Famed fiddler Sidle was talented, yet humble
HANOVER — Famed fiddle player Kenny Sidle, a Hanover resident who entertained audiences in Ohio and beyond from age 5 to his final years, winning competitions throughout the Midwest and Canada, has died at age 90.
Sidle, who was born in a tiny log cabin in Toboso, Ohio, on July 20, 1931, was named a "national music treasure" by the National Endowment for the Arts when it awarded him the 1988 Arts Fellowship Award.
The Grand Ole Opry invited him to join the Opry's staff band, but he had recently been hired at Owens Corning, so he turned down the offer, putting aside a career as a musician to raise his family. After 20 years at Owens, he retired and devoted much of his time to his music.
Frosty Pierce, who lives near Dresden in Muskingum County, played with Sidle in the Frosty Morning Bluegrass Band until about five years ago. Oscar Ball, Norm Gutridge, Pinky Bartoe and Luke Daughtery also played in the band.
Playing in the band in his 70s and into his 80s, Sidle could still put on an impressive performance, Pierce said. He also loved to tell stories and talk about music.
“He was a machine on the fiddle," Pierce said. "Someone said he had a button on his chin and when he touched that button with the fiddle, he's a genius. When he put that fiddle in his hand, music just flowed out of him. He was meant to be a fiddle player.
“He was proud of his fiddle playing, but not braggadocios. It just never went to his head. He was good enough he could have played with anybody. He'd say, now Frosty, listen to this. You might as well stop what you're doing and listen to it. You were going to listen to it."
Sidle, whose fiddle playing could provide joy and happiness to his audiences or bring them to tears, was a sentimental person, Pierce said.
“He was one of the most caring individuals I've ever seen," Piece said. "Certain songs would bring tears to his eyes. He loved children. School tragedies, he couldn't even talk about it. He'd start crying. I'm just glad to know him and glad to call him my friend. He was just a great guy.”
Gutridge, of Hanover, said Sidle was the band member everyone knew.
“He was a class A fiddle player," Gutridge said. "One day I was at Mcdonalds on Union Street and I heard some ladies talking. One lady said, 'There's Kenny Sidle's guitar player.'
"He got us some really good jobs. One was at the Dayton Art and Music Fest. He was a national treasure, a phenomenal guy and a phenomenal player. His eyes would light up when he started talking about music.
Sidle, who learned to play the fiddle from his father and his uncle, made his first public appearance on the stage of a traveling medicine show at age 5.
In the 1940s, when he was 15, he and
sister Margie were invited to perform at Hillbilly Park in east Newark. Sidle was later hired as part of the staff band there, where he met Wayne Newton. Later in the 1940s, he and his sister performed live on WCLT Radio.
He went into the U.S. Army in 1953 and served two years. He married Evelyn Wright, of Frazeysburg, in 1955.
It was in 1967, following his years playing at Hillbilly Park, Sidle began playing as a member of the staff band at the Wheeling Jamboree, in West Virginia. There he met Bill Anderson, of the Grand Ole Opry, who invited Sidle to join the Opry's staff band. But, Sidle declined the offer.
Gutridge said, “He wanted to have a family and be there for his family, so he just wanted to play locally.”
In the 1970s, Sidle played with the Cavalcade Cut-ups, the house band for the North American Country Cavalcade, a program that aired every Saturday night from the Southern Hotel in Columbus,
and was broadcast on radio station WMNI.
He played in the Independence Band, which performed regularly for square dances and other country music events at the Flowers Music Hall in Hanover.
Bill Weaver, a friend of Sidle and member of the Licking Valley Heritage Society, posted on his Facebook page the Toboso sign, which reads: "Toboso: Birthplace of Kenny Sidle. National Heritage Fellowship Fiddler Award Winner, 9-29-88."
"For many years, I drove by this sign next to Toboso School," Weaver posted on Facebook. "Kenny was not only an accomplished fiddler but a dear friend. He played for the church just out of sight from this sign as well as in Washington DC for the president of the United States. He will be missed here and welcomed there."
Weaver said although Sidle was such an acclaimed and well-known musician in the area, he was just a regular guy.
“He is the most humble guy and the most liked person you could imagine," Weaver said. "Whenever I'd see him, he'd always have something positive to say or a favorite memory to share that would involve me in it.”
Information for this story also came from Advocate archives, the Licking Valley Heritage Society, the Ohio Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts kmallett@newarkadvocate.com 740-973-4539
Twitter: @kmallett1958