Ten years ago today, on 30 August 2016, veteran Nashville fiddler Hoot Hester died of cancer at the age of 65. Over a four-decade career, Hester became a fixture of the country and bluegrass music scene, backing artists ranging from Earl Scruggs to Ray Charles, co-founding the Western swing group the Time Jumpers, and serving 14 years in the Grand Ole Opry's staff band. His death marked the loss of one of Nashville's most versatile and widely respected session musicians.

Born Hubert Duane "Hoot" Hester on 13 August 1951 near Louisville, Kentucky, he came from a musical family and had mastered fiddle and piano by the age of nine. After moving to Nashville in the early 1970s, he worked with acts including The Whites, Mel Tillis, Jerry Reed and Donna Fargo, before turning to studio work in 1980 for artists such as Alabama, Randy Travis, Bill Monroe and Conway Twitty. He co-founded The Time Jumpers with bassist Dennis Crouch in 1997 (a group Vince Gill later joined between 2010 and 2020), joined the Opry's staff band in 2000, and after leaving in 2014 continued performing with his daughter, Rachel Hester.