were not violinists.

Bill Cunningham · Post by **Bill Cunningham** » 3 Oct 2012 12:34 pm

I defy anyone who has carefully listened to those 1960 era Hank Thompson instrumental albums to defy that those fiddle players were not violinists.

I agree. Can you share more information about those players? I stood over the big cabinet stereo for hours, probably 5 years old, listening to "Cryin' In The Deep Blue Sea" and all those other tunes on two HT LP's my dad had.

Roger Shackelton · Post by **Roger Shackelton** » 3 Oct 2012 10:10 pm

Here is a list of a few of Hank's fiddlers: Gene Gasaway, Bobby Boatright Dale Potter, Keith Coleman & Buddy Spicher.

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 4 Oct 2012 5:16 am

.....and don't forget "Famous Amos" Hedrick!

http://genejones.com/fAMOUS%20AMOS.htm

Russ Wever · Post by **Russ Wever** » 4 Oct 2012 6:38 am

. . . and weren't the Hayes
brothers, Red and Little Red
on the BVB band for a stretch?
~Rw

Bill Cunningham · Post by **Bill Cunningham** » 4 Oct 2012 4:46 pm

Did any of the Thompson fiddlers start as classical guys? Spicher's story is well documented. He learned to read and took a chair in the Nashville Symphony years after starting in Bluegrass,doing country, and several years as the first call A team guy to further broaden his abilities..

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 17 Oct 2012 3:02 pm

As a sidelight, there is a musical term for the scratchy-type fiddle playing of guys like Chubby Wise and Wade Ray, as opposed to the smoother type of playing done by guys like Tommy Jackson and Mark O'Conner. But for the life of me, I can't recall it?

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 17 Oct 2012 4:05 pm

I just wish "the fiddle part" in most-all recent country was liberal* enough to take advantage of the talent of these guys (girls too) and they could cut loose a bit. I understand the "don't outshine the vocalist" humility/team player/sideman thang, but all too often that's simply created a lowest-common-denominator kind of arrangement. Great musicians playing crap, stick it in a Nudie suit and poke it till it squeaks...

Carefully-crafted, intelligent, transformative instrumental solos are dying out anyway, a 20th Century evolutionary** hangover that flashed it's pan from 1935 to 1990 or so. Once we dinosaurs tumble off the edge, karaoke, lipsynch and mindless, prancing imagery are all that's to be left for the locked-goosesteppy li'l granchilluns anyway.

P.S. - (Have a GREAT day!)

*(It's a word too, dude.)
**(Ditto, cowpoke.)