Gail Rudisill-Johnson was born in Aurora, Illinois to Robert and Gloria Rudisill and grew up in the small farming community of Yorkville, Illinois.  At the age of five, she began taking suzuki violin lessons.

When she was in eighth grade, there was a fiddle contest in her hometown.  She played three tunes that she had learned and won first place.   She made contact with many musicians and in particular a fiddler by the name of Ed Cosner, who became a mentor to her.  She began traveling to Bluegrass Festivals and Fiddle Contests, taking lessons from many different fiddlers, and attending fiddle camps all over America.  

Her freshman year of high school, Gail spent a year performing with an all female bluegrass group, the Wildwood Girls. She then decided to skip her senior year of high school and go straight to college. At this time, she joined the Nashville-based all female bluegrass group Petticoat Junction and started flying to Tennessee every weekend to hit the road with them while at the same time concentrating on her classical violin studies and fiddle competitions. That next year she transferred to Belmont University to study music business. In 1995, Gail graduated cum-laude from Belmont with a bachelor’s degree in Violin Performance and a minor in Music Business.

Shortly thereafter, she started playing fiddle and singing background vocals with Grand Ole Opry star “Whisperin” Bill Anderson. When at home, she started playing on various recording sessions with Bill Anderson, John Conlee, BJ Thomas and several gospel recordings, while teaching violin and fiddle lessons at Shuff’s Music in Franklin, TN.

In 1999, she married session pianist and producer Dirk Johnson. They were blessed with twins Derek Robert and Alexandra Kendall on April 27, 2003. She immediately decided to stay home with the babies, and after 8 years with Anderson, she quit the road. She now teaches around 75 students a week at Shuff’s Music, Madison Campus Elementary, and The Main Stage.

In August of 2003, she started the Wabash River Fiddle Camp and Festival at her parents’ farm is Grayville, which has become a very successful event. Students from all over the United States come to learn from and perform with the best in the business.

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