Vivian Williams
Vivian Williams (May 27, 1938, or May 28, 1938–January 6, 2023) was an American bluegrass, old-time, and dance fiddler, composer, and ethnomusicologist. Born Vivian Tomlinson in Tacoma, Washington, she earned a master's degree in anthropology from the University of Washington. At age 22, she took up the fiddle, quickly gaining recognition from genre pioneer Bill Monroe, who hired her as a stand-in Blue Grass Boy during a Pacific Northwest tour and declared her one of the top female fiddlers in the nation. Alongside her husband Phil, she revitalized regional string band traditions by co-founding the Washington Old Time Fiddlers Association (1965), the Seattle Folklore Society (1966), and the landmark Northwest Folklife Festival (1972). She won the National Oldtime Fiddlers Contest and the Smithsonian Fiddle Contest. She performed with Tall Timber, Williams & Bray, and The Friends of Sally Johnson. She co-founded Voyager Recordings in 1967, producing over 50 albums that documented rural fiddle styles across the American West, a catalog later archived by Smithsonian Folkways. She was inducted into the North American Old Time Fiddlers Hall of Fame in 2013.
In the newsletter
Wrote
- RAG, MAMA, RAG...: Gigging with Big Mon (No. 8)
- “Why Ruin A Good Hobby?” Fiddler Vivian Williams (No. 10)