Red Herron

Red Herron was a hillbilly-style fiddler who performed with numerous country outfits throughout the west and midwest USA from the mid-1940s to the 1960s. Born Fred Herron, he adopted the performance nickname "Red Herron" or "Fiddlin' Red Herron". Throughout his career, Herron would use his legal name (Fred Herron) for copyrights and rarely in credits. The performance nicknames were used with more consistency for credits and performer billing, and he signed himself as "Fiddlin' Red Herron" for autographs. Herron's early musical performances were with Ernest Tubb And His Texas Troubadours. He recorded primarily on the King Records (3) label, and appeared alongside Tubb in "Hollywood Barn Dance" (a musical film released by Screen Guild on 21 June 1947). Shortly after the film was released, Herron decided to go solo. Failing to find significant success, Herron soon joined Cowboy Copas as a backup performer and then moved to Wichita Falls, Texas where he worked for a local radio station. By March of 1951, Billboard reported that Herron had hit a slump and was now working for a gas station in Cleveland. Performing sporadically, Herron released a number of singles in 1951 under King's Federal (5) sublabel, and in 1952 he joined Dick Bills as one of the Sandia Mountain Boys. For two years they performed on Radio KOB in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1954 Herron joined Pee Wee King & His Band where he toured for nearly two years and then in late 1955 he joined Jimmie Skinner's All Star Jamboree. In January 1959 Herron joined Frank Evans And His Top Notchers, and by the end of the year he had quit to join Ernie Lee's band.