Jana Jae | |
---|---|
Born | August 30, 1943 |
Genres | Country |
Occupation(s) | Fiddler |
Instrument(s) | Fiddle |
Years active | 1970s–present |
Website | www |
Jana Jae (born August 30, 1943) is an American country and bluegrass fiddler.
She started playing when she was two and a half years old. Both of her parents were violin students at the Juilliard School in New York, and her maternal grandfather was a country fiddler. In her youth, Jae won scholarships to Interlochen and the International String Congress. [1] She graduated magna cum laude with a degree in music and studied abroad at the Vienna Academy of Music. [1]
She gained national fame by appearing on the nationally broadcast CBS/syndicated television series Hee Haw as part of Buck Owens's band in the 1970s. [2] [1] Prior to her work with Owens, she won the Ladies' Division National Fiddling Championship. [3] Her trademark is playing a blue fiddle. [4]
Since the late 1970s, Jae has continued performing internationally, both as the leader of her band, and with orchestra. Additionally, she has appeared with such country music artists as Mel Tillis, Ricky Skaggs, Chet Atkins, Roy Clark, Ray Stevens, The Oakridge Boys, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. [5]
Jae also organizes an annual fiddle camp and fiddle festival in Grove, Oklahoma. [1]
Jae was married in 1964 to Sidney Greif. They had two children, Matthew and Sydni. [6]
In 1977, Jae married Buck Owens. She had been playing in his band, the Buckaroos, for several years. Jae and Owens were married for only a few days before Owens filed for annulment. However, Owens changed his mind and the couple had an off-and-on relationship for an additional year before a divorce was finalized. [7] [8]
Her third marriage, in 1982, was to Tony Solow. [9]
James Robert Wills was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing. He was also noted for punctuating his music with his trademark "ah-haa" calls.
Hee Haw is an American television variety show featuring country music and humor with the fictional rural "Kornfield Kounty" as the backdrop. It aired from 1969 to 1993, and on TNN from 1996 to 1997. Reruns of the series were broadcast on RFD-TV from September 2008 to April 2020, and aired on Circle.
Alvis Edgar "Buck" Owens Jr. was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music chart. He pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, named in honor of Bakersfield, California, Owens's adopted home and the city from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call "American music".
Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, contra dance, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination of fiddle and plucked string instruments, most often the banjo, guitar, and mandolin. Together, they form an ensemble called the string band, which along with the simple banjo-fiddle duet have historically been the most common configurations to play old-time music. The genre is considered a precursor to modern country music.
Roy Linwood Clark was an American singer, musician, and television presenter. He is best known for having hosted Hee Haw, a nationally televised country variety show, from 1969 to 1997. Clark was an important and influential figure in country music, both as a performer and in helping to popularize the genre.
Byron Douglas Berline was an American fiddle player who played many American music styles, including old time, ragtime, bluegrass, Cajun, country, and rock.
Donald Eugene Ulrich, best known by the stage name Don Rich, was an American country musician who helped develop the Bakersfield sound in the early 1960s. He was a noted guitarist and fiddler, and a member of The Buckaroos, the backing band of Don's best friend, country singer Buck Owens. Rich was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1974 at the age of 32.
The Bakersfield sound is a sub-genre of country music developed in the mid-to-late 1950s in and around Bakersfield, California. Bakersfield is defined by its influences of rock and roll and honky-tonk style country, and its heavy use of electric instrumentation and backbeats. It was also a reaction against the slickly produced, orchestra-laden Nashville sound, which was becoming popular in the late 1950s. The Bakersfield sound became one of the most popular and influential country genres of the 1960s, initiating a revival of honky-tonk music and influencing later country rock and outlaw country musicians, as well as progressive country.
Ann Marie Calhoun is an American classically trained violinist who has performed as a bluegrass and rock musician in a number of prominent acts, including Jethro Tull, Steve Vai, Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Band, Ringo Starr, A.R. Rahman and Mick Jagger's SuperHeavy. She has closely collaborated with Hans Zimmer on numerous film scores, including Sherlock Holmes, Interstellar, 12 Years a Slave, The Lone Ranger, The Little Prince, Man of Steel, and Captain Phillips. She is the sister of violinist Mary Simpson.
The Buckaroos were an American band led by Buck Owens in the 1960s and early 1970s, who, along with Merle Haggard's The Strangers, were involved in the development and presentation of the "Bakersfield sound." Their peak of success was from 1965 to 1970. In 2005, CMT named the Buckaroos No. 2 on its list of the 20 Greatest Country Music Bands.
Eldon Shamblin was an American guitarist and arranger, particularly important to the development of Western swing music as one of the first electric guitarists in a popular dance band. He was a member of the Strangers during the 1970s and 1980s and was the last surviving member of Bob Wills' band the Texas Playboys.
Randy Crouch is an Oklahoma-based multi-instrumentalist. In eastern Oklahoma, Crouch is best known as a fiddle player. Although he has been referred to as "the world's best rock fiddler," Crouch also plays guitar and pedal steel guitar among other instruments.
John Paul Gimble was an American country musician associated with Western swing. Gimble was considered one of the most important fiddlers in the genre. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 in the early influences category as a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.
Buddy Spicher is an American country music fiddle player. He is a member of The Nashville A-Team of session musicians, and is Grammy-nominated. He was nominated as Instrumentalist of the Year by CMA in 1983 and 1985. He was the first fiddler in the "Nashville Cats" series of the Country Music Hall of Fame. He recorded with virtually every major country star of the sixties, seventies, and early eighties, including Faron Young, Johnny Paycheck Little Jimmy Dickens, Reba McEntire, George Jones, Don Williams, Dolly Parton, Crystal Gayle, Loretta Lynn, Bob Wills, Asleep at the Wheel, Don Francisco, Ray Price, Willie Nelson, George Strait, Bill Monroe, David Allan Coe, and Emmylou Harris.
Johnnie Lee Wills was an American Western swing fiddler popular in the 1930s and 1940s.
The Strangers were an American country band that formed in 1966 in Bakersfield, California. They mainly served as the backup band for singer-songwriter Merle Haggard, who named them after his first hit single "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers". In addition to serving as his backing band, members of the Strangers also produced many of Haggard's records, sang lead vocals on select tracks, and co-wrote many of Haggard's songs with him, including the No. 1 singles, "Okie From Muskogee" and "I Always Get Lucky with You".
Scott Joss is a songwriter, guitarist, mandolin player, singer, and fiddle player primarily in the American Country music tradition. He has performed with Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam, Kris Kristofferson, Pete Anderson, Tiny Moore, Roy Nichols, Dusty Wakeman, Chris Gantry, Jana Jae, and as a successful solo artist.
Wilene "Sally Ann" Forrester, also known as Billie Forrester, was an American musician considered to be "the first woman in bluegrass", having been employed by Bill Monroe and his band, the Blue Grass Boys, from 1943 to 1946.
Billy Contreras is an American jazz violinist and bluegrass fiddler, multi-instrumentalist, session player and educator.
Vivian Williams was an American fiddler, composer, recording artist, and writer. She won national fiddling titles, including the National Oldtime Fiddlers Contest, and in 2013 she was inducted into the North American Old Time Fiddlers Hall of Fame.