Vassar Clements: 1928-2005

Fiddler Vassar Clements passed away on August 16th, 2005 from small cell lung cancer. He was 77.

Vassar's extraordinary musicianship and kind nature made him a favorite of audiences and fellow musicians throughout his long career. He began that career at age 14 when, while still in school, he began his association with Bill Monroe. In 1949, at 21, Vassar joined Bill as a full-time Bluegrass Boy and stayed on until 1956. From 1957 to 1961 he performed with Jim and Jesse, and in 1962 he took a break from music, but returned full time in 1967 when he moved to Nashville. After two years as a tenor banjo player with Nashville's Dixie Landing club, in October 1969 he began touring with Faron Young and fitting in solo dates.

The first half of the 1970s saw new and exciting opportunities for Vassar. In 1971, he joined John Hartford's Dobrolic Plectral Society. I first met him during that time as I was producing their Aereoplane album. (I had the privilege of working with Vassar on two more albums during that period: I played lead guitar on his 1973 album Crossing the Catskills and 1975's Hillbilly Jazz.) The Hartford group disbanded after 10 months and Vassar joined the Earl Scruggs Review. Then, in 1972, he was asked to participate in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Will the Circle Be Unbroken project. The landmark album helped to spark new interest in Vassar's music and in the next few years he was performing and recording with a plethora of rock, roots, country, blues and bluegrass outfits, including the popular Old And In The Way tour with Peter Rowan, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman and John Kahn.

He signed his first major label deal in 1973 with Mercury/Polygram and went on to record 27 albums under his own name. Although well-known in the bluegrass world, Vassar only recorded one "pure" bluegrass album (1992's Grass Routes), and his catalog includes jazz, swing, blues, country and beyond. His skills also went far past fiddling as he was proficient on viola, cello, bass, mandolin, guitar and tenor banjo, and was a prolific composer. In addition to his own projects, Vassar was a popular sideman and guest artist, the list of albums and performers to which he lent his fiddle could fill columns in these pages.

Everyone that I know who had experiences with Vassar agrees that he was one of the kindest, most generous people on the planet. He was a man of great patience. He gave me my first lesson on the fiddle--he was one of the greatest fiddlers who ever lived, but he taught me the most elementary beginnings as though that was what he was born to do. He could, and did, play every kind of western music. I doubt that any of the musicians that played with him, regardless of the discipline that they came from, missed the knowledge that they were playing with a musical giant. As great a musician as Vassar was, he was a greater human being. We are not likely to meet another like him soon. He was himself 24/7, and that self was the kind of person that I would like my children to grow up to be.

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