Fiddlers Hall of Fame
Fiddlers Frolics
Former Texas Fiddle Champ
Keith Junot

Cancer battles finally over for Fiddlin’ Keith Junot

  • Kenneth Henneke, one of the founders of the annual Fiddlers Frolics in Hallettsville, poses with Keith Junot shortly after his Hall of Fame induction at the 50th annual Frolics held in 2021. Junot played what becanme the very first Frolics held at Wied Hall when he was just 12, already impressing those gathered with his talents. He clutches a potrait of him as a younger man that Sheridan artist Dennis Pesek painted presented to him at his induction ceremony.
    Kenneth Henneke, one of the founders of the annual Fiddlers Frolics in Hallettsville, poses with Keith Junot shortly after his Hall of Fame induction at the 50th annual Frolics held in 2021. Junot played what becanme the very first Frolics held at Wied Hall when he was just 12, already impressing those gathered with his talents. He clutches a potrait of him as a younger man that Sheridan artist Dennis Pesek painted presented to him at his induction ceremony.
  • Junot shows his appreciation to comments made during his 2021 induction to the Texas Fiddlers Hall of Fame in Hallettsville.
    Junot shows his appreciation to comments made during his 2021 induction to the Texas Fiddlers Hall of Fame in Hallettsville.

    and some of the best fiddlers Texas has ever known with his talents and ultimately allowed him to share the stage with some of the biggest acts around during the more than 50 years he spent on the road as a professional musician, was laid to rest last week in his hometown of El Campo.

    Keith Junot passed away Wednesday, Sept. 6, following a lengthy battle with cancer. He was only 64.

    Born in south Louisiana in the town of Rayne, the “Frog Capital of the World,” Junot grew up around music, and was proud to count among greatest musical influences his father, the late Ed Junot, “The Fiddlin’ Cajun.”

    It was a pride he showed often, too, for he was just 12, in 1971, when he found himself at Wied Hall, impressing some of the best fiddlers Texas has ever produced, gathered there that day for what would become the first-ever Fiddlers Frolics, home to the Texas State Fiddle Championship.

    Just a few short years later, in 1978, Junot graduated from El Campo High School and went to Wharton County Junior College on a full jazz drum scholarship, where he played with his first band, “The Possum Creek Wranglers.”

    Junot would go on to become a regular performer at the annual Hallettsville event, even claiming the Texas state championship title in back-to-back years, as well as several other fiddle titles from towns all over the country along the competition circuit before leaving the contests behind when he became a professional musician.

    He would open for countless acts over the next 47 years, most of which he spent on the road, playing with the likes of Brooks and Dunn, Restless Heart, Montgomery Gentry, Aaron Tippin, Jerry Jeff Walker, John Michael Montgomery, Ronnie Milsap, Reba McEntire and many more.

    Despite those newfound obligations, however—obligations that found him playing thousands of shows and racking up millions of miles all over the world with some of the greatest acts around—Junot made a point of returning to Hallettsville as often as he could to play in Hallettsville’s Frolics most years, even when he spent a full 26 years of his adult life living the Alaskan life.

    In addition to his two Texas state champ titles, Junot also won the Alaska state fiddle championship as well. He was named the 2019 Instrumentalist of the Year, the same year he also got inducted into the Texas Musicians Hall of Fame and the Western Swing Music Society of the Southwest based in Lawton, Oklahoma.

    His many years dedication to the craft and the Hallettsville show earned him an induction into the Texas Fiddlers Hall of Fame in 2021, as part of the 50th annual Fiddlers Frolics, which this writer had the honor of attending and photographing.

    Junot got to see his own father earn that same honor posthumously, in 1988, a year after his dad passed away.

    Junot said he came to appreciate and be influenced by many other fine fiddlers through the years, listing several Texas greats, like Doug Kershaw, Johnny Gimble, Cliff Bruner, Dale Morris, Trey Morris, and Frenchie Burke, who Junot often said had gifted him one of the greatest moments of his own lifetime when he got called up for a command performance at Flores Country Store in Helotes during Burke’s celebration of life memorial.

    Despite his illustrious career, and many long hours sharing the spotlight with so many musical legends, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more humble or unassuming person in the room when we first crossed paths with him in 2019. It was one of those things about the man that drew us to him instantly.

    Junot’s funeral service took place Tuesday, Sept. 12, at Triska Funeral Home in El Campo.

    He was carried to his final resting place at Garden of Memories Cemetery by several close friends and fine fiddle players, including Lee Barber, Kevin Barber, Randy Boyd, Chris Howard, Larry Callies and Kenneth Boudreaux.

    He left behind his mother, Patsy Junot, daughter Heather Phillips, two grandchildren, a brother and sister, several nieces and nephews, and many a lonesome song that his bow never got to grace.