FiddleBop's logo

Former FiddleBopper: Martin Crowder

Martin Crowder played in the first version of FiddleBop, which disbanded in December 2017. Read the writeup below to learn about Martin's role in FiddleBop-that-was...

Martin, looking cool with his guitar Martin Crowder playing his guitar

Martin Crowder joined FiddleBop in 2011. And what a find!

Martin's speciality is music from the Great American Songbook genre, but he can turn his hand to almost any style. He started playing guitar whilst a mere sprog (that means "youth" or "stripling", in case you didn't know) then at college in various pop/blues/jazz groups. He continued for many years afterwards, and played in venues throughout the UK as a duo with his wife Pat. A chance encounter with Dave and Jo at a local jazz jam led to Martin (after some contractual wrangling) joining FiddleBop.

Martin played steel-string acoustic guitar with FiddleBop. He also played banjo and sang. And all that musical experience showed: his style being confident and mature, but still exploring new musical frontiers. Martin's smooth-but-fiery guitar licks, soaring over FiddleBop's smoking rhythms, were a major part of the band's unique sound. Especially when Martin and Dave alternated solos, each trying to outdo the other!

And while no-one in the first version of FiddleBop was po-faced and overly serious (for long, anyway), Martin was our stand-out, humour-wise. His store of jokes approached the epic and legendary. And Martin's sense of humour was irrepressible, even in his guitar playing. He delighted in on-the-fly and off-the-wall musical quotes. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in the midst of "Lambeth Walk", anyone?

FiddleBop kept Martin busy, but he also did (and still does) solo gigs under the name of Pasadena Swing.

Gypsy jazz re-imagined!