Kenny Baker, bluegrass fiddler...

...for over 25 years with Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys, died at age 85:

Mr. Baker, who recorded more than 230 songs with Monroe between 1968 and 1984, his longest uninterrupted stint with the Blue Grass Boys, played with a melodic long-bow style that reflected his enthusiasm for Texas swing and jazz, especially that of the French violinist Stéphane Grappelli.

He was one of the first fiddlers to introduce exotic stylistic elements into bluegrass, which he once called “the hillbilly version of jazz.”