10 Years Ago Today, We Said Goodbye to the Multi-Talented Fiddler Who Played With Randy Travis, Conway Twitty, and Earl Scruggs

On this day (August 30) in 2016, former Grand Ole Opry fiddler Hoot Hester died of cancer at age 65. A four-decade veteran of the Nashville music scene, Hester backed everyone from Earl Scruggs to Ray Charles. He also co-founded Western swing supergroup the Time Jumpers in the 1990s and spent 14 years as a member of the Opry’s staff band.

Who Was Hoot Hester?

Born August 13, 1951, on a tiny farm near Louisville, Kentucky, Hubert Duane “Hoot” Hester’s nickname came from the popular cowboy actor Hoot Gibson.

Hester’s father played the fiddle — as did his four uncles — and his mother played the piano.

He had mastered both instruments by age nine, later adding the guitar and mandolin to his repertoire and forming a bluegrass band with a couple of cousins.

Falling in Love With Music City

After graduating from high school, Hoot Hester took a job with a Louisville phone company. However, word of his musical talent had spread, and he found himself also fielding calls from local groups like the Bluegrass Alliance.

So, Hester supplemented his income with bluegrass gigs before traveling to Nashville in the early 1970s. A fifth-place finish in a national fiddle contest led to even more job offers — and a life-changing epiphany.

“That’s when it dawned on me that I could probably make a living doing this,” he said in a 2002 interview with the National Association of Music Merchants. “Maybe I was a little better than I thought I was.”

By 1973, Hester had permanently relocated to Music City after transferring with the phone company. Once he had arrived, he kept that job for about three weeks before quitting to take a full-time gig with country music group The Whites.

“I just fell in love with Nashville the first time I ever saw it,” Hester said. “I knew this was where I was going to move to.”

After some time with The Whites, he moved on to gigs with Mel Tillis, Jerry Reed, and Donna Fargo. “All of them had that killer instinct, so you sort of had to fight to get a spot,” he recalled. “So I learned how to do that.”

A Prolific Session Career

By 1980, Hoot Hester had shifted his attention to studio work. The artists he worked with include Alabama, Hank Williams Jr., Randy Travis, Ricky Van Shelton, Bill Monroe, Vern Gosdin, and Conway Twitty.

In 1997, Hester co-founded The Time Jumpers with bassist Dennis Crouch. Vince Gill played with the group between 2010 and 2020.

[RELATED: Born 75 Years Ago Today on a Tiny Kentucky Farm, the Renowned Grand Ole Opry Fiddler Who Backed Conway Twitty and Collaborated With Earl Scruggs]

In 2000, Hester joined the Grand Ole Opry staff band, where he spent the next 14 years. After leaving in 2014, he began performing regularly with his daughter, Rachel Hester.

Featured image by Beth Gwinn/Getty Images