‘Fiddlin’ Doc’ was local country music mainstay
Española chiropractor was frequent S.F. Bandstand player
Funeral services are scheduled Thursday in Santa Fe for Elmer E. Gonzales, better known to New Mexico country music fans as “Fiddlin’ Doc Gonzales,” who died last week at the age of 80.
Betty Gonzales, his wife of 57 years, said he died following a short bout with cancer.
“He died peacefully Thursday surrounded by his wife and family,” she said.
Besides his music, Elmer Gonzales also was known as a chiropractor.
He practiced in Española beginning in 1976 and continued to see patients until recently, family members said.
He was born in Capulin, N.M., in 1936 to Maria and José Oliver Gonzales, the 11th of 12 children.
Music was part of his life from an early age. “He taught himself to play the violin when he was 8 or 9 years old,” Betty Gonzales said. “It was just a God-given talent.”
One of his nieces, Edie Gonzales, said this week that music runs in the Gonzales family. “At family gatherings, everyone would bring an instrument and play,” she said.
After graduating from high school in 1954, Elmer Gonzales joined the Army and became part of Special Services.He was in an Army country band called the Circle A Wranglers. As a Wrangler, Gonzales played with many country music icons, including Faron Young, Roger Miller and Roy Drusky. During those years, before he became “Doc,” Elmer Gonzales was known as “Speedy” Gonzales, his widow said.
In the 1950s, he also played in an Albuquerque country band led by Dick Bills — who probably is best known as the host of a popular 1960s children’s show, The K-Circle-B Ranch. Bills’ band included his nephew, the late Glenn Campbell, who later became a major star.
Betty Gonzales, who worked in Nashville, Tenn., said she believes she saw her future husband play — years before she actually met him — with the Circle A Wranglers at a performance one night at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop in Nashville. The two later were introduced by mutual friends in Illinois while Elmer Gonzales was in college.
After his discharge from the Army, Gonzales kept playing music. But he decided that being a performer out on the road wasn’t the life he wanted. He decided to follow his brother Isidro Gonzales into the chiropractic profession.
He and another brother, Rudy Gonzales, were admitted to the Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa. Elmer Gonzales earned his Doctorate of Chiropractic in 1961.
But he kept playing in local bands. His best-known was called The Orange Blossom Express.
Drummer Wayne Brewster said he first began playing with Gonzales in the late 1970s. “The thing I remember most about him is what a gentleman he was,” Brewster said Monday. “He treated all kinds of people with kindness and respect. He was just a sweet person. And he tolerated me as a drummer all those years.”
Brewster said his last show with Doc Gonzales was a Santa Fe Bandstand show on the Plaza in 2015.
Gonzales was a frequent Bandstand player, Edie Gonzales said, as well as a perennial performer at the Fiesta de Santa Fe until recent years, she said.
For the past 13 years, Gonzales also played with the Albuquerque-based Western-swing band The Curio Cowboys. “I used to introduce him as ‘our national treasure,’ when he’d do a solo,” John Feldman, leader of that band said Tuesday. “Some people thought I was joking, but I wasn’t. It was such a pleasure listening to him.”
Feldman said that earlier this year, before Gonzales began cancer treatments, the old fiddler suggested the band do a version of “September Song,” a song about a man reaching the final part of his life.
“It was so beautiful hearing him playing it knowing he’d reached the September of his years.”
Gonzales also participated in a University of New Mexico country music program called the UNM HonkyTonk Ensemble. The ensemble’s Facebook page recently noted Gonzales’ death and posted photos of him with some of the students.
“Doc was incredibly generous with his time and with our UNM HonkyTonk Ensemble students, where he came each semester to offer master classes, jam with students and offered words of wisdom and encouragement to aspiring country musicians,” the post said.
“He will be deeply missed, but certainly not forgotten by any of us who had the joy of making music with him.”
Besides his widow, Elmer Gonzales is survived by sons Ron Gonzales and Mike Gonzales both of Santa Fe, and Chris Gonzales of Roswell.
He also is survived by his brother Eloy Gonzales and several grandchildren and great grandchildren.
A funeral Mass is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday at St. Anne’s Parish.
The family asks that attendees wear bolo ties if possible.
A celebration of Gonzales’ life will follow at the Fraternal Order of Police, 3300 Calle Maria Luisa.
Burial with full military honors is scheduled for 9:45 a.m. Friday at Santa Fe National Cemetery.
Contact Steve Terrell at 505-9863037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican. com. Read his blog at www. santafenewmexican.com/ roundhouse_roundup.