Remembering Vassar Clements
from one fiddler to another
Vassar Clements, the beloved fiddler who refined and redefined the sound of fiddling for the whole world, died early August 16, 2005 of lung and liver cancer at the age of 76. Vassar, as much as any musician in the 20th century, had an instantly recognizable sound, identifiable by the first note. His fiddling exemplifies a great mystery of music: the more personal a sound is, the more universal is its effect. His sound became the touchstone for a generation of musicians, and brought the words “soul” and ‘fiddling’ together in a way that can no longer be separated.
Vassar was a true virtuoso, setting a consistent standard for intonation, timing, and creative imagination comparable to Charlie Parker on the saxophone, with an entirely personal vocabulary that, while drawing from bluegrass and country fiddling sources such as Chubby Wise and Dale Potter, and big band jazz such as Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman, was transmuted into one of the most original musical styles of the 20th century, on a par with Earl Scruggs and Lester Young. His improvisatory command of double- and triple-stops and knowledge of the entire fingerboard raised the bar so startlingly that he provoked a burst of slavish imitation among most fiddlers, which in most cases became benignly internalized as inspiration for further bold exploration.
Vassar was one of the last of the completely self-taught American Roots musicians, in the sense that he worked out a method for playing his instrument in isolation from any “legit” method, by listening to the radio and watching other fiddlers, who were scarce in central Florida where he grew up in the thirties. He never learned to read music or even chord changes, but relied on his preternaturally accurate ear and memory to work out his own approach to music.
Vassar was an important musical and personal link between generations and cultures, as well as musicians and musical styles. The list of influential bands and musicians he has played and recorded with is too long for this eulogy, but extends throughout all levels, ages, and classes, beginning with Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass boys (he was 12!) and extending through a slew of world-famous pop, classical, country, and jazz artists such as Earl Scruggs, John Hartford, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Stephane Grappelli, Dave Holland, John Abercrombie, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Allman Brothers, Paul McCartney… Just name anybody.
Young people of all ages especially loved Vassar for his honesty, utter approachability, and completely uncalculated love for people. Why did everyone love him so? I had a realization a couple of years ago at a music festival in Florida. I was talking with guitarist Bryan Sutton who was touring with Earl Scruggs at the time. Part of the joy of that tour for Bryan was getting to hear Earl talk about the original days of the Bluegrass Boys and the Foggy Mountain Boys. I realized that I had spent most of the weekend talking, playing with, or hanging out with Vassar, one of the true original Bluegrass innovators, and never had there been talk of the “old days”, except in the most cursory way. Vassar was always in the moment, right there with you, totally present and happy to explore whatever musical personal experience was next.
For me, Vassar was the fiddler who awoke me to the possibility that fiddling could have profound spiritual depth, could say something beyond expressing simple delight or even simple sorrow. Vassar’s music speaks the unspeakable with total honesty in the most direct way possible. His essence seems to arrive by bone conduction directly into the listener’s heart, with a message of love, unutterable sadness, and humanity that transcends reason, time, and culture.
Vassar’s story also includes an instrument that compares in iconic importance to Paganini’s Guarnerius “Cannon” and the famed White Fiddle of Mark O’Connor. It is a highly sculptured special edition re-creation of a Gasparo Da Salo, from the shop of Derazey in Paris, with beautiful carvings and wood inlay all over it and a cryptic latin inscription all around the sides. This fiddle is one of the most peculiar and individual-sounding violins ever heard, and seems to have been not only the perfect marriage of instrument and player, but an inevitable, fated match. It was given to Vassar during a difficult time in his life by the great songwriter and cultural historian John Hartford. This gift turned out to be not only one of the great gifts from any musician to another but a gift to the world, for Vassar was able to take this instrument, which he said he liked because it had an “even” tone, and create a musical body of work that is for all human purposes immortal.
This fiddle was really only playable by Vassar. When anyone else played it, it produced an exhausted sound of wet cardboard, with no discernible tone whatsoever. In Vassar’s hands, it became a cry of pure being. As David Grisman said, “It’s in the hands”…and heart, and soul.
-Darol Anger 8-17-05
Thank you for sharing this piece about a musician who those of us who are fans thought we knew. Your historical perspective and unique writing ability give us a glimpse into the life of a musician who was unique in ways that many of us did not understand. You are a great writer. Hopefully we will see lots more.
Vassar and I once shared the simple joy of tuckpointing brick as we found out we were both doing that on our chimneys at the same time. And from there, he told me how he first learned tunes on his fiddle as a boy in central Florida. He said, in those days, his only learning source and technology was listening to the Grand Old Opry on the radio. He would listen to a single song being broadcast once, then run out into the dark night in his backyard where there would be no distractions to his memory, and replay the song note for note. He felt that was a tremendous exercise in hearing critical notes and recalling them by memory. His tone recognition and memory were legendary. He once told me the most difficult thing he ever had to do was to double-fiddle-record over his own improvisation. He said the first time through, he’d just play instinctively, and then he’d have to figure out what in the heck he played and memorize that perfectly. It made him wish he could read music. Terrific, generous guy, a regular guy with a wide range of interests. Which reminds me of another conversation we had about his long term admiration and relationship he had with Owsley Stanley of Grateful Dead and Ken Kesey fame and history, but that’s another story.