Way back in this discussion, Murray MacLeod mentions Peerie Willie, a Shetlander who taught himself to play guitar listening to Eddie Lang recordings. That I found amazing for a start, since you can hardly hear the guitar on most of those big band recordings (well, the ones I've heard anyway). But to go from nowhere (figuratively speaking, of course - I would not consider Shetland "nowhere") to adapting swing style and chords to traditional fiddling boggles the mind; mine, anyway.

Becky, for a couple of references to Eddie Land, see here and here.