[msb-alumni] Byron Berline, 77, Dies on July 10 2021; Deft Bluegrass Fiddler With Dylan and Stones
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2021 16:40:59 -0400
BlankByron Berline, 77, Dies; Deft Bluegrass Fiddler With Dylan and Stones. By
Bill
Friskics-Warren.
His updated version of an old-timey approach enhanced recordings by everyone
from Bill
Monroe to the Rolling Stones.
Byron Berline, the acclaimed bluegrass fiddle player who expanded the
vocabulary of his
instrument while also establishing it as an integral voice in country-rock on
recordings by
Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and others, died on Saturday July 10 in Oklahoma
City. He was
77. His death, in a rehabilitation hospital after a series of strokes, was
confirmed by his
nephew Barry Patton.
Mr. Berline first distinguished himself as a recording artist when he was 21 on
"Pickin' and
Fiddlin'," an album of old-time fiddle tunes set to contemporary bluegrass
arrangements by
the innovative acoustic quartet the Dillards. The album features Mr. Berline's
heavily
syncopated playing, along with long bow strokes that incorporate more than one
note at the
same time.
Later in the decade, Mr. Berline's lyrical phrasing was heard on pioneering
recordings by
country-rock luminaries like the Flying Burrito Brothers and the duo Dillard &
Clark,
featuring the Dillards banjoist Doug Dillard and the singer-songwriter Gene
Clark, late of
the Byrds. He also recorded with Elton John, Rod Stewart and Lucinda Williams,
among many
others.
Weaving elements of pop, jazz, blues and rock into an old-timey approach to his
instrument,
Mr. Berline contributed instrumental selections to Bob Dylan's soundtrack to
Sam Peckinpah's
1973 anti-western, "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid."
He also overdubbed Nova Scotia-style fiddle on the Band's 1976 single "Acadian
Driftwood"
and played on the albums "GP" (1973) and "Grievous Angel" (1974) by Gram
Parsons, the
country-rock progenitor and founding member of the Burrito Brothers.
Mr. Parsons recommended Mr. Berline for what would become undoubtedly his most
famous
session appearance: the freewheeling fiddle part he added to "Country Honk,"
the Rolling
Stones' down-home take on their 1969 pop smash "Honky Tonk Women." Recorded in
Los Angeles,
the song was included on "Let It Bleed," the group's landmark album released
that December.
"I went in and listened to the track and started playing to it," Mr. Berline
said of his
experience with the Stones in a 1991 interview with The Los Angeles Times. When
he was
summoned to the control booth, he recalled, he feared the band was unhappy with
his work.
Instead, they invited him to recreate his performance on the sidewalk along
Sunset
Boulevard, where the Elektra studio, where they were recording the track, was
located. Hence
the car horns and other ambient street sounds captured on the session.
"There was a bulldozer out there moving dirt," Mr. Berline said. "Mick Jagger
went out
himself and stopped the guy."
But Mr. Berline was not merely renowned for his work accompanying other
artists; he was
considered a musical visionary in his own right, providing leadership to, among
others, the
progressive bluegrass band Country Gazette.
In 1965, after hearing his playing on "Pickin' and Fiddlin",' the folklorist
Ralph Rinzler
invited Mr. Berline and his father, a fiddler himself, to appear as a duo at
the Newport
Folk Festival. While at Newport, Byron also had a chance to jam with the singer
and
mandolinist Bill Monroe, widely regarded as the father of bluegrass, who
invited him to
become a member of his band, the Blue Grass Boys. Then a student at the
University of
Oklahoma, Mr. Berline demurred; after completing his degree, he joined the Blue
Grass Boys
two years later.
Mr. Berline spent only a few months with Monroe before being drafted into the
Army, but
bluegrass aficionados regard two of the three songs he recorded with him, "The
Gold Rush,"
written with Monroe, and "Sally Goodin," as matchless performances.
Mr. Berline was the winner of three national fiddle competitions and a member
of the
National Fiddler Hall of Fame.
Byron Douglas Berline, the youngest of five children of Lue and Elizabeth
(Jackson) Berline,
was born on July 6, 1944, in Caldwell, Kan., near the Oklahoma border. His
father worked a
farm and played banjo and fiddle at barn dances and other events. His mother, a
homemaker,
played piano.
Young Byron started playing a three-quarter-sized fiddle when he was 5; he won
his first
public competition at 10, outplaying his father.
Among his early influences was Eck Robertson, the first old-time fiddler to
appear on
record.
A gifted athlete, Mr. Berline earned a football scholarship to the University
of Oklahoma,
where he enrolled in 1963, only to fracture his hand that fall. The injury
caused him to
focus on music, although he maintained his athletic scholarship by joining the
track team as
a javelin thrower.
Mr. Berline attracted the attention of the Dillards while playing in a campus
folk group at
Oklahoma. They invited him to play on "Pickin' and Fiddlin".
After graduating from college in 1967 and completing his military service in
1969, Mr.
Berline moved to Los Angeles with his wife, Bette (Ringrose) Berline, at the
urging of Doug
Dillard, who recruited him to record with Dillard & Clark. After three years of
session work
in California, along with time in the Flying Burrito Brothers, Mr. Berline
formed his own
group, Country Gazette, and signed with United Artists Records.
The band's bluegrass blend proved influential, and it recorded for almost two
decades, but
Country Gazette never achieved mainstream success.
(Steve's Note: I know I have a couple of their vinyl albums.)
Another project, Byron Berline & Sundance, likewise secured a deal with MCA
Records. But the
group's three founding members, guitarist Dan Crary, banjo player John Hickman
and Mr.
Berline -- later billing themselves as Berline, Crary & Hickman -- fared best
in a
traditional bluegrass market, releasing records on independent labels like
Rounder and Sugar
Hill into the 1990's.
Over the years Mr. Berline also provided music for television shows like
"Northern Exposure"
and movies like "Basic Instinct." He also had a minor role as a musician in
the Bette
Midler movie "The Rose" (1979) and appeared, as part of a string quartet, in an
episode of
"Star Trek: The Next Generation."
In the mid-'90's, Mr. Berline and his wife moved to Guthrie, Okla., and opened
the Double
Stop Fiddle Shop, its name taken from the fiddle technique of playing two
strings at the
same time. The shop burned down in 2019, consuming its inventory of antique
instruments.
Several months later, Mr. Berline opened another shop on the same street. Mr.
Berline is
survived by his wife; a daughter, Becca O'Connor; a sister, Janice Byford; and
four
grandchildren.
Although uncredited, Mr. Berline remarked in interviews that he did more than
play the
fiddle on Mr. Dylan's soundtrack to "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid." "He said,
'Can you
sing?"," Mr. Berline recalled, referring to Mr. Dylan in his 1991 interview. "I
said, "Sure.
So I got up and helped sing background vocals on "Knockin' on Heaven's Door."
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