Blaine Sprouse is a West Virginia fiddler who learned his craft at Kenny Baker’s kitchen table and on Baker’s farm. He moved to Nashville at 17 and joined Jimmy Martin’s Sunny Mountain Boys in October 1974. Over the next four decades he played with James Monroe, the Dreadful Snakes, Jim and Jesse, the Osborne Brothers, and Peter Rowan, and he recorded four solo albums plus the 1989 twin fiddle record Indian Springs with Baker.
Why Sprouse matters
Sprouse is the clearest living link to Kenny Baker’s way of playing. Baker did not run a school. He taught the few players who showed up and worked, and Sprouse showed up for years. On Indian Springs the two play twin fiddle on Baker’s own tunes, and the harmony parts show how the Baker style works when two fiddles share it. If you want the Monroe-era fiddle sound from someone who got it firsthand, Sprouse is the player to study.
Life and career
Sprouse grew up in Martinsburg, West Virginia. His father played clawhammer banjo. Blaine started on guitar at age six and was playing lodge halls and VFW clubs by age eight. He taught himself fiddle on an instrument salvaged from a dumpster.
Around 1972 he met Kenny Baker at the Indian Springs Bluegrass Festival in Maryland. Sprouse played Indian Killed a Woodcock for him, and Baker told him to keep at the fiddle. Sprouse moved to Nashville in 1974 at age 17, lived with Jimmy Martin, and joined the Sunny Mountain Boys that October at 50 dollars a day. He toured the United States and Japan with Martin. In Nashville he spent two or three days a week on Baker’s farm, working and taking lessons.
He fiddled for James Monroe’s Midnight Ramblers and filled in with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, and he played twin fiddle with Baker on Monroe’s Body and Soul for MCA and on the Osborne Brothers’ Bluegrass Collection for CMH. He also played on Baker’s own County records. His first solo album came out in 1979, followed by Summertime (Rounder, 1982), a record produced by Butch Robins with Jerry Douglas, Roland White, and Buck White in the band. In 1981 he co-founded the Bluegrass Band with Robins, and in early 1982 he joined Roland White, Béla Fleck, Pat Enright, Mark Hembree, and Jerry Douglas in the Dreadful Snakes. Their one album, Snakes Alive (Rounder, 1983), is counted by Bluegrass Today among the high points of 1980s bluegrass.
Brilliancy followed in 1985 and Indian Springs with Baker in 1989. Through the 1980s Sprouse also worked Nashville sessions. He played on Randy Travis’s Storms of Life (1986) and on Alabama’s 1984 number one hit If You’re Gonna Play in Texas. He later fiddled for Jim and Jesse and the Virginia Boys and for the Osborne Brothers. He earned a law degree from Vanderbilt between 1986 and 1994 and practiced law for the state of Tennessee while he kept playing.
After 2009 he became the main fiddler for Peter Rowan, with dates at MerleFest, Telluride, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and A Prairie Home Companion. In 2020 he moved back to West Virginia. He judges fiddle contests and plays with Richard Hefner and the Black Mountain Bluegrass Boys.
Playing style
Sprouse plays the Baker style: a long, smooth bow, a clean melody line, and swing phrasing on the fast tunes. Baker’s sound came from western swing and jazz fiddle as much as from the mountains, and Sprouse carries that mix. He slides into notes on waltzes and keeps his tone even across all four strings. He does not saw. Each note gets its own bow space, even at breakdown speed.
His twin fiddle work is the part to study. On Indian Springs he plays harmony under Baker on tunes like Owensboro and Cottontown Breakdown, and the two parts move together without the second fiddle crowding the lead. He also plays mandolin and guitar and produced the Indian Springs sessions himself.
Influences and legacy
Kenny Baker is the whole story. Sprouse called him his main inspiration and lifelong friend, and wrote a public tribute when Baker died in 2011. He also learned on the bandstand from Jimmy Martin, James Monroe, and Bill Monroe, and he worked with Roland White for almost fifty years. The Dreadful Snakes put him beside Béla Fleck and Jerry Douglas at the start of their careers. Today he passes the tradition on as a contest judge.
Signature tunes and songs
Indian Springs Summertime Brilliancy Owensboro Cottontown Breakdown Golden Slippers.
Essential recordings
Summertime (Rounder, 1982) Snakes Alive, the Dreadful Snakes (Rounder, 1983) Indian Springs, with Kenny Baker (Rounder, 1989) Dogwood Winter (1992)
Watch and listen
The title track from Indian Springs. Listen to how the two fiddles trade lead and harmony without losing the line.
What to learn from Sprouse
Learn Indian Springs from the 1989 record with Baker. Work out both parts. The lead teaches the Baker melody style, and the harmony teaches you how to build a twin fiddle part that stays a third or a sixth away without stepping on the tune. The technique to steal is his bow economy. Play a breakdown you know at half speed and give each note a separate, full bow stroke with no extra pressure. That is how Sprouse gets a clean sound at tempo, and it is the fastest way to sound less like a beginner at a jam.
Sources
Blaine Sprouse, bio, blainesprouse.net Blaine Sprouse, discography, blainesprouse.net Blaine Sprouse remembers Kenny Baker, Bluegrass Today Gloria Belle passes, Bluegrass Today Roland White remembered, his life in music, Bluegrass Today Blaine Sprouse, Summertime, Discogs Kenny Baker and Blaine Sprouse, Indian Springs, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more bluegrass fiddlers. Sprouse learned from Kenny Baker and belongs to the same Monroe-school line as Bobby Hicks and Vassar Clements. Michael Cleveland built his sound on the same Baker foundation.