Johnny Warren is the fiddler in the Earls of Leicester, the Jerry Douglas band that plays the music of Flatt and Scruggs and won a Grammy for its 2014 debut album. He is the son of Paul Warren, the Foggy Mountain Boys fiddler from 1954 to 1969, and he learned his father’s tunes at home in Madison, Tennessee. He has made a solo album for Rebel and two tribute albums to his father with banjo player Charlie Cushman.
Why Warren matters
Paul Warren never recorded an album under his own name, so his breakdown style lived only on Flatt and Scruggs records and in his son’s hands. Johnny Warren put it back in front of the public. His tribute albums capture tunes his father played on stage but never cut, and the Earls of Leicester brought the whole Foggy Mountain Boys sound to a new generation. If you want to hear how a 1950s bluegrass fiddle break was built, Warren is the closest living link.
Life and career
Warren grew up in Madison, Tennessee, in the house of Paul Warren, who played fiddle for Johnnie and Jack, Kitty Wells, and then Flatt and Scruggs. He learned his father’s repertoire at home, and in 1977 he backed him on guitar for a home recording made a few months before Paul died in January 1978. Warren then played fiddle in the Nashville Grass under Curly Seckler, and it was through Warren that singer Willis Spears met Seckler and joined the group in 1981.
In 1983 Rebel Records released his solo album Just Playin’ in the Rain, with Charlie Cushman on banjo, Jerry Douglas and Josh Graves on dobro, Roland White on mandolin, and Marty Stuart on guitar. He also played fiddle with White, Stuart, and Gene Wooten on an early Jim Lauderdale album cut in Earl Scruggs’s basement studio. Music was never his only job. A 2011 Bluegrass Today review noted that he worked as a golf pro.
In 2009 Warren and Cushman released A Tribute to Fiddlin’ Paul Warren, seventeen fiddle tunes with fiddle and banjo as the only lead instruments. Earl Scruggs played on Buck Creek Gal and Curly Seckler played mandolin on Sugar Tree Stomp. A second volume followed in 2011 with Del McCoury on guitar, Jerry Douglas on dobro, Bryan Sutton on rhythm guitar, and Ricky Skaggs on mandolin for Cattle in the Cane. It also included a live recording of Paul Warren playing Old Joe with the Osborne Brothers.
Jerry Douglas assembled the Earls of Leicester in 2013 with Warren on fiddle, Cushman on banjo, Shawn Camp on guitar and vocals, Tim O’Brien on mandolin, and Barry Bales on bass. Their debut album (Rounder, 2014) won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album and swept the 2015 IBMA awards, including Entertainer of the Year, an honor the band repeated in 2016 and 2017. Rattle and Roar followed in 2016 and Live at the CMA Theater in 2018. Warren also played on Becky Buller’s The Barber’s Fiddle, the 2020 IBMA Collaborative Recording of the Year.
Playing style
Warren plays breakdowns the way his father did. The tunes start deliberate and build speed in perfect meter, with power held in reserve, which is the sound of a Flatt and Scruggs fiddle feature. His bow stays in the string, so the double stops ring and the shuffle drives the band. In the Earls of Leicester he takes the short, hot breaks that Paul Warren took on the original records, and he sings harmony, as his father did.
He also plays the rag repertoire of Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith, which his father learned from Smith himself. Smith’s Rag and North Carolina Breakdown on the second tribute volume show this side of his playing. On the Rebel album he leaned toward hornpipes and reels, such as Limerock and Saint Anne’s Reel, and toward fiddle-and-banjo duets, the setting he has returned to ever since.
Influences and legacy
Warren’s first and biggest influence was his father. Four tunes on the first tribute album came from a 1964 home tape of Paul Warren, and seven more came from the 1977 tape Johnny made with him. He has named Big Joe Greene as another favorite and recorded Greene’s tunes Kingsport and Road to Jenkins.
Charlie Cushman has been his musical partner since their late teens, and the two have carried the Scruggs and Warren duet sound for more than forty years. That partnership became the core of the Earls of Leicester, and the band’s wins put the 1950s bluegrass fiddle sound on the IBMA stage three years running.
Signature tunes and songs
Wild Horses Right at Lyles Hop Light Ladies Pretty Polly Ann Randy Lynn Rag Just Playin’ in the Rain.
Essential recordings
Just Playin’ in the Rain (Rebel, 1983) A Tribute to Fiddlin’ Paul Warren, Johnny Warren and Charlie Cushman (2009) A Tribute to Fiddlin’ Paul Warren, Vol. 2, Johnny Warren and Charlie Cushman (2011) The Earls of Leicester (Rounder, 2014) Live at the CMA Theater in the Country Music Hall of Fame, The Earls of Leicester (Rounder, 2018)
Awards and honors
Grammy Award, Best Bluegrass Album, The Earls of Leicester (2015) IBMA Album of the Year, The Earls of Leicester (2015) IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year, The Earls of Leicester (2015) IBMA Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year, Who Will Sing for Me, The Earls of Leicester (2015) IBMA Entertainer of the Year, The Earls of Leicester (2015, 2016, 2017) IBMA Collaborative Recording of the Year, The Barber’s Fiddle, Becky Buller with Johnny Warren and others (2020)
Watch and listen
Warren and Charlie Cushman play the fiddle-and-banjo duet Over There, the setting that shaped both tribute albums. Listen to how the fiddle and banjo trade the lead.
Warren plays What a Friend We Have in Jesus with the Nashville Grass. This is the slow, sweet side of the Foggy Mountain fiddle style.
What to learn from Warren
Learn Hop Light Ladies from the second tribute album. It is a fiddle-and-banjo tune, so you hear every note of the fiddle part against a Scruggs roll, the best way to understand how bluegrass fiddle locks into the banjo. The technique to steal is the slow start. Warren kicks off a breakdown under tempo and lets it climb. At your next jam, start a tune a few beats slow, keep the shuffle even, and push the speed up a hair each time through.
Sources
Johnny Warren, IBMA award recipients The Earls of Leicester, IBMA award recipients IBMA awards by year Paul Warren tribute CD, Bluegrass Today Paul Warren CD release party, Bluegrass Today Johnny Warren remembers his father, again, Bluegrass Today Old Foggies Rejoice! A Tribute to Fiddlin’ Paul Warren Vol. 2, Bluegrass Today Jerry Douglas talks Earl Scruggs and the Earls of Leicester, Bluegrass Today Willis Spears passes, Bluegrass Today Roland White remembered, his life in music, Bluegrass Today Johnny Warren, Just Playin’ in the Rain, Discogs The Earls of Leicester, Wikipedia
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more bluegrass fiddlers. Warren’s father Paul Warren is the source of his style, and Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith stands behind both of them. He shared The Barber’s Fiddle with Becky Buller, Jason Carter, and Michael Cleveland.