Paul Elliott

LEAD fiddle

Paul Elliott grew up in a house filled with jazz, classical, and folk music and started playing violin when he was seven years old. After years of lessons, youth orchestras, and summer music camps he discovered fiddle music as a young teenager. His immediate reaction was “why didn’t somebody TELL me you could do that with a violin?” His initial love of old-time and bluegrass quickly evolved into a love of western swing music, jazz, and country, and at 19 he began playing professionally in bands and as a studio musician in the western U.S. and Canada. Paul has since racked up a long list of recording credits that span film, television, and radio, and a long list of CDs. Somewhere along the line he also got a degree in music composition from the University of Washington, with additional months of private study in London with the head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music.

It was while preparing for a recording project dedicated to the music of the Sons of the Pioneers that Paul became deeply acquainted with their music and with the playing of their fiddler Hugh Farr, and he immediately became a fan of Farr’s. “It’s rare to find a musician with so much skill, so much soul, and that much versatility. He could play hot swing jazz like Joe Venuti, then turn around and fiddle a breakdown or a schottische like a barn dance fiddler.” Paul continues: “I’m both honored and thrilled to be following in his footsteps as the fiddle player for the Sons of the Pioneers, one of the most significant bands ever in the music of the American West.”