Frankie McWhorter took an interest in the fiddle while in his teens, when he was still breaking horses for legendary Texas horse trainer Boyd Rogers. The two were traveling to New York in a 1923 Dodge truck with a load of polo ponies they had trained. There was no seat on the passenger side. Riding atop a five-gallon bucket with a saddle blanket thrown over for a cushion, a youthful Frankie whistled, sang, and played harmonica while the elder Rogers requested tunes.

“You ought to be playing fiddle,” Rogers said. When Frankie asked why, the older gentleman answered, “‘Cause you can whistle anything.”

Music had always been a part of the McWhorter family. Frankie grew up singing at his mother’s side and learned to play the French harmonica just as she did in their country home. His uncle Floyd Tucker won the Alabama fiddle championship several times, and grandfather I.J. Tucker was a prominent composer who penned “Wait for the Wagon.” In his early years, Frankie spent hours listening to “Pa” Tucker play the pump organ.

“We had a radio,” he recalls, “but we only played it for the news to keep from running down the batteries. Most of the time we just sang and played for each other.”

With music in his blood, Frankie kept that tradition when he later went to work as a cow- hand on the JA Ranch. There, he followed Rogers’ urging and took up fiddle. Mostly, he tried his hand at fiddle breakdowns the wagon boss whistled around the JA chuck wagon. Along with horses, Boyd Rogers knew about fiddles and had recognized a natural inclination for the instrument in the young cowhand. Through the years, Rogers continued to encourage Frankie. On weekends, he even brought the great Texas fiddler Eck Robertson all the way from Amarillo to ranch country to teach the young fiddler. Frankie paid close attention. Such techniques as how to keep time with the bow when a guitar player failed to show for a dance soon became part of his style. Many of the tunes Robertson played came from the era when cowfolk held dances in country homes cleared of furniture to make way for dancing. On these occasions, a lone fiddler often stood in a doorway, playing for dancers in adjoining rooms.

Cowboy and ranch dances had been the main source of entertainment for the early settlers of the Texas Plains. The old fiddle tunes were of special interest to Frankie. He felt a kinship with the simple frontier sound. Coming from the Scottish and Irish traditions, the tunes had traveled through Appalachia and the American south and evolved into a distinctive style in Texas and Oklahoma. The new style, heavily influenced by jazz and blues, began taking the country by storm with the emergence of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.

Western swing caught the public’s fancy. “Faded Love” reached the top of the charts, and Frankie dropped dimes into a cafe jukebox until he had every nuance. Wills’ band played arrangements featuring vocalists and hot-lick soloists on horns, fiddles, and amplified steel and electric guitars- all accompanied by piano, bass, and drums. Still, the raw appeal of the new style came from Wills’ charisma and his old-time fiddle sound.

“You have the same feel for the fiddle as Bob Wills,” Boyd Rogers told Frankie. He meant the frontier sound. Wills grew up playing for country and ranch dances and learned the tradition from his father John Wills and maternal Uncle Tom Foley. They were the recognized masters of the old style. Rogers heard an uncanny resemblance to Wills in Frankie’s fiddling. Both had a raw energy rooted in the experience and spirit of western life.

Eventually, Wills invited Frankie to join the Texas Playboys. Still seeking to know more of the frontier tunes, the new man in the fiddle section often persuaded Bob to take a moment backstage and teach him the old tunes played by Bob’s father and uncle. With a passion, Frankie committed Wills’ recollections to memory and continues, today, to perform them unchanged.

Nowadays, Frankie is foreman of seventeen sections of prime ranch country near Camp Creek in the northern Texas Panhandle. Over time, a newcomer to those rolling hills may notice a draw in the background where only grass and sage had been perceived before. The dimension of the landscape is subtle and refined. This is also true of the simple frontier fiddle tunes Frankie recalls. With his experienced touch, an unexpected slide or twist of phrase brings forth images of western life as they are rarely seen today.

Respect for the music, the tradition, and the way of life has made Frankie McWhorter a rare link to the past. Mentors like Rogers (b. 1895), Robertson
(b. 1897), and Wills (b. 1905) gave him knowledge of a frontier fiddle legacy spanning two centuries. The dedication Frankie gave over a lifetime has given the rest of us a worthy steward of this Texas musical heritage.