Burleson, Texas
western swing
Dubbed “The Biggest Little Band in the Land,” powerhouse western swing quartet the Western Flyers serve up the irresistibly hot, unmistakably Texas-style sound popularized by fiddle legend Bob Wills in 1930s and ’40s dance halls with an electrifying energy all their own. Featuring a fresh, all-star lineup led by group founder and master of western swing and Texas fiddle Joey McKenzie on rhythm guitar, they are guaranteed to have even the shyest of wallflowers swinging and stomping on the dance floor.
Western swing first emerged from Texas, Oklahoma, and the lower Great Plains in the 1920s, as local bands experimented with new ways to keep their dance hall audiences on their feet all night. It was an amalgamation of the country string band music and old-time fiddle traditions of the Southwest, combined with the “cosmopolitan” big-band jazz of the 1930s. Musicians infused this new dance music with regional flavor, incorporating elements from cowboy tunes, German polka, African American blues, and sounds from the Mexican borderlands. With Bob Wills at the helm, western swing swelled in national popularity through the mid-1940s, its wide-ranging cultural ingredients and sheer danceability contributing to its near-universal appeal.
The Western Flyers were born from Joey McKenzie’s lifelong immersion in western swing and Texas fiddle styles. At 12 years old, he was accompanying locally renowned fiddlers and playing old-time music, jazz, and swing tunes on several different instruments. A three-time World Champion Fiddler, Joey has been one of the most successful competition musicians in the U.S., having won well over 100 contests and dozens of awards. In the early 2000s, he was a driving force in the creation of the wildly popular Quebe Sisters Band—first as their fiddle teacher and then guitarist and music arranger—and it was while touring with them a decade ago that he got the idea for the Western Flyers. Debuting in 2014, the group currently features the dazzling Redd Volkaert—a legendary, Grammy-winning Telecaster master best known for his work with Merle Haggard’s band the Strangers. Recently relocated from Texas to Galax, Virginia, Volkaert is a veritable wizard of a vast spectrum of complex guitar styles and techniques ranging from classic country to rock, jazz, swing, surf, and beyond. Joining them is teen fiddle phenom Ridge Roberts—winner of both the 2019 Grand Master Fiddler Championship in Nashville and 2018 World Fiddle Championships in Crockett, Texas—and rounding out the group is Austin-based bluegrass and jazz bassist Matthew Mefford.
Declared “Best Western Swing Group” at the 2017 Ameripolitan Awards and honored with the Western Music Association’s 2018 Western Swing Album of the Year Award for their debut record Wild Blue Yonder, the Western Flyers “perform with a brilliance and panache that will draw in any fans of traditional American string music” (Bluegrass Today). In the words of Charlie Seemann, executive director emeritus of the Western Folklife Center, “They deliver everything from western swing and jazz to cowboy and country with an infectious energy and virtuosity that will leave you knowing you have just seen and heard the best of the ‘real deal.”