Texas Swing
Some say that Johnny Gimble, now 74, is hands-down the best Texas fiddler alive. He is a master of western swing, a style that originated in the 1930s as depression-era swing blended with existing Texas fiddle traditions. The result was the jazzy style which features a "hot fiddler" embellishing and improvising in the midst of a country string band format. Gimble became one of the most famous of these "hot" Texas swing fiddlers. Born in East Texas in 1926 and raised on a farm with four musical brothers, Johnny Gimble has been playing fiddle and mandolin professionally since he was 13. After World War II, Gimble joined Bob Willis and His Texas Playboys and played with Wills for most of the following decade. Following a brief hiatus, he went on to enjoy a thriving career in Nashville, becoming one of the most in-demand session fiddlers in that city before returning to Texas in 1978. Johnny Gimble has won the Country Music Association's Instrumentalist of the Year award five times, and been proclaimed "Fiddler of the Year" eight times by the Academy of Country Music. He was named a National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellow in 1994, and he has received 3 Grammy nominations and one Grammy award (1994).
Appearing with Johnny is the Hot Club of Cowtown, a talented young ensemble formed in 1996 and based in Austin, Texas. Hot Club (as its name implies) pays homage to two legendary groups from the 1930s: Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli's Hot Club of Paris and Bob Wills' Texas Playboys. The group's repertoire includes Texas fiddle tunes, western swing, hot jazz, and Tin Pan Alley standards, all done up with dazzling musicianship and a level of energy and vitality that gives the songs a modern sensibility.
Visit Artist's Website - Johnny Gimble
Visit Artist's Website - Hot Club of Cowtown
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