Kevin Wimmer has been involved in an intense love/hate relationship with his E-string since the age of three, the same year he passed the five-feet-tall mark. His Manhattan childhood, though lacking in grits'n'gravy, was filled with music: both of his parents are professional classical musicians. Always a rebel, Kevin discovered bluegrass and old-time music, and later, Cajun music, gypsy jazz, and pretty much every other kind of music that stands on the "fiddle" side of the "fiddle versus violin" argument.
Kevin has had the opportunity to study and play with a remarkable lineup of fiddle legends, including Tommy Jarrell, Dennis McGee, Svend Asmussen, Carlton Frank, Canray Fontenot, Wade Fruge, Claude "Fiddler" Williams, Johnny Gimble, Byron Berline, Calvin and Bebe Carriere, and, of course, his long-time mentor, Dewey Balfa.
For several years after college, Kevin inexplicably lived in the California Bay Area, but he did play with several seminal bands out there, including the Good Ol' Persons (with Kathy Kallick), the California Cajun Orchestra (with Danny Poullard and Eric & Suzy Thompson) and Lost Weekend (with Don Burnham and Paul Anastasio). However, it wasn't long before he came to his senses and moved to the yuppie-free state of Louisiana to help found the world-renowned Cajun band Balfa Toujours .
Lately, Kevin keeps busy playing with a number of bands: the aforementioned Balfa Toujours, Cajun gypsy swing combo the Red Stick Ramblers , all-star band Racines , and occasionally the Ray Abshire Band. He's also been known to record with top-tier folks like Linda Ronstadt, and he's even branched into Hollywood, appearing in an episode of the fantastically obscene HBO drama Deadwood.
In his spare time, Kevin enjoys playing his fiddle, talking about his fiddle, listening to fiddle music, looking for old clips of fiddle players on YouTube, reaching things for his remarkably short girlfriend, and Scrabble.
