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“He’d sit around when he wasn’t working in the grocery store and get a fiddle out and
show me how to play things,”
Sandy recalled of his father.
“I have this gift that he had
where anything that you hear you can duplicate it. You’re quick to learn. I call it a gift.
Not everybody can do this. I learned very quickly.”
On July 4, 1951, both Alvis and
Sandy entered the old time fiddling
contest in Modesto. Sandy was just three
days shy of his eleventh birthday.
“I won
first prize,”
he laughed.
“My dad came
in second. He always ribbed me about
that. He knew he had something in me
with my ability to play the fiddle like a
grown up.”
Soon after, Alvis had professional
photos taken of Sandy and traveled 300
miles south so his son could audition for
Cliffie Stone’s popular ‘Hometown
Jamboree’ TV show in Los Angeles.
“Cliffie took the time to listen to me
play,”
Sandy recalled,
“and he said, ‘I
want you on our TV show this coming
weekend.’ That was my first TV
appearance, and here I am playing the
biggest show in California!”
Sandy Coker’s first publicity photo
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