He
is a fiddler and mandolin player who was born in Tyler, Texas, to a family
where his brothers were also musicians.Learning to play when he was young he became a member of
a band with four of his brothers when he was 12 years old and two of them,
Jerry and George, joined him in the trio The Blues Rustlers, who were often
heard on local radio and in venues throughout South Texas.He then relocated to Corpus Christi
and became a member of The Roberts Brothers & The Rhythmaires.He moved to Louisiana to work with
the singer and later politician, Jimmy Davis and appear in shows with The
Shelton Brothers before going into service in the military.Towards the end of the 1940s he
became a member of the Texas Playboys who accompanied Bob Wills and it was
then that he became recognised for playing a five-string fiddle and also
the electric mandolin.He did
break out from the Texas Playboys in 1951 to establish a group of his own
which would perform in Bob Will's club, but in 1953 he returned to them and
stayed for the next ten years or so.He did try his hand at working in a hospital and
at a barber's in the years between 1963 and 1969, but returning to music,
he went back to recording with Bob Wills.This
would be when he would firmly establish him as a busy session
musician and he has been called on to appear on recordings and
sometimes tour ever since by artists that include Merle Haggard, Jimmy
Buffett, Sir
Paul McCartney & Wings,
Willie Nelson and Mark
O'Connor
to
name a few.He began to record
as a solo artist in 1974 and since that time has had ten solo albums
released which include Fiddlin' Around, A Case of The "X" in
Texas, Under the Gimbles and Playboys II.He has also appeared on Last of
the Breed with Willie Nelson, Ray Price & Merle Haggard, Merry
Texas Christmas Y'All by Asleep At The Wheel, Strait Out Of The Box
and Ocean Front Property by George
Strait , Nashville Rebel by
Waylon Jennings, Greatest Hits (& Some That Will Be) by Willie
Nelson, Honky Tonk Girl by Loretta Lynn, My Very Special Guests
by George Jones, Heartaches & Harmonies by The Everly Brothers, Life's
Like Poetry by Lefty Frizzell, Singing Ranger Vol. 3 by Hank
Snow, Land of Many Strangers by Merle Haggard & The Strangers, A
White Sport Coat & A Pink Crustacean and Havana Daydreamin' by Jimmy
Buffett
, Faded Love 1947-1973 by Bob Wills & His Texas
Playboys and Wings At The Speed of Sound by Wings .He achieved a country radio chart
hit in 1983 when he put together a group with the singer Ray Price and they
released "One Fiddle, Two Fiddle", which would also feature in
the movie Honky Tonk Man.Winning many awards for his performances, the Academy of Country
Music have named him "Best Fiddle Player" eight times, he has won
"Best Instrumentalist" five times at the Country Music Awards and
he received a Grammy nomination for his work on the album Heroes by Mark
O'Connor
in 1993.Still
performing now he is in his eighties he has been seen on television
programmes such as Austin City Limits, appears with his group
Playboys II and can be heard with many of today's country groups and
singers.
