On This Day in 1965, We Lost an Architect of Western Swing and Renowned Nashville Musician Who Worked With the Likes of Patsy Cline and Roy Orbison

The country music world unexpectedly lost renowned swing fiddler Cecil Brower, who shared a stage with everyone from Patsy Cline to Roy Orbison, on this day in 1965.

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On Nov. 21, 1965, Brower played his last show ever with country music singer Jimmy Dean at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Suffering from a perforated ulcer, the prolific session musician died suddenly at a post-gig party at the Waldorf Astoria. He was just one week shy of his 51st birthday.

Cecil Lee Brower was born Nov. 28, 1914, in Bellevue, Texas, as the only child of Vera and Hubert Brower. Following a stint in San Pedro, California, the family eventually returned to the Lone Star State, settling in Fort Worth in 1924.

At Hubert’s insistence, his son received formal violin lessons from classical violinist Wylbert Brown, a member of WBAP radio’s studio orchestra. While majoring in music at Texas Christian University, Brower teamed up with fellow Brown student Kenneth Pitts to form the Southern Melody Boys with Bob Wren and Burke Reeder.

Cecil Brower Wrote the Blueprint for Western Swing

The turning point, however, came in 1933 when he joined the original Western swing band, Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies. Bringing his classical jazz training to the country outfit, Cecil Brower and fiddler Jesse Ashlock created the blueprint for the harmonizing twin fiddle duet that has since become a staple of Western Swing. Brower was also the first fiddle player to master jazz legend Joe Venuti’s “double shuffle” bowing technique, which he taught to fellow Texas fiddlers in the 1930s.

Wylbert Brown claimed partial credit for Brower’s success, saying the musician’s formal training gave him a leg up on other “hillbilly” fiddlers.

Brower played on all Milton Brown’s recordings until the Father of Western Swing’s untimely 1936 death in a single-car crash. In the following years, he recorded with a plethora of artists, including Bill Boyd and his Cowboy Ramblers and Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys.

In 1955, Brower joined the ABC-TV’s Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri, where he worked with artists like Red Foley, Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash. A move to Nashville followed in the ’60s. There, Brower became a highly sought-after session musician, recording with Cline, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Loretta Lynn, and more.

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