BIOGRAPHY:

Born Alexander Peter Chernywech, Al Cherny is considered to be one of Canada's finest fiddle players of his day. In his youth, he studied violin with Frank Nowak, and in his teenage years he played country music live on CHAT radio in Medicine Hat.

After moving to Ontario, Cherny won the Canadian Old Time Fiddlers' Contest. He won the novelty class for three consecutive years in Shelburne, Ontario, home of North America’s top fiddling contest (1959-61) and the open class in both 1960 and 61. He was the only Canadian in the fourteen-year history of the contest to achieve this distinction. Cherny was a regular performer on CBC TV, first 1963-65 on “Country Hoedown” as well as “The Tommy Hunter Show”, until his death in 1989.

By the early 1970s, Cherny had become a leading studio musician, recording with Gary Buck, Dick Damron, Tommy Hunter and Sylvia Tyson amongst others. Cherny released over ten studio albums and received an RPM Big Country Award for ‘Top Country Instrumentalist’ in 1978.

Al Cherny passed away on August 23, 1989 at the age of 56.