Johnny Gimble
Johnny Gimble
John Paul Gimble, better known as Johnny Gimble, was an American country musician associated with Western swing. Gimble was considered one of the most important fiddlers in the genre. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 in the early influences category as a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth30 May 1926
CountryUnited States of America
art call country music outlet schools sort stay texas towns
I go stay a week in these little towns that don't have an art outlet and... go to the schools and play some of the old Texas music, sort of 'go through the Texas country roots' is what they call it.
hooked music pick
I keep a fiddle hooked up in the music - we've got a music room - and try to pick it up.
bob coming front signing somebody throwing wills yard york
To join Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys was like throwing a baseball around in your front yard and somebody coming over and signing you to play for the New York Yankees.
grew
I grew up listening to the Light Crust Doughboys on WBAP.
until
I didn't really get crazy about Bob Wills until 1940.
belt cotton dad nights operator seven telegraph until worked
My dad was a telegraph operator for the Cotton Belt Railroad. He worked seven nights a week from 4 until midnight, no vacation.
affected december
I had a stroke in December of '99, and it affected my left side - my fingering side.
showing somebody
It's just a real thrill when you're showing somebody a chord progression or something, and you see that light come on, you know. You see 'em 'get it.'
blossom doctors hole hoped kept left orange pointed side spot
When the doctors showed me an X-ray of my brain, they pointed to a black hole on the upper left side and told me that all memory from that spot was dead. I thought to myself that I hoped that's where I kept 'The Orange Blossom Special.'
advice asked business chance music starting
When I get asked for advice for a young person starting in the music business, I tell them, 'Play every chance you get, and be real lucky.'
anyway fiddle follow hear hum tunes
When I'd hear something that sounded like I could follow it - most of those big band jazz tunes are blues anyway - I would hum it and play with the fiddle while I was humming.
cliff fiddler hottest package playing
When I was 15, I was working for a radio band in Shreveport. Cliff Bruner, the hottest Texas fiddler of them all, was on the same package shows, playing for Jimmie Davis.
drive gonna home plan rich stayed work year
Texas was home. We went to Anchorage to get rich in 1959. Someone told us, 'If you drive a nail, you could make $100 a day in construction work.' We were hungry, and we stayed there for a year and a half. But I never did plan to stay there - the same with Nashville. I was gonna go up there and work, but Texas was home.
afraid fiddle
I still play the fiddle every day. I'm afraid if I don't, it won't know who I am.