Raised in Nashville, in a house that would later serve as an office for Atlantic Records, Jerry Rivers took up the fiddle as a teenager and was, by the mid-1940s, playing it semi- professionally whilst working during the day as a salesman for an electronic components company.
Although Hank had performed with groups from the mid-1930s on, it was only following his successful early appearances on the Grand Ole Opry in 1949 that he began to see the merits of a permanent backing band.
Later, encouraged by his friend, Opry guitarist Jack Boles, he had second thoughts and headed for the radio station WSM where he found his future boss at the shoe-shine stand.
At the suggestion of Williams' mentor, the producer and publisher Fred Rose, he adopted a characteristic double-stop style of bowing: playing the melody and harmony simultaneously on two strings.
In 1952, tired of Williams' constant drinking and unreliability, the Drifting Cowboys started backing other big-name artists such as Faron Young and Ray Price.
In 1976, the Drifting Cowboys reformed for a series of radio shows with the country comic Whitey Ford and enjoyed renewed popularity, especially on the Opry stage and in Britain where they performed at the Wembley Festival.
That they largely stuck with the most troubled and behaviorally erratic figure in the genre's history is a tribute not only to their patience but also to the loyalty they felt towards the man they knew as "Bones".