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....
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