GREAT UNCLE FIDDLE CHAMP
Saturday, July 25th, 2009
Great Uncle Noel, Fiddle Champ and member of the National Old Time Fiddlers Hall of Fame.
He retired in 1976 and moved to St. Maries, Idaho, where he joined his brother, Walt, and picked up his fiddle after 40 years and started playing at the St. Marie’s Senior Center. He then joined the Idaho State Old Time Fiddler’s. He was a six-time Idaho State Champion, two-time National Champion, and honored by being inducted into the National Old Time Fiddlers Hall of Fame. He won senior fiddle competitions in Canada, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and California. He placed third in the National Fiddlers’ Contest in Weiser where he competed against 88 contestants.
He learned to play the fiddle by listening to his mother hum the songs when he was five years old. He played by ear. He could listen to a song and then play it. He had a six-piece band by the time he was 10 and played for a local radio station and for local farmhouse dances every Saturday night. By the age of 18 he put the fiddle away and didn’t play again until 1978 when he retired.
Noel Rolland Metzer, 91, of Mountain Home, died Monday, April 10, 2006, at a local hospital.
