When Disney remade made this classic story, they wanted to include the historical fact that Davy Crockett was a fiddle player. Crockett would actually play a fiddle tune as part of his stump speech as he was campaigning to become US Congressman for the state of Tennessee.

Diary accounts of Mexican soldiers at the Alamo told that on the last day of the siege Crockett stood on the wall of the Alamo and played fiddle along to the Mexican drum and bugle band as they played the song "Deguello," the military bugle call for "take no prisoners." This was Santa Anna's twisted genius of using psychological warfare through music to tell those in the Alamo that they would all die, and Crockett's defiant response by fiddling along.

Craig was called upon to work with composer Carter Burwell to write and record what Crockett's fiddling would have sounded like. Crockett's parents were from Ireland, and so this style was incorporated into the performance.

Craig then worked with actor Billy Bob Thorton to teach him to play the fiddle part for the film. This task included giving Thorton lessons in Beverly Hills, and then continuing to work with him on the set throughout the filming in Texas. One of Craig's antique folk violins was used in the filming. In the night scene just before the final attack, Crockett sits by himself plucking the fiddle. During the filming Craig's violin was accidentally stepped on and broken. The fiddle was rushed off and repaired, but the incident gave director John Lee Hancock the idea to have Crockett's beloved violin stepped on by a Mexican soldier during the final attack. A stunt double fiddle was used for the actual filming.

Click here to see the Deguello Scene.

Here is a solo guitar piece of Craig's that was used in the film.

Smoke Guitar

The Alamo