Mack Magaha, the South Carolina-born bluegrass fiddler known as the “Dancing Fiddleman”, is remembered on what would have been his 97th birthday. He became a prominent country-music performer through The Porter Wagoner Show, where his energetic, dance-like playing helped make fiddle music more visible to a national television audience.

Born on 1 August 1929 in Honea Path, Magaha began by playing with Reno and Smiley and co-wrote “I Know You’re Married but I Love You Still”. He joined Porter Wagoner’s Wagonmasters in 1964, later wrote the Wagoner and Dolly Parton hit “We’ll Get Ahead Someday”, which reached number five on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, and performed at Opryland USA during the 1970s. Magaha died of pneumonia in Nashville in 2003, aged 74.