University Place

fiddle music

Eddie Rivers was born Mark Malak in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Very early in life, he fell in with a dynamic style of music known as Western swing, an infectious form of jazz-inflected dance music pioneered by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Eddie played with bands all over Wisconsin; most often with a group called Western Box Turtles. He was well-primed to play this music when he was hired by Asleep at the Wheel in the 1970s. He was a prized musician because he could play both the saxophone and the pedal steel guitar. His prowess with the steel guitar was so strong that the leader of Asleep at the Wheel described him as the Man of Steel. Together with Asleep at the Wheel, Eddie Rivers helped to introduce this renewed variety of Western swing to the audiences all over North America.

fiddle music