He was a violinist born George Turner Binkley III in Louisville, Kentucky who studied at the Peabody and Juilliard schools of music.
He became a member of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and carved a niche for himself as a Nashville session musician. He was involved with The Nashville String Machine, which started up in 1974, and The Sheldon Kurland Strings, as well as doing solo work as a violinist for artists such as Kathy Barnes , Elvis Presley , Ray Price and Hank Snow among countless others.
In 1990, he crossed over into classical, playing violin on Handel’s Young Messiah. As recently as 1996, he recorded, along with Roy Christensen, Virginia Christensen , and L’Atalier String Trio, Paul Hindemith’s String Quartet No. 4 for the Naxos label.
He died in Nashville, Tennessee in 1992 when he was 49 years old.
Kathy Barnes recordings
Something’s Burning (Mac Davis )
Republic, REP-012 A (US 45)
George played violin on the 2nd overdub of this 1981 recording of “Have You Ever Been Lonely (Have You Ever Been Blue)” sung by Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline on Together…
Sources:
- https://tennessean.newspapers.com/article/the-tennessean-obituary-for-george-t-bi/107559576/
- http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:George%20Binkley%20III:192704245
- https://www.discogs.com/artist/397052-George-Binkley?page=1
- http://www.first-call.org/musicians.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_String_Machine
- http://www.amazon.ca/Hindemith-String-quartet-Sonata-cello/dp/B000003XYB