Jonathan Dale Herridge

Seeing as how my mom and dad met in a music store, I was destined to be a musician. Not to mention that my mother sings, plays the piano, and the guitar. And my father plays fiddle, guitar, bass, harmonica, mandolin, banjo, piano, and anything else you put in his hands. I was born in Houston at a hospital in Webster in 1975. I have been around music ever since then. Both my parents taught music and I remember sitting through many lessons while they were teaching.

My dad first started me off on fiddle when I was 2 years old. If I remember correctly, my first song was Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Some of my other first tunes were Bile Them Cabbages Down, Faded Love, and Cajun Fiddle. I had a natural love for music and with the support of my mom and dad, I got pretty good pretty quick.

I was 5 years old when I played in my first fiddle contest. I believe it was at the state contest in Halletsville. I don't ever remember being nervous, but I don't think you know how to be nervous when you're that young. Soon I was playing in quite a few contests every year. Some of them that I remember were Houston Live Stock Show and Rodeo, Almeda Mall, Crocket, and Winnie. I had a lot of success at the Almeda Mall and Houston Rodeo contests. I won those in my age division numerous times. I even had to compete against my dad a few times! That was something else.

I played several gigs with my dad while growing up. We did everything from benefits to corporate conventions. There are a few that stick out in my mind more than others. One was a convention in New Orleans right across from the World's Fair. I don't remember thinking much other than, "Wow! The World's Fair is right across the street!" I was just 9 years old at the time. That seemed like a pretty big deal to me.

I remember another time we were supposed to play for a big Celotex convention. If you've ever seen a house being built, chances are you've seen Celotex insulation. Anyway, I got the flu something awful that week and I was too sick to play. The president of Celotex felt bad for me and bought me a bicycle. It was a Schwin Preditor. That sure did help me feel better. I couldn't wait to go ride my new bike. I skinned many a knee and elbow on that thing.

When I was 10 years old, I got an opportunity to be part of a benefit for Spindletop. I got this cool little blue jean vest for doing it. It even landed my mug in the Houston Chronicle along with a mention in an article about the night. The caption said that I "stopped the show at the Spindletop Country Music Extravaganza with [my] Boil Them Cabbages Down breakdown." That was fun back then, but what is even more important to me now is that I got to play with Johnny Gimble that night. At the time I didn't know what a significant man he was. Now he is one of my all time favorite fiddlers and someone who I try to learn everything I can from.

I have many other childhood memories. I could probably go on for pages and pages about those. Among them are narrowly being passed over to do a Hunt's Ketchup commercial, being interviewed a couple of times for news and newspapers for winning fiddle contests, playing fiddle with Chubby Wise, and playing fiddle with Buddy Spicher. Buddy even gave me his bow! Unfortunately it got stolen out of my fiddle case while it was in the orchestra room in junior high. That was devastating. They could have stole any old bow, but they chose that one.

Well, once I got into junior high, I started getting serious about sports. I had played baseball since pee wee. Then I started football, cross country, and track. Once I got into high school, I had to narrow it down to just football and track. I loved sports and it was a lot 'cooler' than playing the fiddle sometimes. I made the varsity track team at J. Frank Dobie in Houston when I was a sophomore. My events were pole vault, 200 meter dash, sprint relay, and mile relay. The following year I also made the varsity football team as the starting strong safety.

I'd have to say I had a really successful high school sports career. I qualified for regionals for pole vault every year and also for the 200, sprint relay, and mile relay over those years. I was chosen Academic All District and Honerable Mention All District strong safety my senior year in football. To this day I miss my high school sports. I'd like to share my favorite football memory with you.

We were playing our cross district rivals, Pasadena. It turned out to be a much closer game than we intended and we found ourselves ahead 7 to 6 with about 3 seconds left in the game. They had the ball on around the 20 yard line...an easy field goal for the win. We call time out to try to ice the kicker. I had blocked a couple of field goals already this season and when we went to the sideline, Coach Thiele looked at me and told me that we needed to get this one. I remember being completely focused. I was hearing everything he said, but I wasn't hearing it from within. It was like I was watching the whole thing from somewhere else. Well, it comes time to line up and I was really, really intense. I couldn't hear a thing. The ball snapped and I darted in and dove. In mid-air I felt the ball brush against my right finger tips. Once I landed and rolled a couple of times, I looked up just in time to see the ball fall short of the field goal and time expire. We won! I didn't know what to do. I still don't remember hearing much. I just started running towards our sideline jumping and screaming. I was met half way by the whole team and ended up at the bottom of the biggest dogpile you could imagine. I still get chills everytime I think of this. That was the most incredible feeling. Hero of the week.

Well, graduation time came and I had been 'offered' a spot on the track team at the University of Texas in Austin. I say 'offered' because to the NCAA I was a walk on because I had been unofficially recruited by a former assistant coach. Nothing illegal, just kind of weird in the technical notation. As you could imagine I was very excited about this. I was going to a big college to play sports. Plus it was a great school and even better it was the University of Texas. I was only mediocre in college. My events were pole vault and I dabbed in the decathlon too. I found myself working two jobs, going to school full time, and running track. It only took 3 years for me to be completely burned out of everything. Looking back, I was crazy to think I could handle all of that. But I was just trying to make ends meet. I am only about 24 hours away from a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from UT. I plan on finishing someday soon.

During the time of my glory days in sports I dropped out of orchestra. I lasted through my junior year in high school. But from about then until late in my freshman year in college I don't think I picked up my fiddle more than maybe twice. It wasn't until about 1995 that I really started practicing a lot again. While growing up, people would always tell me to never stop playing the fiddle because I would regret it. I have to admit I was just a little burnt out on it. But after I picked it back up I all of a sudden came to a realization. Music is the only thing that I have ever really loved with all my heart. I found a deep, burning passion inside myself that is almost undescribable.

I can't get enough of playing the fiddle. I can't get enough playing music. I am so passionate about it that it hurts. Hurts in a good way though. I could kick myself for ever putting it down. I think about where I could be if I had had this realization in 1993 when I stopped playing. It was a little over two years that I didn't hardly even look at the thing. Much less practice and keep playing with bands like I had done in high school.

I finally went back to Halletsville for the first time in about 12 years. We had stopped going when I was playing summer baseball. It was kind of like a homecoming. I had to introduce myself to everybody that had known me as a kid. They were surprised to see me and how much I had grown up. I was back. I am no where near as good as the kids my age or even the 16 and 17 year olds when it comes to those old fiddle tunes. Those take a lot of practice and I haven't done all my woodshedding on those like I would like to. The important thing though was that I was there and I played and I had fun.

In 1999 I got hooked up with a local dance hall band named Cheyenne. We played top 40 country, rock, and pop music. At one point we were one of the hottest bands in Central Texas. We played clubs, dance halls, festivals, fairs, weddings, parties, special events, etc. That was a good gig to help me get some chops back. I left the band in September of 2001.