Cliff Bruner / Texas Wanderers Biography
Clifton Lafayette Bruner, 25 April 1915, Texas City, Texas, USA, d. 25 August 2000, Houston, Texas, USA. Bruner learned to play fiddle as a child, later boasting: "I could play fiddle before I could talk". While still at school, he played at local dances and later gained a great deal of experience touring with Doc Scott's medicine show. Bruner became a jazz and swing music fiddler (as opposed to the more usual country breakdown fiddlers) and, playing both fiddle and mandolin, he worked with several bands. He joined Milton Brown's Musical Brownies in Fort Worth in 1935 and played on many of Brown's recordings. Bruner and fellow fiddler Cecil Brower gave the band the strong twin fiddle lead that was an instantly recognizable part of Brown's music. After Brown's death in 1936, he moved to Houston, where he formed his own band, the Texas Wanderers. This outfit, which at times included the electric mandolinist Leo Raley, fiddler J.R. Chatwell, guitarist and vocalist Dickie McBride and country boogie pianist Moon Mullican, became one of the most popular and successful bands to work both the Texas Gulf Coast and from Houston (also broadcasting regularly on KXYZ) and Beaumont to the Cajun area of Louisiana. Bruner recorded several sessions for Decca Records between 1937 and 1941. On 13 September 1938, with McBride taking the vocal, the band recorded the first version of "It Makes No Difference Now" - a song that has since become a country standard. On 26 August 1939, Bruner achieved another first, when the band recorded the first truck-driving song, "Truck Driver's Blues", with vocals by Bruner and Mullican. In the 50s, Bruner dissolved the band and worked in insurance until his retirement. In 1994, he was still playing on weekend events with local musicians in Houston and, according to reports, he was still amazing younger musicians with his fiddling skills. He died in 2000.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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