Fletcher Bright (1931 to 2017) was a Chattanooga fiddler, teacher, and festival patron. He formed the Dismembered Tennesseans with high school friends in 1945 and kept the band going for 72 years. He founded the free 3 Sisters Bluegrass Festival on the Chattanooga riverfront, funded a roots music scholarship at Berklee, and received the IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award in 2017, the year he died.
Why Bright matters
Most bluegrass fiddlers make their mark on records or in famous bands. Bright made his in the camps and workshops where fiddlers learn. He became a student at Byron Berline’s workshop in his late fifties, then a teacher who taught across the United States, Canada, and England for 25 years. His money kept festivals and camps alive when budgets ran short, and his festival gave Chattanooga a free bluegrass weekend every fall. He also held a huge repertoire of old-time and bluegrass tunes and passed it on to anyone who asked.
Life and career
Bright was born in 1931. He formed the Dismembered Tennesseans in 1945 while in high school in Knoxville, with Frank McDonald, Sammy Joyce, and Ansley Moses. Apart from a short break during the war years, the band played without pause until his death. By 2015 he estimated the band had played about 3,500 shows. He and banjo player Ed Cullis were the last original members.
Music was never his day job. In 1953 he joined the real estate firm his father Gardner Bright had started in 1927. He took over the company when his father died seven years later and built it into one of the region’s largest developers, with offices in Chattanooga and Atlanta. He also taught college classes in real estate and law. He flew the band to gigs in his own jet until his eyesight made him hand the controls to a hired pilot.
The turn in his fiddle life came in July 1988. His son George talked him into attending Byron Berline’s fiddle workshop in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Bright, then in his late fifties, went to learn Berline’s bowing. He filmed the classes, studied the tape at home, and came back the next two years. On the third trip he met Laurie Lewis, who taught him at Cannon Beach and then at the Augusta Heritage Center. She hired him as her assistant, and he soon taught on his own. He taught fiddle for the next 25 years.
Bright received the Tennessee Governor’s Folklife Heritage Award in 2005. In December 2012 he recorded Fine Times at Fletcher’s House with banjo player Bill Evans at his home on Lookout Mountain. The album came out in June 2013, and the two made a second duet album later. He funded a scholarship for roots music students at the Berklee College of Music and brought each winner to Chattanooga to play the 3 Sisters festival. ArtsBuild gave him its Ruth Holmberg Arts Leadership Award in 2016. The IBMA honored him with its Distinguished Achievement Award in 2017, but illness kept him from the ceremony. He died on Christmas morning, December 25, 2017, at age 86.
Playing style
Bright played a clean, driving bluegrass fiddle with an old-time repertoire behind it. The core of his sound was the bowing he learned from Berline: long, even strokes that carry a tune without chopping it into single notes. Berline said Bright had it down within ten minutes and asked him to help teach the class the same day.
His duet album with Bill Evans shows what he valued. The tunes come from Bill Monroe, Benny Williams, John Hartford, Blaine Sprouse, and the Shetland fiddler Tom Anderson, and the reviewer praised his tone and timing above all. He played simple settings of the melody and let the tune carry the weight. He also collected fiddles, and for years he played the instrument that had belonged to Benny Martin before he gave it to the bluegrass museum in Owensboro, Kentucky.
Influences and legacy
Bright learned bowing from Byron Berline and teaching from Laurie Lewis. He drew tunes from Bill Monroe, Benny Williams, John Hartford, and Blaine Sprouse, and he played Benny Martin’s fiddle on stage. Lewis called him the happiest fiddle scholar you could meet.
His legacy lives in the students he taught at camps for a quarter century and in the institutions he funded. The 3 Sisters Bluegrass Festival still runs free each fall in Chattanooga. The Berklee scholarship in his name went to fiddlers such as Julian Pinelli in 2016. In 2022 the IBMA Foundation launched the Fletcher Bright Memorial Grant for Young Musicians, endowed by his family and friends, to pay for lessons, instruments, and camps.
Signature tunes and songs
Polly Put the Kettle On Fiddler’s Dream Whitehorse Breakdown Blackjack Grove Yellow Barber Angeline the Baker Soldier’s Joy.
Essential recordings
Fine Times at Fletcher’s House, with Bill Evans (Native and Fine Records, 2013)
Awards and honors
Tennessee Governor’s Folklife Heritage Award (2005) Ruth Holmberg Arts Leadership Award, ArtsBuild (2016) IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award (2017) Fletcher Bright Memorial Grant for Young Musicians established by the IBMA Foundation (2022)
Watch and listen
Bright plays Brandywine in a video from the Chattanooga Folk channel. Watch the long, even bow strokes he learned from Berline.
Bright plays Acorn Hill Breakdown, a fast bluegrass tune, with the same relaxed right arm.
What to learn from Bright
Learn Polly Put the Kettle On from Fine Times at Fletcher’s House. He plays two settings of the tune back to back, so you can hear how a fiddler varies a melody without losing it. The technique to steal is his path to better bowing. Bright was a working fiddler for 43 years before he went to a workshop, filmed a better player, and rebuilt his right arm from the tape. Record a fiddler whose bow you admire, slow it down, and copy the arm, not just the notes. It worked for him in his late fifties. It will work for you.
Sources
Fletcher Bright passes, Bluegrass Today Well-deserved honor for Fletcher Bright, Bluegrass Today Fine Times at Fletcher’s House, Fletcher Bright and Bill Evans, Bluegrass Today IBMA Foundation launches Fletcher Bright Memorial Grant, Bluegrass Today Fletcher Bright, IBMA award recipients Governor’s Arts Awards previous winners 2001 to 2013, Tennessee Arts Commission Fletcher Bright, prominent Chattanooga businessman and musician, dies at 86, Chattanooga Times Free Press Fletcher Bright and Bill Evans, Fine Times at Fletcher’s House, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more bluegrass fiddlers. Bright studied bowing with Byron Berline and taught beside Laurie Lewis. He played tunes by Blaine Sprouse and owned the fiddle of Benny Martin. Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith and Kenny Baker shaped the bluegrass fiddle repertoire he taught.