Byron Berline
Fiddle king BORN 1944
Not many people turned down the offer to join Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, but fiddler Byron Berline did, in order to finish his degree in Physical Education in 1965. Although he took up Monroe’s offer after graduating, Kansas-born Berline’s unique ability to include elements of jazz, pop and blues in his playing would not make its biggest impact until he became part of the fluid country rock collective who inter-laced through various line-ups of Dillard & Clark, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Manassas, while also playing sessions for The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Elton John, James Taylor, Emmylou Harris, Rod Stewart and myriad others. After several solo long-players and other bluegrass groups – Sundance, BCH and California among them – in 1995 Berline opened the Double Stop Fiddle Shop in Guthrie, Oklahoma, and rarely recorded again, preferring to play live with his own band.