Brian Wicklund
Inducted 2024
Brian Wicklund is a bluegrass teacher and fiddle player from Marine On St Croix, Minnesota. He has been playing the violin most of his life and specifically fiddle and bluegrass since his early teens. Brian was born in Kyoto, Japan in 1965, but his family settled in St. Peter, Minnesota in 1970. He began violin lessons at the age of seven. At age nine, his mother brought home a Flatt & Scruggs record to use for a research paper on country music in her anthropology class. Brian instantly fell in love with the sounds of bluegrass. His father was smitten as well, and began teaching himself banjo. The family started going to Minnesota Bluegrass and Old Time Music Association events in the Twin Cities, where Brian connected with other fiddlers who kindly encouraged and informally taught him. In 1977, Brian and his father connected with several Mankato, Minnesota area musicians, and started a regular weekly jam session. That jam session turned into a band called River Basin Bluegrass that played many bars and clubs in Southern Minnesota in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A small prairie town in Minnesota was not necessarily an obvious place to grow up for a young bluegrass fiddle player, but, a few years of Suzuki violin training, a good ear, and perseverance helped Brian Wicklund to parse out those tricky licks on fiddle records, and led him on a path to contest winnings and internationally touring bands. In 1980, Brian connected with Mankato native and mandolinist Matt Thompson and formed a band called Bluegrass Connection with Craig, John, and Fay Owens from Houston, Minnesota. The group played gigs mostly in Southern Minnesota, and featured songs and arrangements inspired by Jim and Jesse McReynolds, The Stanley Brothers, and Bill Monroe. They won first place at The Minnesota State Fair talent contest that year, and second place at Bill Monroe’s renowned Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival in Indiana. After graduating from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, he was asked to join Minnesota’s premier bluegrass band, Stoney Lonesome. His seven-year tenure with the band included hundreds of performances across the United States, Canada, and Japan. They performed several times on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, and released four albums. From 1995 to 2010, Brian toured as a sideman with The Judith Edelman Band, The Kathy Kallick Band, The Chris Stuart Band, and Lorie Line and her Pop Chamber Orchestra. In 2010, he began to focus on songwriting and founded his own progressive bluegrass band, The Barley Jacks, featuring his original music. They have toured throughout the Midwest and released three albums. With a Degree in Education and a knack for making difficult concepts simple, it was natural that he should become a master fiddle teacher. The waiting list for people wanting to learn from Brian grew to years. Brian’s Bachelor Degree in Elementary Education was fundamental in his ability to create fiddle instructional curriculum. After college, he began teaching private lessons, and soon realized that there wasn’t a comprehensive program to teach the fiddle. In 1998, he authored The American Fiddle Method, and published seven books in the series with Mel Bay Publications. His writings have been among the publisher’s best-selling books with over 100,000 copies sold. It can be argued that he has taught more people to play the fiddle than anyone! With a membership to The American Federation of Musicians, students can learn from his video lessons anytime and anywhere. One can also learn from him in person with his online Live Courses, or alongside his hand-picked staff at a Fiddle Pal Camp. Wicklund has been much in-demand as an instructor at the premier fiddle camps, bluegrass camps, and Suzuki Violin Festivals in the United States, Canada, Sweden, and in The United Kingdom. In 2009 he began annually hosting his own music camp in Stillwater, Minnesota called Fiddle Pal Camp hiring many top fiddle, mandolin, and guitar teachers from across the country. In 2019, he launched americanfiddlemethod.com a subscription-based, online program to learn fiddling for players of all abilities and levels consisting of hundreds of video lessons.Brian lives in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota. He is an avid cross-country skier, both competing in races and volunteer coaching with The Stillwater High School Nordic Ski Team. He also enjoys running, mountain biking, and spending time on the St. Croix River, swimming and canoeing. Brian grows much of his household’s food in a large garden and bow hunts for venison. He has been a volunteer first-responder with The Marine on St. Croix Fire and Rescue Department for years. He is married with three adult children.
