One of twelve children, all of them musicians, Bill Kearns (his real name was Bobby H. Kearns) was born on the family farm east of Slater, Saline County. His people were German and Scotch-Irish. Bill was a survivor of the Normandy Invasion in France during World War II and he served with distinction in the Army throughout the war. After the war, he returned to Slater, decided on a career as a railroad brakemen, settled down, and raised a family.

In recent years, Kearns was sought out by researchers interested in his vivid recollections of the Allied invasion of Normandy on “D Day” in June 1944.

Bill was an excellent old-time fiddler in the Little Dixie style, having begun playing dances in Saline County as a child. He was an avid historian of the history of fiddling and fiddlers in Missouri. He was an active supporter of fiddler’s contests and organizations. He was also a skilled electric rhythm guitarist and played countless dances in the Slater area in the 1950s and 1960s. As fiddler’s contests and sessions became more numerous in the 1960s and 1970s, he began do concentrate on playing fiddle music and playing backup guitar for other fiddlers. He also became a respected fiddle contest judge, and was known as a tough but fair judge. He had very high standards for what he considered to be authentic old-time Missouri fiddling. In addition, Bill developed skills as a violin repairperson and trader.

During the past year, Kearns was in and out of a Columbia hospital and had undergone all available cancer treatments. I visited him for the last time there in December 2009. I took with me a violin that I had obtained from Bill, upon which he immediately began playing tunes he remembered from many years ago, such as “Saline Waltz” (a tune he often played in fiddler’s contests) and “Saline County Breakdown” (a tune I had never heard before). His focus gravitated to tunes from his youth that he had learned to play as a child from local fiddle players, such as his father George Kearns, Bill’s older brother Buster Kearns, and Harry Berger (a powerful hornpipe player in the old style), in his area of central Missouri (Saline County, Chariton County, Howard County). Among other rare tunes he recalled was “Muddy Road to Frankfort,” a hoedown he played as a child at square dances in the Missouri River village of Frankfort, some seven miles from the Kearns’ family farm in Saline County (the tune is widely known as “Five Miles Out of Town,” having been published in R.P. Christeson’s 1973 volume of fiddle tunes).

One of the thoughtful things Bill did in his last year, knowing that his days were numbered by his cancer, was to see to it that some of his life-long collection of materials pertaining to his life as an old-time fiddle player, collector, and contest judge were made part of the Western Historical Manuscripts Collection at the University of Missouri in Columbia for the benefit of future generations. At Bill’s request, and with the help of his daughter, Dr. Donna Kearns, I was delighted to be able to take care of getting his collection donated to the WHMC in the summer of 2009.

A number of interesting materials are part of the Bill Kearns Collection at that celebrated archive (WHMC). Among the items Bill donated were his c. 1940 Philco home recording machine, with which he made 6 1/2″ 33 rpm records of local fiddlers several years before others began doing that, along with several discs made on that machine c. 1943. He also donated numerous tape recordings and videotapes of fiddlers’ contests and jam sessions. Among print materials in the Kearns Collection are program booklets from the Minnesota State Old-Time Fiddler’s Contest, which Bill Kearns and several other Missourians helped establish at Cotton, Minnesota in 1981. Other items include several hundred 78-, 45-, and 33-rpm records of fiddling. The Western Historical Manuscript Collection is located in Ellis Library on the campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia.

Funeral services for Bill Kearns will be held at St. Joseph Catholic Church, 325 W. Emma, in Slater at 11 a.m. Wednesday, February 17.  The funeral home is Weiker Funeral Home, 202 W. Emma St., Slater MO 65349.

-Howard Marshall

Related Media

• Charlie Walden has created a gallery of photos taken at a session in Slater, Missouri, about 1975, including one of Bill playing electric guitar.
• Bill is also featured in a short video on YouTube.

Nebraska fiddler Bob Walters is little-known outside Missouri Valley fiddle circles, but that’s about to change with the new release of eighty of Bob’s best tunes on “Bob Walters, The Champion: Classic Missouri Valley Fiddling from Dwight Lamb’s Collection.”

Long before the days of the iPod or even the portable tape recorder, Dwight Lamb was collecting recordings from Bob Walters on wire recorders, reel-to-reels, or whatever the latest technology might be. Now we’re lucky to have his amazing collection of Bob Walters recordings cherry-picked into this giant two-CD set which demonstrates both Mr. Walters’ mastery of the instrument and his breadth of repetoire. The set includes reels, waltzes, polkas and quadrilles, and even a few more rare birds, and tunes are sourced all the way from Kentucky to Canada and beyond.

Standouts include some familiar tunes like Bill Cheatum and Dusty Miller, along with contest favorites like The Inimitable Reel and Friendship Waltz, as well as less commonly known gems like the masterful Silver Lake Quadrille and The Prodigal Son. Instrumentation includes plenty of solo fiddle and guitar/fiddle, as well as Goldie Walters’ stellar pump organ playing and a few featuring Dwight playing along on his accordion.

Dwight Lamb and Bill Peterson worked with Mark Wilson of Rounder Records to produce this new CD. The CD set costs $20, including postage and is available by writing to Missouri Valley Music, 511 South Pleasant, Canton, South Dakota 57013, or e-mail missourivalleymusic [at] sio [dot] midco [dot] net and be invoiced through PayPal. Check out a couple of sample tunes below.

Due to popular demand (that’s right), in September 2009, after a year’s hiatus, the Little Dixie Old-Time Fiddle Club will return to the Boone-Walters Historical Museum in southeast Columbia, Missouri. Our emphasis is on traditional fiddle music. All levels of experience are welcome, but we ask that everyone observe “jam session etiquette.”

For more information, contact the Boone County Historical Society by calling 573-443-8936 or Howard Marshall 573-642-6226.

Though Elvin was a fiddler himself, he preferred the role of guitarist and found his niche as Dwight Lamb’s preferred guitarist throughout his contest days in the 60s and 70s. He supported Dwight and Cyril Stinnett on their trips to the National Fiddler’s Contest in Weiser, Idaho in the mid 1960s. Elvin supplemented Dwight’s playing with a spare and elegant style of his own. Playing in the Missouri Valley repetoire requires a flexible, well-rounded guitarist who can play comfortably in many keys, change keys smoothly, and generally make it all sound easy, and Elvin qualifies on all counts.

Be sure to visit Elvin’s page to hear some of his top-notch guitar playing.