About Vernon Solomon
Artist Biography
b. Felix Vernon Solomon, 23 December 1924, Kaufman County, Texas, USA, d. 7 May 1991, Fort Worth, Texas, USA. Solomon was born into a musical family; his father and grandfather were fiddlers and he took up the fiddle, as did one of his brothers. He began playing his father’s fiddle before he was five and at the age of 10 won a fiddle contest in Athens, Texas. The family often played together and were billed as Solomons’ Championship Fiddling. He served in the military during World War II but this apart spent more than 40 years working for General Dynamic, Fort Worth, Texas. Resident in Fort Worth for most of his life, Solomon played music in his free time of sufficient quality to allow him to become a national fiddle champion. In 1968, he and his brother, Norman, were state representatives at the annual FolkLife Festival held at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. In 1972, he entered the first Grand Masters Fiddling Contest in Nashville, Tennessee, and was the winner. Thereafter, he became a contest judge in several states. A member of the Texas Old Time Fiddlers Association, his skills were such that as late as 1990 he was still a winner in his age group.
Married in 1947, Solomon had four sons, all of whom became musicians, two of them professionally, all playing fiddle, some doubling on other instruments. One of the sons died in Vietnam but the other three continued to play, sometimes in their father’s band. The Solomons appeared in January 1991 at Kaufman Opry in Kaufman, Texas, and the local newspaper printed a feature on them. In the band with Solomon for that engagement were his sons, Ricky (fiddle) and Terry (electric bass), Pat Dacus (rhythm guitar), Gary Carpenter (electric steel guitar), and Charles Rickets (fingerboards). Ricky has played professionally with Reba McEntire and others, Terry is a computer specialist by day, and in addition to fiddle plays electric bass and rhythm guitar. Son Stephen has played professionally with Boxcar Willie and others.
Solomon’s repertoire included ‘Sally Goodin’, ‘Leatherbritches’, ‘Beaumont Rag’, ‘Lime Rock’ and ‘Orange Blossom Special’. In February 1991, he was injured in a road accident, and died from his injuries a few months later.
Hometown
Forney, TX, United States
Genre
Country
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