Randy Howard (1960 to 1999) was a Georgia contest fiddler who became one of Nashville’s busiest session players. He won the Grand Master Fiddler Championship in 1984, cut records with the Lonesome River Band in the late 1990s, and played on sessions for George Jones, Garth Brooks, and Ricky Skaggs. The IBMA named him Fiddle Player of the Year in 1999, months after cancer took him at age 38. He was a champion mandolin player too, and his mandolin record has its own page.
Why Howard matters
Howard is the bridge between the contest stage and the bluegrass bandstand. He learned the Texas contest style, with its long bows and stacked variations, and then put that vocabulary to work behind singers in a bluegrass band. Most contest fiddlers never make that jump. Howard did it on two Lonesome River Band records that still set the standard for modern bluegrass fiddle backup. His last album, I Rest My Case, is a lesson in how to play a fiddle tune with taste when time is short.
Life and career
Howard was born in Georgia in 1960 and grew up in Milledgeville. His father taught him the basics on the fiddle around age eight or nine. After that he taught himself, working out tunes from records. He won his first fiddle contest at age 18 in Union Grove, North Carolina. In 1981 he cut a self-produced album, World Champion Fiddler, with his father Floyd Howard on rhythm guitar.
In 1982 he took first prize at the first Tri-State Bluegrass Association fiddle contest. In 1984 he won the Grand Master Fiddler Championship in Nashville, the contest Roy Acuff and Perry Harris had built at Opryland. That win put him on the list with Vernon Solomon, Dick Barrett, Herman Johnson, and Mark O’Connor.
Howard moved into session work in Nashville around 1990. He recorded with George Jones, Ricky Skaggs, Garth Brooks, Chet Atkins, Shelby Lynne, and J.D. Crowe and the New South. He cut his own album, Survival of the Fiddlist, in 1993 with Béla Fleck on banjo, Kathy Chiavola on guitar, and Roy Huskey Jr. on bass. He then joined the Lonesome River Band for two Sugar Hill albums, One Step Forward in 1996 and Finding the Way in 1998.
Cancer cut his career short. He fought it for four years and kept recording. He made his last album, I Rest My Case, while ill. He died in June 1999. Later that year the IBMA named him Fiddle Player of the Year. Sugar Hill released I Rest My Case after his death.
Playing style
Howard played a Texas-rooted contest style. His bow strokes were long and smooth, and he built tunes out of variations instead of repeating the same pass. He kept his tone round at speed. A Howard break on a fiddle tune sounds worked out, not sawed out.
Behind a singer he played with restraint. On the Lonesome River Band records he fills the gaps between vocal lines with short, clean phrases and leaves the rest alone. He used double stops for warmth rather than volume. He could swing when a tune called for it, and Survival of the Fiddlist shows that side with Fleck’s banjo pushing him.
Influences and legacy
Howard came up in the Georgia and Southeast contest world and absorbed the Texas style of Benny Thomasson and the players who followed him. He named Kenny Baker in a tune title, Play It Like Kenny, and cut a tune called Benny Was a Good Man on the same record. Nashville put him beside Vassar Clements and Alison Krauss, who played with him at a 1998 benefit.
His legacy runs through the fiddlers who studied his records. Deanie Richardson has cited his version of Kentucky Waltz as one of the sources for her own. The Lonesome River Band albums he played on remain reference recordings for bluegrass fiddle backup.
Signature tunes and songs
Grey Eagle Kansas City Kitty Survival of the Fiddlist Play It Like Kenny New Camptown Races Fit for a King.
Essential recordings
World Champion Fiddler (Lucy Opry, 1981) Survival of the Fiddlist (self-released, 1993) One Step Forward, Lonesome River Band (Sugar Hill, 1996) Finding the Way, Lonesome River Band (Sugar Hill, 1998) I Rest My Case (Sugar Hill)
Awards and honors
Tri-State Bluegrass Association fiddle contest, first prize (1982) Grand Master Fiddler Championship (1984) IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year (1999)
Watch and listen
Howard jams in 1989 with Randal Morton on banjo, Wayne Stewart on guitar, and Doug Cole on bass. Listen for the long bow and the way each pass through the tune changes.
Howard plays with Vassar Clements and Alison Krauss at a 1998 benefit.
What to learn from Howard
Learn Grey Eagle from his World Champion Fiddler record. It is a contest standard in A, and his version shows how to add a variation on each pass without losing the tune. The technique to steal is his backup on the Lonesome River Band records. Put on One Step Forward and listen to what he does between vocal lines. He plays short answers, then gets out of the way. Most jam fiddlers play too much behind a singer. Howard shows how little you need.
Sources
Randy Howard, IBMA award recipients Past winners, Grand Master Fiddler Championship Randy Howard (fiddler), Wikipedia Randy D. Howard held the world on a fiddle string, The Union-Recorder The short story of Randy Howard, fiddler extraordinaire, If That Ain’t Country Randy Howard, World Champion Fiddler, Discogs Randy Howard, Survival of the Fiddlist, Discogs Randy Howard, I Rest My Case, Discogs Deanie Richardson makes hard sound easy, Bluegrass Today Stuart Duncan, IBMA award recipients
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more contest and bluegrass fiddlers. Howard won the same Grand Master title as Mark O’Connor and Terry Morris. Stuart Duncan held the IBMA fiddle award before him, and Deanie Richardson counts his records among her sources. His 1990 Winfield mandolin title is on his mandolin page.