Kenny Sears is a Nashville fiddler with a foot in western swing, country, and the symphony hall. He turned professional at age 11 in the staff band of the Big D Jamboree in Dallas, played in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and moved to Nashville in 1975. There he toured with Mel Tillis, Ray Price, Faron Young, and Dottie West, played in the Grand Ole Opry band, and spent years in the fiddle section of the Time Jumpers. The National Fiddler Hall of Fame inducted him in 2017.
Why Sears matters
Sears is the model of the Nashville fiddler who can do everything. He reads music, he plays Bob Wills swing, and he can back a country singer without stepping on a word. In the Time Jumpers he sat in a three-fiddle section with Larry Franklin and Joe Spivey, the closest thing to the Texas Playboys sound you could hear on a Monday night in 2012. Any fiddler who wants to work in Nashville needs the range he has.
Life and career
Sears was born in Denison, Texas, and grew up on a farm in Liberty, Oklahoma. He bought his first fiddle at age seven with money he earned picking cotton. At 11 he joined the staff band of the Big D Jamboree in Dallas, where he backed Grand Ole Opry stars who came through on the show. When the Jamboree closed, Billy Gray, who had led Hank Thompson’s band, hired Sears for his own troupe. Sears has called those years his training ground in swing and country.
He had a second musical life at the same time. From the fourth grade he played classical violin with the Austin College Symphony. That work earned him a scholarship to North Texas State University, where he studied music. He later played in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
Sears moved to Nashville in 1975. Over the years that followed he toured with Mel Tillis, Ray Price, Faron Young, and Dottie West, worked in Ralph Emery’s staff band, and played in the Grand Ole Opry band. He became one of the city’s most respected session players. In 2001 he released Classic Gospel Fiddle Playin’, a set of hymns on the Power Pak label.
He joined the Time Jumpers, the western swing band that formed in 1998 among Nashville studio players. The band played Monday nights at the Station Inn and then at 3rd and Lindsley, and Vince Gill was a member from 2010 to 2020. Sears played fiddle and wrote songs for the group. His song Nothing But the Blues appeared on the 2012 album The Time Jumpers, which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Country Album. He played fiddle and sang lead on his own song This Heartache on the 2016 album Kid Sister (Rounder), which was nominated for Best Americana Album. Vince Gill wrote the title track in memory of Dawn Sears, the band’s singer and Kenny’s wife, who died in 2014. Gill’s song won the Grammy for Best American Roots Song in 2017. The band’s current lineup lists Joe Spivey and Justin Branum on fiddle.
Playing style
Sears plays with a trained bow arm and a swing player’s ear. His classical background shows in his intonation and his even tone across all four strings. His swing years show in his phrasing: he plays behind the beat, slides into notes, and uses the chord tones that western swing fiddlers borrowed from horn players.
In a three-fiddle section he plays harmony parts that lock in like a string section, because that is what he did in the symphony. On a country ballad he plays sparse fills and long double stops under the vocal. He sings too, and it shows in how much room he leaves a singer.
Influences and legacy
Sears came up in the Texas and Oklahoma swing world that Bob Wills built, and his years with Hank Thompson’s former bandleader Billy Gray put him inside that tradition. His classical teachers at Austin College and North Texas State gave him the reading and bow control that set him apart in Nashville.
In the Time Jumpers he played beside Joe Spivey and Larry Franklin. The band’s Monday night shows let a new generation hear three fiddles trading solos the way Johnny Gimble and the Playboys once did. His 2017 National Fiddler Hall of Fame induction came in the same class as Spivey and Franklin.
Signature tunes and songs
Nothing But the Blues This Heartache Old Fashioned Love Sugar Moon Roly Poly.
Essential recordings
Classic Gospel Fiddle Playin’ (Power Pak, 2001) The Time Jumpers (2012) Kid Sister, the Time Jumpers (Rounder, 2016)
Awards and honors
Grammy nomination, Best Country Album, The Time Jumpers (2013) Grammy nomination, Best Country Duo/Group Performance, On the Outskirts of Town (2013) Grammy nomination, Best Americana Album, Kid Sister (2017) National Fiddler Hall of Fame (2017)
Watch and listen
The Time Jumpers introduce Sears in their own video series. He talks about his path and plays.
Sears takes the fiddle part behind Vince Gill on Silver Wing with the Time Jumpers. Listen to how he fills the space between vocal lines without crowding the singer.
What to learn from Sears
Learn Roly Poly, the Bob Wills standard in Sears’s repertoire. It is a simple swing tune in a jam-friendly key, and it teaches the two-beat feel that separates western swing from bluegrass. The technique to steal is his backup. Record yourself playing fills behind a singer, then cut every fill that lands on a word. Sears plays in the gaps, uses long double stops under the vocal, and saves his lines for the turnaround. That habit gets you hired.
Sources
Kenny Sears, National Fiddler Hall of Fame Inductees, National Fiddler Hall of Fame The Time Jumpers, Bluegrass Today The Time Jumpers, Wikipedia Dawn Sears, Wikipedia The Time Jumpers, Kid Sister, Discogs Kenny Sears, Classic Gospel Fiddle Playin’, Discogs The Time Jumpers, Grand Ole Opry
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more Nashville and swing fiddlers. Sears shared the Time Jumpers fiddle section with Joe Spivey, and Aubrey Haynie has also held a fiddle chair in the band. His swing roots trace to Bob Wills and Johnny Gimble, and Buddy Spicher worked the same Nashville session scene.