Family, friends work to save trove of found Johnny Gimble tapes

Fans of legendary Texas fiddler Johnny Gimble, who died May 9 at a Marble Falls nursing home, may have new listening material in years to come, thanks to a recently discovered trove of more than 330 tapes found in a shed at Gimble’s home near Dripping Springs. The tapes, in a variety of formats from cassettes to reel-to-reel, go at least as far back as a 1954 performance by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in Potlatch, Idaho — perhaps earlier — and span about 40 years. Johnny’s son Dick Gimble said the family had stumbled across “boxes and boxes” of tapes, recordings and photographs while going through a storage shed several weeks ago. Those boxes held a collection of work tapes, demos, concert performances and recording session outtakes that the Texas musician had amassed during the years. Found so far: Apparent outtakes from the Texas Playboys’ famed Tiffany transcriptions; bits by Texas fiddlers Cliff Bruner and J.R. Chatwell as well as the Playboys’ Tommy Duncan, Joe Holley and Eldon Shamblin; and musical ideas that never turned into recorded songs. While both Wills and Gimble were known for calling out band members for solos during performances, some of the tapes don’t have any documentation of who’s performing. For the Gimble family, an upcoming celebration of their father’s life and music June 7 at Luckenbach demands more immediate attention. Though it will take some funding to finish the tapes’ transfer, Dick is steering offers of memorials to two subjects closer to Johnny’s heart; the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, which helps provide affordable health coverage for musicians, and MCC’s Johnny Gimble Scholarship Fund. “(The tapes) are packed away until October,” said Dick. But the first and crucial step in the project, saving the tapes and moving their contents to longer-lasting media, has started, and both he and Anastasio are breathing more easily...more