“Being the fiddle player for the Sons of the Pioneers is an honor and a challenge. It’s an honor because of the great fiddlers who’ve held the job before. The challenge is to contribute a unique voice to today’s band. ”
Trustin baker
LEAD fiddle
Trustin Baker was born into a musical family February 10, 1999, in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. The eldest son of Shawn and Carrie Baker, Trustin began playing fiddle and banjo in the award-winning family bluegrass and gospel band The Baker Family. The well-traveled group (mother Carrie on guitar/bass and younger siblings Carina on mandolin and Elijah on bass/guitar) has appeared on “America’s Got Talent,” RFD-TV’s “The Bluegrass Trail,” and “Great American Bluegrass” on the Christian Broadcast Network.
A frequent competitor in fiddling contests, Baker won the prestigious Grand Master Fiddler Championship in Nashville, Tennessee, first in 2018 as a precocious 19-year-old (after having finished second the previous three years) and again in 2022. Baker attended a Sons of the Pioneers concert in nearby Branson, Missouri, when he was 15 and was even invited to attend one of the group’s recording sessions. At the concert he met—and later studied with—the group’s own championship fiddler, Ricky Boen.