Bob Kogut was born and raised outside of Philadelphia, PA and moved to Lenoir, NC twenty some years ago with his wife, Roberta, and daughter, Emelia. Over the years living here in the Blue Ridge, local people have often asked him “you ain’t from around here are you, boy?”, to which he likes to say, “I am an adopted son of the great state of North Carolina, and this is my home!”
Bob retired as a licensed physical therapist after 45 years to be able to build fiddles full time. His driving passion is to create a violin to have the elusive ultimate tone.
Bob is also active playing in his band, “Down the Hall”, for Contra Dances throughout the Southeast with Christa Kruger, Denise Baxter-Yoder, Suzanne Williams, and Roberta Kogut, who is a Contra Dance Caller.
A good number of professional fiddlers have and perform on Bob’s instruments all over the US and worldwide, including Australia, India, Scandinavia, Holland, England, Nova Scotia, Toronto, and Mexico. As of this time, he has produced 234 fiddles. Bob has been a sponsor of MerleFest for the past 14 years and welcomes people to visit his booth in the Expo tent to try out his fiddles. He has said that his greatest joy in making fiddles is getting to meet the most interesting people; both professional as well as amateur players.
As for the future, Bob states that “as long as people keep want-ing one of my fiddles, I’ll keep building them as long as I am able.”