Cliff Bruner
Cliff Bruner ( born April 25, 1915 in Houston, Texas; † 25 August 2000) was an American country musician. Bruner is one of the most important representatives of Western Swing.
- 2.1 Singles
- 2.2 albums
Life
Childhood and youth
Cliff Bruner spent his childhood in Houston. At the age of twelve he decided to buy a fiddle and so not to have to earn his money in the cotton fields. As a teenager, he moved with Dr. Scott 's Medicine show through the country and found employment as a musician.
Career
1934 joined Bruner is the western swing orchestra to Milton Brown at. Along with Cecil Brower played Bruner Fiddle and created a "twin fiddle sound" in the group, who was instrumental for the more country music. By 1936, the sudden death Browns, he played a more than 50 pieces with Milton Brown and his band. After Brown's death Bruner returned to Houston, where he founded his own band, which sometimes also called Texas Wanderers Cliff Bruner & his Boys.
The Texas Wanderers Bruner got a show at the transmitter KDFM in Beaumont, near the border with Louisiana. The Cajun music influence made itself quickly in the band felt that enriched this traditional genre with rural hillbilly music and contemporary jazz. Had played together with the Steel- guitarist Bob Dunn, with the Bruner already at Milton Brown, the mandolin Leo Raley and pianist Moon Mullican came out a mix that differed from the other western swing orchestra, since he more in the field of Pop moved. Bruner himself, however, did not sing, which took over other members of the group.
After the band in 1938 to get a recording contract with Decca Records, was her breakthrough. Bruner's records sold, especially on the Gulf Coast, as if by magic, the jukeboxes in the honky tonks of the oil fields played daily Bruner and his Texas Wanderers. In 1938, he probably had his biggest hit, Floyd Tillman It Makes No Difference Now, followed by Truck Driver 's Blues a year later. The latter was written by songwriter Ted Daffan and is regarded as the first trucker song in music history. Bruner had become in a short time become one of the most successful and popular musicians in the country music scene in Texas.
In the 1940s, the Texas Wanderers broke apart. Nevertheless, he continued to channel his musical partner and friend Moon Mullican a band. His successes were over, however. Bruner its success could never establish permanently, because his wife Ruth became seriously ill and he stood by it. In the following years Bruner was not the music but on; in addition to the recording of plates he performed with Jimmie Davis and W. Lee O'Daniel. In the 1950s, however, Bruner retired from the music business, and founded an insurance agency instead.
In the 1970s, as Western swing came to new prominence again, Bruner was rediscovered by many younger musicians. In 1980 he was involved in Johnny Gimbles album Texas Swing Pioneers and went on into old age. Cliff Bruner died in 2000 at the age of 85 years from the effects of cancer.