Vassar Clements, the beloved fiddler who refined and redefined the sound of fiddling for the whole world, died early August 16 of lung and liver cancer at the age of 76. Vassar, as much as any musician in the 20th century, had an instantly recognizable sound, identifiable by the first note. That sound is a prime example of a mysterious and wonderful musical quality: the more personal a sound is, the more universal is the effect on people. His sound became the touchstone for a generation of musicians, and brought the words "soul" and 'fiddling' together in a way that they can never be separated.
Vassar was a true virtuoso, setting a consistent standard for intonation, timing, and creative imagination comparable to Charlie Parker on the saxophone, with an entirely personal vocabulary that, while drawing from bluegrass and country fiddling sources such as Chubby Wise and Dale Potter, and big band jazz such as Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman, was transmuted into one of the most original musical vocabularies of the 20th century, on a par with Earl Scruggs and Lester Young. His improvisatory command of double- and triple-stops and knowledge of the entire fingerboard raised the bar so startlingly that he provoked a burst of slavish imitation among most fiddlers, which usually became benignly internalized as further bold exploration.
Vassar was one of the last of the completely self-taught American Roots musicians, in the sense that he worked out a method for playing his instrument in isolation from any "legit" method, by listening to the radio and watching other fiddlers, scarce in central Florida where he grew up in the thirties. He never learned to read music or even chord changes, but relied on his incredibly accurate ear and memory to work out his own approach to music.
Vassar was an important musical and personal link between generations and cultures, as well as musicians and musical styles. The list of influential bands and musicians he has played and recorded with is too long for this eulogy, but extends throughout all levels, ages, and classes, beginning with Bill Monroe's Bluegrass boys (he was 12!) and extending through a slew of world-famous pop, classical, country, and jazz artists such as Earl Scruggs, John Hartford, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Stephane Grappelli, Dave Holland, John Abercrombie, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Allman Brothers, Paul McCartney... Just name anybody.
Young people of all ages especially loved Vassar for his honesty, utter approachability, and completely uncalculated love for people. Why did everyone love him so? A couple of years ago at a music festival in Florida, I was talking with guitarist Bryan Sutton who was touring with Earl Scruggs at the time. Part of the joy of that tour for Bryan was getting to hear Earl talk about the original days of the Bluegrass Boys and the Foggy Mountain Boys. I realized that I had spent most of the weekend talking, playing with, or hanging out with Vassar, one of the true original Bluegrass innovators, and never had there been talk of the "old days", except in the most cursory way. Vassar was always in the moment, right there with you, totally present and happy to explore whatever musical personal experience was next.
For me, Vassar was the fiddler who awoke me to the possibility that fiddling could have profound spiritual depth, could say something beyond expressing simple delight or even simple sorrow. Vassar's music speaks the unspeakable with total honesty in the most direct way possible. His essence seems to arrive by bone conduction directly into the listener's heart, with a message of love, unutterable sadness, and humanity that transcends reason, time, and culture.
Vassar's story also includes an instrument that compares in iconic importance to Paganini's Guarnerius "Cannon" and the famed White Fiddle of Mark O'Connor. It is a highly sculptured special edition re-creation of a Gasparo Da Salo, from the shop of J.B. Villaume in Paris, with beautiful carvings and wood inlay all over it and the latin inscription all around the sides which translates "In Life I was silent but in Death I sing". (as spoken by the wood used to make the instrument). This fiddle is one of the most peculiar and individual-sounding violins ever heard, and seems to have been not only the perfect marriage of instrument and player, but and inevitable, fated match. It was given to Vassar during a difficult time in his life by the great songwriter and cultural historian John Hartford. This gift turned out to be not only one of the greatest gifts from any musician to another but one of the greatest gifts to the world, for Vassar was able to take this instrument, which he said he liked because it had an "even" tone, and create a musical body of work that is to all human purposes immortal. This fiddle was really only playable by Vassar. When anyone else played it, it produced an exhausted sound of wet cardboard, with no discernible tone whatsoever. In Vassar's hands, it became a cry of pure being. As David Grisman said, "It's in the hands" ...and heart, and soul.
— Darol Anger 8-17-05