When the fiddle appears in a country song, it is undeniably the loudest and most piercing instrument on the track. It can whine, it can hiss, it can do many things the guitar can and cannot. One might ...

Roy Acuff was synonymous with the fiddle. It was his constant companion, and when he wasn’t playing it on songs like “Night Train to Memphis,” it was in his hand. Or sometimes, balanced on his chin.

Jeff Cook, the founding Alabama guitarist and fiddle player whose fleet-fingered licks helped define country music’s most successful band, would have turned 76 today. Born on August 27, 1949, in Fort ...