Born in Quantico, Virginia, in 1964, Stuart Duncan spent his childhood on the Camp Pendleton Marine Base in Southern California, where his father was stationed. Folk-musician parents fostered his early interest in music, and by age seven he had taken up the fiddle, soon joining other children in the Pendleton Pickers to perform on base. In 1974 the group won a radio contest that secured them a live appearance on the Grand Ole Opry. Throughout his teens Duncan continued to refine his technique, later enrolling at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas, for focused bluegrass training.
After initial sessions with George Jones and John Prine, he moved to Nashville in 1985 and joined the Nashville Bluegrass Band, making his first appearance with them on the 1986 album Idle Time. He remained a core member through subsequent releases including New Moon Rising (1988), The Boys Are Back in Town (1990), the Grammy-winning Waitin' for the Hard Times to Go (1995), and American Beauty (1998). As a sought-after session fiddler and sideman, Duncan also recorded and toured with Dolly Parton, George Strait, Lyle Lovett, Alan Jackson, John Prine, David Grisman, and Jerry Jeff Walker, among many others.
His debut solo album, Stuart Duncan, arrived in 1992 and included guest contributions from Béla Fleck and Victor Wooten; the project earned a Grammy nomination for Best Bluegrass Album. Over the years he accumulated eight IBMA “Fiddle Player of the Year” awards. Additional credits include work with Doc Watson, Ricky Skaggs, Alison Krauss, and Del McCoury, as well as participation on the Grammy-winning O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack alongside Nashville Bluegrass Band colleague Pat Enright. In 2004 he shared another Grammy with the Nashville Bluegrass Band for Twenty Year Blues.
Duncan’s profile broadened further through the 2011 release The Goat Rodeo Sessions, a collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, and Edgar Meyer that reached number 23 on the Billboard 200, topped both the bluegrass and classical charts, and won Grammys for Best Folk Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. The same ensemble reconvened for Not Our First Goat Rodeo in 2020. Beyond bluegrass, his session work has encompassed dates with Barbra Streisand, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Diana Krall, Panic! at the Disco, Robert Plant, Elvis Costello, Shawn Colvin, and Dwight Yoakam.
