Tony Hopper started fiddlin’ at age sixty-two – something he knew his great-grandfather was good at back in the hills of West Tennessee.
He was so awestruck with the violin that he continued weekly violin lessons for over three years. Then, someone told him he should audition as a violinist for the Montgomery, Alabama Symphony Orchestra.
He ended up playing violin with orchestra for more than twelve years, and in this memoir, he looks back at his musical exploits, which started when he took up the trombone for his junior high school band.
Along the way, he highlights family members who were passionate about music, including three aunts who had their own live daily radio program; his great grandfather, John Will (J.W.) Dyer, who was a businessman, farmer, court official, musician, and fiddler; and a great-great-grandfather who was a bugler in the Union Army.
While conducting research for this book, the author also discovered that his great-grandfather, J.W. Dyer, and his four sons collaborated with another family on a brass band and that family has risen to the apex of the classical music world.
If you’ve ever longed to learn to play a musical instrument or want to know more about the musical history of the South, you’ll enjoy Fourth-Quarter Fiddlin’.