Randy Crouch

Randy Crouch (born April 1, 1952) is an Oklahoma-based multi-instrumentalist. In eastern Oklahoma, Crouch is best known as a fiddle player. Although he has been referred to as "the world's best rock fiddler," Crouch also plays guitar and pedal steel guitar among other instruments.

Biography

Randy Crouch was born Randall Byron Crouch to mother Ruth Emma McMinn Crouch and father Hurbert Lee Crouch on April 1, 1952, in Dallas, Texas. At the time, his father was attending Southern Methodist Seminary School. He would later go on to be a Methodist preacher. Randy is the oldest of three children. Randy was followed by his sister, now Lisa Perry 18 months later, and by his youngest sibling, Dane Crouch, 18 months after that.

After his father’s graduation, the family moved away from Dallas in 1954 to his first posting in Garden City, Texas. As a preacher, Randy’s father moved the family somewhat frequently. They left Garden City in 1956 to Clyde, Texas in 1956 and to Heat, Texas in 1959. Randy began high school in Canadian, Texas where the family moved in 1962, but they then moved to Crosbyton, Texas where Randy finished out his high school studies.

His parents provided a diverse musical background including piano lessons and Crouch also started playing ukulele and guitar. His grandfather, who played fiddle, had a big influence on him. Crouch learned to play fiddle from a Mel Bay mandolin instruction manual. Since the two instruments are tuned the same – a fiddle lacks the frets that make mandolin playing a little easier to do in key – it all transferred to the fiddle.

Crouch's music has been a foundation for Oklahoma's Red Dirt music, having been one of the earliest musicians of Red Dirt's epicenter - The Farm - located in Stillwater, Oklahoma. John Cooper, of the Red Dirt Rangers band, said that the camaraderie of the protests was central to the spirit that help form the Red Dirt movement. and is a member of the house band at the annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma.

Crouch's live performances often include unusual techniques on a variety of instruments. "I once saw him play where he's over a steel guitar and a piano while he's playing fiddle," said Jim Blair, co-owner of Max's Garage and one of Crouch's musical compatriots. "In the middle of the song, he wants to tune up the fiddle, so he hits the A note on the piano with his fiddle bow and tunes the string and keeps on playing."

Discography Year Title Record label/Comments 2017 Turn Off Tune Out Drop In Random Choice Music - Album 2014 No Good Reason Random Choice Music - Album 2012 Me and You Random Choice Music - Album 2010 It's a Crime Random Choice Music - Album 2009 Just a Few More Things 2008 Straight From the Tap with Badwater 2006 Friends with Wanda Watson 2006 Home with South 40 2004 Kindred Spirits Binky Records (with Bob Childers) 2004 Natural Selection 2004 Somewhere in the Middle Smith Music Group (with Jason Boland & the Stragglers) 2003 What's Goin' On? 2002 Travelin' On 2001 Truckstop Diaries Sustain Records (with Jason Boland & the Stragglers) 1998 Unplugged with the Lisa Sisters 1999 Pearl Snaps Sustain Records (with Jason Boland & the Stragglers) 1998 Canyon Rose with Lisa Perry 1998 Angel Rose with Lisa Perry 1997 It's Too Bad Random Choice (with Flying Horse) 1996 The Flying Horse Opera Mars Records 1995 Take Two 1992 Fractal Rose with Lisa Perry 1990 The Road to Good Intentions Random Choice Music 1983 Colorslide