19 Facts About Cecil Brower

Cecil Lee Brower was a classically trained American jazz violinist who became an architect of Western swing in the 1930s.

Cecil Brower performed with some of the biggest names in country music until his death at age 50 while a member of Jimmy Dean's band.

Cecil Brower is a member of the Texas Music Hall of Fame.

Cecil Brower was born in Bellevue, Texas on November 28,1914.

Cecil Brower moved to San Pedro, California with his family as a boy, but they returned to Texas in 1924, settling in Fort Worth.

Cecil Brower was the first to master the double shuffle, a bowing technique devised by Venuti in the late 1920s described as an off-beat shuffling movement.

Cecil Brower used it to great effect and passed it along to other Texas fiddlers in the early 1930s.

Cecil Brower majored in music at Texas Christian University and played briefly with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, but his big break came when he became a member of the first true Western swing band, Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies.

In January 1933, Cecil Brower, playing harmony, joined fiddler Jesse Ashlock to create the first example of harmonizing twin fiddles.

Cecil Brower learned the art of breakdown fiddling from Brown's banjoist, Ocie Stockard, and developed a free-swinging style which became the cornerstone of fiddlers in Western swing bands.

The group had a regular spot on KTAT-AM, but frequently performed in Waco, where Cecil Brower met Jeff Knight, a breakdown fiddle player with whom he became good friends.

In October 1936, Cecil Brower recorded with Bill Boyd and His Cowboy Ramblers in San Antonio; and in June 1937 with Bob Dunn.

Cecil Brower then toured with bandleader Ted Fio Rito's orchestra until returning to Texas in 1939, when he joined the Light Crust Doughboys.

Cecil Brower, replacing Buck Buchanan as fiddler in the string section but playing lead, was reunited with Kenneth Pitts.

Cecil Brower performed with Patsy Montana and Her Pardners, and the Coffee Grinders, a later interim name of the Doughboys.

In 1955, Cecil Brower became a regular performer on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri for several years, and in 1960, was playing with the Ft.

Cecil Brower soon moved to Nashville, Tennessee and became a much sought-after session musician.

Cecil Brower joined Jimmy Dean's band in 1963 and appeared on ABC-TV's The Jimmy Dean Show.

On November 21,1965, Dean performed at Carnegie Hall, and during a party later at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Cecil Brower died suddenly from a perforated ulcer, a week short of his 51st birthday.