[fiddle music]

- Eddie Rivers
was born Mark Malak

in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.

Very early in life, he fell
in with a dynamic style of music

known as Western swing,

an infectious form
of jazz-inflected dance music

pioneered by Bob Wills
and his Texas Playboys.

Eddie played with bands
all over Wisconsin;

most often with a group
called Western Box Turtles.

He was well-primed
to play this music

when he was hired
by Asleep at the Wheel

in the 1970s.

He was a prized musician because
he could play both the saxophone

and the pedal steel guitar.

His prowess with the steel
guitar was so strong

that the leader of
Asleep at the Wheel

described him as
the Man of Steel.

Together with
Asleep at the Wheel,

Eddie Rivers helped to introduce
this renewed variety of

Western swing to the audiences
all over North America.

[fiddle music]