Vassar Clements Biography

Vassar Clements (born Vassar Carlton Clements) was a Grammy Award-winning American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borrows from swing, hot jazz, and bluegrass along with roots also in the country and other musical traditions.

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10 Quick Facts About Vassar Clements

1. Name: Vassar Clements
2. Age: 76 years
3. Birthday: August 16
4. Zodiac Sign: Leo
5. Height: To be updated
6. Nationality: American
7. Occupation: Jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler
8. Marital Status: Married
9. Salary: To be updated
10. Net worth: To be updated

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Vassar Clements Age

Vassar Carlton Clements was born in Kinard, Florida on April 25, 1928, and passed on on August 16, 2005, at the age of 77. He died on August 16, 2005, at age 76 of lung cancer.

Vassar Clements Family

Clements was born in Kinard, Florida, but grew up in Kissimmee. At age 7, he taught himself to play the fiddle learning “There’s an Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor” as his first song. Soon, he joined with two first cousins, Red and Gerald, to form a local string band. In his early teens, Clements met Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys when they came to Florida to visit his stepfather, a friend of fiddler Chubby Wise. Clements was impressed with his playing.

Vassar Clements Wife

He was married to Millie Clements from 1964–1998

Vassar Clements Career

In late 1949 Wise left Monroe’s group, and the 21-year-old Clements traveled by bus to ask for an audition. When told he would have to return the next day, Clements was crestfallen, lacking the money for either a hotel room or return bus trip. Monroe gave him some money to a night’s lodging, and the next day Clements auditioned and was hired.

He remained with Monroe for seven years, recording with the band in 1950 and 1951. He soon became one of the most distinctive, inventive, and popular fiddlers in bluegrass music. His virtuosity and ability to blend several different genres, including swing and hot jazz, made him a pioneer in country music and much sought-after session musician.

Somewhere in the range of 1957 and 1962, he was an individual from the twang band Jim and Jesse and the Virginia Boys. He likewise picked up acknowledgment uniting with the prominent country couple of Flatt and Scruggs on the famous topic to the hit TV sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies. Duke Scruggs’ way breaking banjo style had debuted with Bill Monroe in the late 1940s, and from that point increased far-reaching prestige with Lester Flatt and the Foggy Mountain Boys. Fame was inside his grip.

By the mid-1960s, in any case, his battles with liquor left him making his living in industrial exchanges, being utilized quickly at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as a handyman, in a Georgia paper plant, and as a switchman for Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. He even sold protection and once worked a comfort store while owning a potato chip establishment in Huntsville, Alabama. Calming down, he came back to Nashville in 1967, where he turned into a much looked for after studio performer.

After a brief visiting spell with Faron Young, he joined John Hartford’s Dobrolic Plectral Society in 1971 when he met guitarist Norman Blake and Dobro player Tut Taylor and recorded Aereo-Plain, a generally acclaimed “newgrass” collection that widened the country market and sound. After not exactly a year he got together with Earl Scruggs.

His 1972 work with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their collection Will the Circle be Unbroken earned even more extensive approval, and he later took a shot at the Grateful Dead’s Wake of the Flood and Jimmy Buffett’s A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. Inside the following two years, Clements would cut his first independent collection.

In 1973 he joined and toured with the bluegrass supergroup Old & In the Way with Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Peter Rowan, and John Kahn; their self-titled live album Old & In the Way was released in 1975. In 1974 he lent his talents to Highway Call, a solo album by former Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dickey Betts.

In his 50-year career, he played with artists ranging from Woody Herman and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to the Grateful Dead, Linda Ronstadt, and Paul McCartney, and earned at least five Grammy Award nominations and numerous professional accolades. He once recorded with the pop group the Monkees by happenstance, when he stayed behind after an earlier recording session.

Also, he appeared in Robert Altman’s 1975 film Nashville and Alan Rudolph’s 1976 film, Welcome to L.A. Additionally, he made a duet album with Stéphane Grappelli Together at Last in 1987. In 2004 he performed in concert with jazz quartet Third Stream – in which a video documentary of the concert was done with Jim Easton

Though he played numerous instruments, he indicated that he chose the fiddle over a guitar. Big band and swing music were considerable influences upon his style and musical development.

Vassar Clements played on over 200 albums, including nearly 40 on which he starred or was featured. His albums often featured newgrass style music and what Clements called “Hillbilly Jazz”. His last album, Livin’ With the Blues, released in 2004, was his only blues recording; it featured guest appearances by Elvin Bishop, Norton Buffalo, Maria Muldaur, and others.

His 2005 Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance was for “Earl’s Breakdown,” by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and featured Clements, Earl Scruggs, Randy Scruggs, and Jerry Douglas.
Clement’s last performance was February 4, 2005, in Jamestown, N.Y.

Vassar Clements Net Worth

He had a really built up career however his estimated net worth at the time of his death is not known.

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