Vassar Clements (1928-2005)

Originally from South Carolina, Vassar Clements, a legendary Nashville fiddler and session player, was entirely self-taught. Over the length of a fifty-year career, he played on more than 2,000 albums and performed with a wide range of artists – everyone, or so it seems, from Woody Herman and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to the Grateful Dead and Jimmy Buffet. His career began when he joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys as a teenager in 1942. Though he was a major influence in the developing “new grass movement,” he cited big band swing music as a significant influence over his own style and musical development.

1972
Studio portrait