Tex Logan (1927 to 2015) was a west Texas fiddler who spent his working life as a mathematician at Bell Labs and his nights and weekends playing bluegrass. He fiddled with Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, the Lilly Brothers, Bill Monroe, and Peter Rowan across five decades. He wrote Christmas Time’s A-Comin’, the song Monroe turned into a bluegrass standard.
Why Logan matters
Logan proved that a player did not need to be a full-time road musician to shape the music. He brought a Texas fiddler’s bow to the first bluegrass band in Boston, put the fiddle in front of northern college crowds at Newport, and gave Monroe one of his few holiday songs. For jammers with day jobs, he is the model. He held a Ph.D., worked on signal theory, and still played seven nights a week when the gigs were there.
Life and career
Benjamin Franklin Logan Jr. was born on June 6, 1927, in Coahoma, Texas. His father Frank was a respected old-time fiddler and fiddle collector in west Texas, and Tex learned from him. He said the secret to fiddling was having rhythm in the bow. In 1946 he played with Hoyle Nix’s western swing band and worked in the oil fields.
Logan earned an electrical engineering degree at Texas Tech, then went to MIT in 1946. In Boston he found the country and hillbilly scene, playing on radio station WMEX and in a band called Sky Snow in 1948. He then moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, and played the Wheeling Jamboree with Red Belcher, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and Big Slim. From 1949 to 1952 he was the fiddler in Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper’s Clinch Mountain Clan and cut 15 sides with them, including Sunny Side of the Mountain and Legend of the Dogwood Tree.
Back in Boston, Logan brought Everett and Bea Lilly and banjo player Don Stover north to form the Confederate Mountaineers, the first bluegrass band in Boston. They played the Hayloft Jamboree on WCOP and clubs like the Hillbilly Ranch. He wrote Christmas Time’s A-Comin’ during this period. Monroe recorded it and played it to Logan over the phone for his approval.
In 1956 Logan joined Bell Labs in New Jersey and began doctoral work at Columbia University. He finished his Ph.D. in 1965 with a dissertation on high-pass signals. He worked in the mathematics center at Bell Labs from 1963 to 1993. Music continued around the job. He recorded Natchez Under the Hill and Katy Hill for the 1959 Folkways album Mountain Music Bluegrass Style. He played the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 with the New Lost City Ramblers and in 1965 with the Lilly Brothers, where he recorded Black Mountain Rag. He cut Blue Grass Get Together with the Charles River Valley Boys and Joe Val for Prestige Folklore in 1964. In 1969 he played fiddle on the Bee Gees song Give Your Best.
Logan was a close friend of Monroe and played on stage with him. From 1969 he ran Barbecue Bean Day at Monroe’s Bean Blossom festival for nine years, and from 1972 he ran the festival’s Old-Time Fiddlers’ Reunion. He played with Peter Rowan’s Green Grass Gringos in 1978 and made the album Revelry with Rowan and Greg Douglass in 1983. Logan died on April 24, 2015, in Morristown, New Jersey, at age 87.
Playing style
Logan played a west Texas fiddle style with a strong rhythmic bow. He said the bow arm, not the left hand, held the secret. His breaks on the Cooper sides and on Katy Hill have a driving shuffle and a bluesy edge that fit early bluegrass. He played to push a band from the fiddle chair, and the drive came from the right arm. He also played harmonica and piano.
Influences and legacy
Logan learned from his father Frank and from the west Texas fiddlers his father collected. He learned Jordan Am a Hard Road to Travel from H.M. Hubbard. He worked beside Don Stover and the Lilly Brothers, Mike Seeger and the New Lost City Ramblers, Joe Val, and Peter Rowan. His song Christmas Time’s A-Comin’ has been recorded by Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Rhonda Vincent, and Patty Loveless. Bob Dylan recorded his Diamond Joe.
Signature tunes and songs
Christmas Time’s A-Comin’ Katy Hill Natchez Under the Hill Black Mountain Rag Diamond Joe Sally Goodin.
Essential recordings
Mountain Music Bluegrass Style (Folkways, 1959) Blue Grass Get Together, Charles River Valley Boys with Tex Logan (Prestige Folklore, 1964) Revelry, Peter Rowan, Tex Logan, and Greg Douglass (1983)
Watch and listen
Logan fiddles at a jam, filmed by the Double Stop Fiddle Shop. Watch how much of the drive comes from his bow arm.
Logan plays his own Christmas Time’s A-Comin’ at his 85th birthday celebration in 2012.
What to learn from Logan
Learn Katy Hill from the 1959 Folkways cut. It is a fast tune, and Logan plays it with a shuffle that never loses the beat. The technique to steal is his rule about rhythm in the bow. Play the tune with only open strings and shuffle patterns before you add the melody. If the bow arm keeps a dance groove on its own, the notes will fall in place. Then take Christmas Time’s A-Comin’ to a December jam. Everyone knows it, and now you know who wrote it.
Sources
Tex Logan remembered, Bluegrass Today Benjamin F. Logan, Wikipedia Tex Logan, Discogs Charles River Valley Boys with Tex Logan, Blue Grass Get Together, Discogs Peter Rowan, Tex Logan, Greg Douglass, Revelry, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more bluegrass fiddlers. Logan played beside Peter Rowan and was a friend of Bill Monroe, whose fiddle chair belonged to Chubby Wise and Kenny Baker. Benny Thomasson and Eck Robertson came from the same Texas fiddle world Logan grew up in.