One of the highlights of this weekend's Natchitoches-Northwestern State University Folk Festival is the Louisiana State Fiddle Championship. The purpose of this fiddling competition is to develop an awareness and appreciation of the genre, to encourage children to study the instrument, and to ensure the continuance of traditional, homespun music.
Although fiddling can trace its origins to Western European dance music, it owes its popularity to the emergence of country music as a commercial musical endeavor. According to The Encyclopedia of Country Music, the fiddle has always been a major component of country music performance. One of the first recordings of it occurred in 1922 by the Texas fiddler A. C. "Eck" Robertson; with the success of the 1923 recording by artist John Carson of Atlanta, the fledgling phonograph industry took notice of southern, white music. During the next two decades, recordings by Charlie Bowman, Clark Kessinger, Clayton McMichen and Doc Roberts aided and influenced future players and proponents of fiddle music. The evolving nature of fiddling can be traced to elements emanating from blues, cajun, classical, jazz, rock, etc. as well as the inherent diversity of the United States.
Many of us may recall the oldtime fiddler tune Turkey in the Straw. Other examples of fiddling include Joshua Bell's Short Trip Home, Bill Keith's Beating Around the Bush, Alison Krauss' So Long: So Wrong, and Violin, Sing the Blues For Me: African-american Fiddlers, 1926-1949.