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Benny Sims

Musician · Sevier County, Tennessee
Best known for Fiddle

Benny Sims was a Tennessee fiddler whose 1949–1950 stretch with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs's Foggy Mountain Boys placed him on definitive early bluegrass sides like "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms" before a long second career as a Tri-Cities radio and TV staff musician.

  • Born 1924 in Sevier County, Tennessee; came from a musical family and began playing at age six.
  • Drafted into the U.S. Army Air Corps during WWII; helped sell war bonds and performed on Allied Forces radio broadcasts from Italy.
  • Joined Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs's Foggy Mountain Boys in 1949 as the band's fiddler.
  • Played on more than 25 Flatt & Scruggs recordings in 1949–1950, including "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," "Salty Dog Blues," "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms," "Pike County Breakdown," and "Little Girl in Tennessee."
  • Also recorded and performed with Bill Monroe and Roy Acuff.
  • After leaving Flatt & Scruggs, became a staff musician at WNOX in Knoxville and later at WJHL-TV in Johnson City.
  • Fully retired from professional touring in the early 1960s but remained active locally through fiddle lessons and church music.
  • Honored two months before his death by the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance with the Benny Sims Scholarship Fund at ETSU; died December 23, 1995 in Johnson City, Tennessee.

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