[fiddle music]
- Eddie Rivers was born Mark Malak
in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.
Very early in life, he fell in with a dynamic style of music
known as Western swing,
an infectious form of jazz-inflected dance music
pioneered by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.
Eddie played with bands all over Wisconsin;
most often with a group called Western Box Turtles.
He was well-primed to play this music
when he was hired by Asleep at the Wheel
in the 1970s.
He was a prized musician because he could play both the saxophone
and the pedal steel guitar.
His prowess with the steel guitar was so strong
that the leader of Asleep at the Wheel
described him as the Man of Steel.
Together with Asleep at the Wheel,
Eddie Rivers helped to introduce this renewed variety of
Western swing to the audiences all over North America.
[fiddle music]