Bob Boatright fiddler with Texas Playboys
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By MELODY McDONALDm...@star-telegram.com
When Bobby Lynn Boatright was a boy, his daddy told him to learn math
and play music.
He didn’t disappoint.
Not only did Mr. Boatright become a respected college math professor,
but he played all over the world as a fiddler for the Texas Playboys,
the current edition of the renowned Western-swing band.
"Bob was always a high academic achiever," said Horace Groff, a
retired Grayson County judge and Mr. Boatright’s childhood friend. "He
was smarter than the rest of us.
"He took up music at 8 or 10 and devoted a lot of energy to that. I
could remember him sitting on the porch, hours at a time, practicing
the fiddle. He was a perfectionist."
Mr. Boatright died Sunday of cancer. He was 69.
Daddy’s boy
Mr. Boatright was born Sept. 30, 1939, in Denison. Like most families
in town, his parents worked at the nearby textile mill. His father
didn’t have a formal education, but he played bass and taught himself
to crunch numbers.
He passed his interests on to his son.
"He started taking lessons when he was 10 years old on the fiddle,"
said Mr. Boatright’s wife, Linda. "That is what his daddy wanted him
to play. He never bucked his daddy. He did what his daddy told him
to."
Mr. Boatright later moved to Wichita Falls, where he majored in math
and physics at Midwestern State University. He played the fiddle on
the side.
He met his wife in 1960 while playing with a band at a barn dance.
"My mother went to dance there, and I came by to get her," Linda
Boatright recalled. "He got down off of the bandstand and asked me to
dance with him. Everyone almost passed out because he was so shy."
After Mr. Boatright graduated from college, he worked as a math
teacher at a high school, Cameron University in Lawton, Okla., and at
a junior college in Gainesville. Along the way, he also earned two
masters degrees, his wife said.
Eventually, the family — they had two daughters — settled in
Mansfield, she said. Mr. Boatright taught physics and math at Cedar
Hill High School and later at Weatherford Junior College.
Playboys
Mr. Boatright played the fiddle around Fort Worth at nights and on
weekends. He met other musicians, made connections and was hired to
play with the Texas Playboys, founded in the 1930s by the legendary
Bob Wills.
"He was the most reliable, sober musician in the group," said Leon
Rausch, a leader of the Playboys who had known Mr. Boatright since the
early 1970s. "He was my right-hand man, and it’s going to be awfully
hard to replace him."
The band is going to Washington next month to perform at the Texas
State Society’s Black Tie & Boots Ball on the night before President-
elect Barack Obama’s inauguration. Mr. Boatright had hoped to be able
to drive to Washington to play, but his doctor told him he could not,
Rausch said.
Linda Boatright recalled traveling with her husband to Switzerland.
They saw country music star George Strait while the band played at the
Austin City Limits musical festival. He also played at the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, among many other places.
Mr. Boatright never let the fame go to his head, she said.
"He said it was a job and he enjoyed it, but he never was that way,"
Linda Boatright said. "In the pictures, he is always standing in the
back."
It was a good life, she said, but difficult.
"He would come in from the road on Sunday, and have to get up and go
to school the next day," she said, chuckling.
Other survivors include daughters Sherri Barnett of Hurst and Laura
Chandler of Fort Worth.
Star-Telegram correspondent Andrew Chavez contributed to this report.