Fiddle Master, Grammy Winner, Bluegrass Legend Bobby Hicks Dies
It’s tough to know where to start enumerating the many contributions of fiddle legend Bobby Hicks, and impossible to encapsulate them all in a few sentences and paragraphs. From spending over 50 years on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, to playing in Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, from winning 10 Grammy Awards and spending a quarter century with Ricky Skaggs, to being inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2017, Bobby Hicks saw and did it all.
Bobby Hicks was also one of the oldest country and bluegrass legends around at 91. Now he’s gone to take his final rest.
“This morning at 3:30 am, bluegrass music’s greatest fiddler passed peacefully in his sleep from this world onto the next,” announced Hicks understudy and banjo player Lincoln Hensley on Friday, August 16th. “Bobby Hicks was the greatest at many things. Fiddle tone, pulling a bow, playing double stops, arranging harmony, singing a classic country song, telling a great joke, etc. He was also the greatest at being a friend to those he loved.”
Bobby Hicks was considered the “King of the Double Stops” by many of his fiddle-playing brothers and sisters, and in some estimations, he was one of the greatest fiddle players of all time.
Born in Newton, North Carolina on July 21st, 1933, Bobby Hicks picked up fiddle playing just before his 9th birthday and never looked back. After winning the North Carolina Fiddle Championship at age eleven, he began to receive national recognition for his skills. By the early ’50s he was performing professionally in the band of bluegrass and country star Jim Eanes.
In 1953, Hicks was hired on in the greatest bluegrass outfit in the land: Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. He was actually hired in as a fill-in bass player, but it didn’t take long for him to graduate to fiddle. Hicks had to adapt his playing a bit to fit more of the Nashville style of bluegrass, but ultimately earned the compliment from Bill Monroe as being, “the truest fiddler I ever heard.”
Hicks would remain in the Blue Grass Boys until 1959—save for a stint when he joined the Army in 1956, but returned to the band in 1958. Hicks left to join Porter Wagoner’s band, and later moved on to the Judy Lynn Show in Las Vegas where he performed for seven years. This put him a bit out-of-sight in the bluegrass world for a bit. But when he joined up with Ricky Skaggs in 1981, he would do so already as a legend of the genre. That relationship would last for 23 years.
During the 1980s, Bobby Hicks also rejoined Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys on numerous occasions, both live and in the studio. Many of Bill Monroe’s most famous recordings feature Bobby Hicks on fiddle, as do many Ricky Skaggs recordings. But Bobby also recorded about a dozen albums of his own. He also appears on scores of country recordings.
Bobby Hicks was also part of numerous supergroups and collaborations, including the “Masters of Bluegrass” with Bobby Osborne, J.D. Crowe, and Del McCoury. He became a member of Jesse McReynolds and the Virginia Playboys in the early 2000s. Though he always seemed to play second fiddle to whoever’s band he was in, he was often, if not always, the most revered musician in the lineup.
August 16, 2024 @ 11:08 am
As fiddlers go, buddy spicher and Bobby hicks are the two top dogs for double stops. Mark O’Connor probably is team buddy.
It’s funny bill Monroe thought so highly of Bobby’s bluegrass chops because porter replaced Bobby with Reno and smiley’s Mack magaha because he thought Mack was a truer bluegrass player
Bobby hicks is to this generation what Tommy Jackson was thirty years ago. He was the ‘old man people wanted to be’ in the fiddling world.
We wouldn’t have Andrew bird without what Bobby did for harmony and chords, I hope everyone understands. Every note Andrew bird plays comes from Bobby’s double stops.
August 16, 2024 @ 11:21 am
Every note Andrew Bird plays these days seems to be pizzicato run through a loop pedal. Guys a genius, but he lost the bluegrass plot somewhere along the way.
August 16, 2024 @ 3:41 pm
I saw Andrew bird just a couple weeks ago and was absolutely riveted during every violin performance, then nickel creek came on and he did some songs with them. Cool experience
Bobby was an under player. I think people who maybe aren’t in the know on fiddling might discount his ability because he doesn’t ‘sound’ as brilliant as say a Kenny baker, but if you know a thing or two about fiddling it’s a whole other experience.
Bobby’s playing was always very restrained, very minimalist and at times bordering on the rudimentary, not because he couldn’t play everything but the kitchen sink solos and fill the space with notes, but because his love of each song as an individual piece of music motivated him to play every phrase with reverence and serenity, even on faster numbers where a vassar or a Benny Martin might go absolutely insane and throw lick upon lick in death defying spirals of sound, Bobby stayed right where the music was in a way that equates that viral video of the guy eating his fries while people have a riot in the background.
Also Bobby played his own harmonies in two and three parts and usually wrote them himself to over track them
August 16, 2024 @ 1:23 pm
Bobby Hicks, aka the Legend, was the fiddler in all but one of the Bluegrass Album Band albums. Dude was straight stud on the fiddle. He also played banjo on live versions of Highway 40 Blues when Ricky was on the road. Just a stud musician in every way.
August 17, 2024 @ 9:48 am
Don’t forget Vassar.
August 16, 2024 @ 2:01 pm
Bobby Hicks was so far ahead of his time as a fiddler. His ‘Texas Crapshooter’ album is unparalleled in both Western swing and bluegrass. His work on the Bluegrass Album Band’s numerous albums is top shelf. Listen to his break on the Bluegrass Cardinals ‘Low and Lonely’ and you’ll hear vintage Bobby Hicks. I could go on and on. The most tasteful fiddler to ever draw a bow. He was my idol as a fiddler. RIP’ Big Mon’..
August 16, 2024 @ 4:56 pm
Hey Trig. You left out the greatest of all the bluegrass super groups that he performed with and that is The Bluegrass Album Band!
Also, a fun side note, when Monroe was injured Bobby Hicks played mandolin for The Blue Grass Boys.
Lastly, The band Monroe hosted is three words Blue Grass Boys. It’s confusing because the genre is one word.
August 17, 2024 @ 5:57 am
Dale Potter was also good with double stops
August 17, 2024 @ 9:50 am
As I heard the news today this morning,I tuned in to my local Saturday morning bluegrass show. Heard the news. Bobby Hicks r.i.p. will be in the country music Hall of Fame one day hopefully.
August 17, 2024 @ 12:20 pm
I had the great pleasure of meeting and playing with Bobby at the Montana old time fiddler’s camp a number of years ago, where he brought his five string fiddle, a special place where I also had the opportunity and play with and learn from Byron Beeline. Both were remarkable players, teachers, and individuals and they will surely be missed.