Original Texas Playboys fiddler Bob Boatright dies

Mr. Boatright was born Sept. 30, 1939, in Denison, Texas. "He started taking lessons when he was 10 years old on the fiddle," said Mr. Boatright's wife, Linda in an obituary in the Fort Worth, Texas Star-Telegram. "That is what his daddy wanted him to play. He never bucked his daddy. He did what his daddy told him to."

While a student in math and physics at Midwestern State University, Boatright played fiddle on the side.

After graduating, Boatright worked as a math teacher at a high school, Cameron University in Lawton, Okla. and at a junior college in Gainesville, Texas. He and his family later moved to Mansfield.

Boatright played the fiddle around Fort Worth at nights and on weekends. He later joined on with the Texas Playboys, founded in the 1930s by Wills. "He was the most reliable, sober musician in the group," said Leon Rausch, a leader of the Playboys who had known Boatright since the early 1970s, in the Star-Telegram. "He was my right-hand man, and it's going to be awfully hard to replace him."

Boatright played with Rausch for about 35 years.