Bill Rogers, Contemporary Traditional Mississippi Fiddler

Fiddling—vernacular violin playing, largely in oral tradition—has been an important part of American musical life for centuries. Fiddlers are traditional culture bearers who, during most of our history, learned their craft through face-to-face relationships, largely within the family and neighborhood. Their fiddling was a “tradition” in the sense of a widely disseminated definition of that word from 1949: “that information, those skills, concepts, products, etc., which one acquires almost inevitably by virtue of the circumstances to which he is born.”¹ But in recent times, that mid-twentieth-century approach to defining tradition has lost its power, since place of birth and directly inherited factors determine our fates progressively less. Also, at the same time that our physical (and mental and cultural) mobility increased, the mass media grew in strength and then were supplemented by smaller, specialized media. It is no surprise that the paths through which tradition-oriented individuals learn (and then teach) keep changing.

Even while cultural processes are transformed—sometimes transmogrified—materials widely regarded as being traditional continue to be cultivated. Today, academics define tradition more broadly as a quality favoring continuity over innovation in both process and content but still relying heavily on face-to-face transmission. Nevertheless, folklorist Simon J. Bronner notes that “for most Americans, tradition is [still] a personal, intergenerational matter relating to family and locality.”² However defined, some traditions have survived better than others. Samuel Preston Bayard noted in 1944 that American fiddling was “vigorous and fertile,” “the most tenaciously preserved of our folk arts.”³ His judgments remain valid today, despite how much modern fiddlers have found themselves adjusting how they acquire and cultivate their craft.

William Gale “Bill” Rogers of rural Collins, Mississippi, is well known in local old-time, bluegrass, and Irish music circles as a fiddler, fiddle teacher, and tireless advocate for southern traditional music making. His development as a fiddler illustrates how an American of his generation— he was born July 31, 1962—could become a musician who is considered traditional by both his community and academics. At the same time, his story offers evidence about how the traditional processes that constitute fiddling continue to evolve.⁴ What place have the time-honored factors of family and community played in his cultivation of the fiddle? What modern factors have entered the picture, and how are those affecting younger fiddlers?

Rogers got his first fiddle in the spring of 1981. He was almost nineteen and a freshman at Jones County Junior College. His main interests were agriculture, playing on the JCJC football team, and fellow student Jerri Ann Cole, his future wife. The prospect of playing music had intrigued him for years. His family sang in church, and he had learned shape notes at a week-long church-sponsored singing school when he was in the eighth grade. Earlier, while in the fifth grade, he had asked his father (Gale Albert Rogers, then working at the Covington County Co-op) if he could take up a band instrument. His father had said no: he felt that Bill liked football too much to invest the time needed to learn an instrument.

Indeed, neither Gale Rogers nor his wife (née Tonie Sue Taormina) were very interested in music. The family didn’t go out often and watched television more than listened to the radio. On Saturday nights they turned to CBS and enjoyed Hee Haw, a country music variety show. Cast members played traditional American instruments, as well as electric guitars and basses. Bill Rogers remembers admiring Louise Mandrell’s fiddling in addition to that of show cohost and multi-instrumentalist Roy Clark. Just as Rogers played rather than merely watched football, he decided to not remain an entertainment-industry spectator but instead to take up the fiddle.

Starting Fiddling: CBS and Southern Culture

When Rogers saw and heard fiddling on Hee Haw on the family television in his home in Mississippi, he was part of a national audience for southern culture. However, although he and his neighbors viewed the same skits and heard the same music as did...