ND: On each of your albums, there are some cuts with fiddles and others with violins. What’s the difference?
JB: The player.
DW: That’s right.
JB: I’m reading this new book called The Story Of Country Music In West Texas, and it says that the fiddle was revered back in West Texas at the turn of the century. But the fiddle player was thought of as hard-drinking, lazy and worthless. (All laugh.)
DW: Well, you know what Johnny Gimble says, don’t you? He says, “All fiddlers are fools. If you can’t play, they say, ‘That fool can’t play the fiddle.’ And if you can, they say, ‘He’s a fiddlin’ fool.'”
ND: Now that you’re on the same label, any plans for doing some shows together?
JB: I wouldn’t be opposed to it. Recording together either.
DW: I’d love that. I’ve been lovin’ old John and his music for a long time, but we don’t get to get together enough. I met him back in about 1968, before he had his mustache and beard, when he was playing drums with Willie Nelson. He’s always been a big hero of mine. He sings that old good stuff, and he’s got a beautiful voice, and he’s always got a great band, a Western-swing type band that can play anything.
JB: Thank you for cutting my song.
ND: Do you think that you’re different sorts of singers?
DW: Yeah, we’re different.
JB: In the sense that he can yodel and I can’t.
DW: But we’ve both got high voices, and I sing a lot of Johnny Bush songs.
ND: Anything else you guys would like to get on tape?
JB: Well, we’ve already talked about Willie and Ray.
DW: What else is there to talk about?
Don McLeese, columnist and critic-at-large at the Austin American-Statesman, wishes he were aging as gracefully as Don Walser and Johnny Bush.
