Tag Archives: midwestern fiddle

Meetings & Guests for Fall 2011

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All events happen at the
Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln)

You can now join Fiddle Club of the World for $60 yearly dues. This allows you to 1) support our effort to bring notable fiddlers to the Old Town School for friendly and up close interactions with our local players, 2) save up to 50% off of single meeting dues, and 3) get a cool Fiddle Club card with your name and renewal date inscribed. You don’t have to be a fiddler to join or attend. Everyone is welcome.

Lynn Frederick with Fred Campeau
Sunday, October 23, 6:30 – Old-Time
Lynn Frederick
A Midwestern mainstay of old-time music,* Lynn Frederick, a native of Indiana now living in Ohio, played with the Rhythm Gorillas in the ’80s and the Red Mules String Band in the ’90s. From Red Mules fiddler, the late Jeff Goerhing, Lynn learned the half dozen Buckeye tunes he will share with Fiddle Club (watch for a forthcoming “Tunes” post). A multi-instrumentalist, singer and dance caller, Lynn will also give us a few of the great old songs in his repertoire.This Fiddle Club will feature Lynn paired up with Fred Campeau, of Volo Bogtrotters fame. They make up half of the Knock Knock Hoosiers that have performed annually at a festival in Nappanee, Indiana for the better part of three decades. Songs and tunes don’t get much older or timelier than this.

Or is he a mainstay of Midwestern old-time?

Go here for tunes from Lynn Frederick. Learn some or all. We’ll play them together after Lynn’s program.

Square & Ceilidh Dance workshop
Sunday, November 20, 6:30 – dance band practice** dancers welcome

Michi Regier with Peasants Abroad
Sunday, December 11, 6:30p – Ukrainian &c.
Michi Regier
Michi Regier started out with classical violin lessons (lessons that were well-earned), but soon went off in search of Gypsy fiddling on paths that took her into the worlds of Mariachi bands and renaissance fairs. Among other gems, Michi will perform her “Fiddle Tree” travelogue in fiddle, English and Ukrainian, highlighting the musical folklore of the Ukraine, which she studied first-hand in 2003 at the Lysenko Conservatory in L’viv. She also plays with the Milwaukee based Water Street Bridge. Peasants Abroad is the Madison, Wisconsin duo of Ashli Fain on mandolin and percussionist Richard Miller. Both will also demonstrate some dancing to the accompaniment of Michi Regier’s exotic fiddling.

Single dues for a meeting with a featured fiddler are $15. Register here by date.
Or you may choose the yearly dues option for $60.

** To be a Fiddle Club player, come to a Fiddle Club event. There are no single dues for meetings at which we just play tunes, watch films or dance. Come and join us, even if you don’t have a Fiddle Club card. If you decide to register for one, we appreciate your support.

Tunes from Charlie "Possum" Walden

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Press the arrows to listen or right-click the blue title to download and save on your computer.

Shenandoah Valley Waltz
“First heard this from Mr. Virgil Smith of Montgomery City, MO. He learned if from Vee Latty, a renowned fiddler from Fulton, MO, in Callaway County. Latty is what I call one of “The Ancients”, in other words a fiddler who taught the old timers I learned from. This waltz is also a popular Blue Grass song.”


Fever in the South
“This is another Latty tune that I learned from a home recording obtained from Latty’s son, Wayne.”

Vee Latty’s recording of Fever in the South


Quadrille in G
“One of many untitled 6/8 time pieces from the Missouri Valley Region. I learned this from Dwight Lamb and he likely got it from Bob Walters.”

Sunday February 20 at 6:30 pm
Old-time fiddling, Missouri style, in the back room of the Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 N. Lincoln)

Click here to register.

Fiddlers for Winter Nights

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The Chicago Chapter of the Fiddle Club of the World will meet every third Sunday of the month at 6:30 pm at the Atlantic Bar & Grill, 5062 Lincoln

The January 16 meeting is on us. Come on out and try something new.
Dues for the February meeting are $15. You can register for both by clicking here.

Jan. 16: Mary Allsopp with Tim Anderson, Swedish
Mary and Tim delight in sharing the music of Sweden.  These expressive tunes carry overtones of Baroque and Irish music and have a heart of their own.

Mary Allsopp
Mary Allsopp started playing Scandinavian tunes following a trip to Norway, and the music and associated dances quickly became a passion. She’s been performing for over 20 years and and passing the music on in the aural tradition to fiddlers of all ages for nearly that long.  She’s played with several Chicago-based groups, including Chicago Spelmanslag, The South Side Swedes and Pickled Herring.

Tim Anderson

 

 

Tim Anderson became interested in playing Swedish folk music after buying a tin whistle at A Different Strummer in 1992, and finding a CD of Swedish folk-rock. He realized that the tunes on the CD could be played on the whistle, and then thought to try it on guitar. It worked! Tim has played with Chicago Spelmanslag since 2003. He enjoys finding new (and old) artists, tunes and instruments in the genre. Most of the time he plays a guitar tuned to ADADAD.
 
Mary and Tim are leading members of Chicago Spelmanslag.

Click here for some tunes from Mary Allsopp.

Feb. 20: Patt & Possum, Missouri hoedowns & hokum
Charlie Walden aka Possum
Charlie Walden began playing fiddle at age 11 when inspired by players in a fiddler’s contest at the Boone County Fair in his native Missouri. With the generous help and encouragement of older master fiddlers he went on to be recognized as one the best Missouri old-time fiddlers of his day. He has won dozens of local fiddle contests as well as major championships in Missouri, Illinois and West Virginia, and has taught fiddle and guitar to dozens of aspiring players. Intent on preserving and passing on the unique Missouri style and repertoire, Charlie organized the Bethel Youth Fiddle Camp in Bethel, Missouri, and directed camp operations and funding for a decade. He is currently a staff instructor at the Old Town School of Folk Music teaching Western Swing Instrumentals.

Click here for some tunes from Charlie Walden.

Vesta Johnson featured guest for October

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The Fiddle Club of the World will try out a new meeting space on Sunday, October 24 at 6:30 pm when we gather in the back room of the Atlantic Bar & Grill, 5062 N. Lincoln Avenue. There’s a wooden floor and ample space to run a few squares in a square dance. What a great coincidence that our featured guest for October is Vesta Johnson, who in her 80 plus years has played for hundreds of dances in her home state of Missouri.

Vesta Johnson

Vesta played her first dance at age 9 in Linn County, Missouri. She moved to the St. Louis area to raise her family, and in the 1960s, after her kids were grown, she started playing again for contests, dances and fiddle socials. A lot of younger players give credit to Vesta’s patient support and tutelage. One of those younger players, her grandson Steve Hall, will accompany her in Chicago.

Vesta appeared on two seminal anthologies of Missiouri fiddle music, I’m Old But I’m Awfully Tough (from the early 1970s) and Now That’s a Good Tune (from 1989). In the ’90s, she recorded two albums for the Marimac label of Crown Point, Indiana, Down Home Rag and Blue Flame. At a recent appearance at the University of Chicago Folk Festival, she was able to hawk two CDs produced by her grandson, Steve Hall.

Here are some samples of her playing over the years . . .

She Oughta Been a Lady


Old Parnell


Hog House Rag


Click here to register. Dues for this meeting are $15.

Beginning January 1, it will be possible to pay yearly dues and be able to enjoy all Fiddle Club of the World events at a significantly reduced rate. Also, enrolling in a “Fiddleship” allows you to support regular presentations of traditional fiddle music.

Upcoming Fiddle Club of the World meetings:
Nov. 21 – Kenny Stone is the featured guest (meeting to start at 5:30)
Dec. 12 – jam session
Jan. 16 – featured guest to be announced soon
Feb. 20 – featured guest to be announced soon

Paul Tyler, convener
Chicago Chapter

Tunes from Genevieve (Harrison) Koester

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A selection of tunes from Dear Old Illinois (both a place and the life work of Genevieve’s father, Garry Harrison). Gena plays with her dad in the New Mules, a band featured at the Old Town School’s Trad Fest in January 2008. The first of these tunes is from the David McIntosh collection of folksongs from Southern Illinois from the middle of the last century. The next two are tunes Garry collected from downstate fiddlers 30 years ago.

Press the arrows to listen or right-click the blue title to download and save on your computer.

Across the Plains of Illinois “Source version is unaccompanied ballad singing by Ollie Barnard of Cave-in-Rock, IL. . . . I’ll sing all the words when we all get together but it has a nice tune by itself too.”

Across the Plains of Illinois slow


Sally Johnson from “Otis Reynolds of Geff, IL. There are a million versions of Sally Johnson, and most of them are very note-y and embellished. This one is the opposite. :)” (Warning: not the version transcribed in Dear Old Illinois.)

Sally Johnson slow


Who’ll Cut the Britches? from Henry Soper of Mt. Vernon, IL. “The full title given by Mr. Soper was the verse:
Oh boy, who’ll cut the britches?
Daddy cut them out, and mammy sewed the stitches.”

Who’ll Cut the Britches? slow


Genevieve Koester will be the featured guest at the Fiddle Club of the World meeting on Sunday, April 18 at 6:30pm at the Leadway Bar & Gallery (5233 N. Damen) in Chicago. Click here to register.

I’ve been thinking about Lotus Dickey.

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I just found this old photo of the Sugar Hill Serenaders, a band formed in the 1980s around Lotus Dickey to perform at school assemblies for Young Audiences of Indiana.

Sugar Hill Serenaders thumb
Lotus Dickey, Paul Tyler, John Bealle, Teri Klassen
(click to enlarge)

Lotus’ tunes are always good to play. Here’s a couple.

White River Bottoms

Missouri Waltz

Back Side of Albany

Besides Lotus, the only Sugar Hill Serenader heard on these recordings is your humble correspondent, who is trying to follow on guitar on the first two. On the third piece, Lotus is accompanied by Linda Handelsman and Dillon Buston at the 1981 Indiana Fiddlers Gathering in Battle Ground. This trio appeared on an earlier post to this blog with a rendition of Oyster River Hornpipe.

If you want to know more about Lotus, check out the Lotus Dickey Music website maintained by Grey Larson. Lotus was a very fine fiddler. But he also made his mark as a songwriter. I remember him mostly as a sage elder, a keen eye on the world, and a good friend.

Enjoy.

Paul Tyler, convener

Some C Tunes

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In fiddle classes at the Old Town School, we seldom get around to teaching tunes in the key of C. That’s a shame. There are so many good ones. Larry Warren, a gentleman I met on FIDDLE-L, posted a private page of sound clips of C tunes contributed from fellow FIDDLE-L subscribers. Here’s my contribution of a few gems (IMHO) that I don’t think made it to Larry’s page.

Blue Buggy Bounce

I learned this nearly 30 years ago from Hector Phillips, of Petersburg, Indiana. I made this recording ten years ago for a FIDDLE-L compilation CD. Rhys Jones is on guitar. Hector Phillips can be seen and heard in “Tough, Pretty, or Smart: A Portrait of the Patoka Valley Boys,” a film by Dillon Bustin and Richard Kane.

Postuns Jig

Even longer ago, I learned this one from Paul Gifford, who was then living in Ferndale, Michigan. He learned it from Merritt Olsen, from the nearby Detroit suburb of Birmingham. I heard Merritt play once–he also played a button box accordion–and greatly regret that I never went to visit him. Of course, at that time I could barely scratch out an identifiable tune.

Walter Harmon’s Hornpipe in C

And this one I learned in 1979 from Donald Duff of Lizton, Indiana. He learned it from Mr. Harmon, an older local fiddler who helped Mr. Duff get started when he was a kid. Jimmie Campbell of Dolan, Indiana played the tune as well, and called it “Old Bob.” Same name, different tune from one Garry Harrison collected.

Just so the record is straight, I am the fiddler on all these recordings. Any clunkers are mine and mine alone. Enjoy the tunes, and maybe we can play one of two of them at the upcoming open session of the Fiddle Club on July 15.

Paul Tyler, convener

A tune (or two)

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Oyster River Hornpipe

This mp3 is about 6 minutes long. Here’s an abridged mp3 (two times through the tune).
shorter recording

Played by Frank Hall (fiddle), Lena Ullman (banjo) and Paul Tyler (guitar). Recorded October 2007 when Frank and Lena were visiting from Ireland. Frank, a long-time resident of Bloomington, Indiana, learned the tune from Lotus Dickey. Note the chord changes in the B part (Em & B7).

And here’s an example of Lotus playing the tune in a medley with “Weller’s Reel” and “Green Fields of America,” recorded at the Indiana Fiddlers Gathering in 1982, with Dillon Bustin (guitar) and Linda Handelsman (hammered dulcimer).

Oyster River Hornpipe medley

The Fiddlers Gathering (aka Battle Ground) is coming up the last weekend in June.
The Tippecanoe Battlefield in Battle Ground, Indiana is a 2 1/2 hour drive from Chicago.
The setting is a beautiful setting. The folks are friendly. The jam sessions are lively.

Paul Tyler, convener

Ten Strike strikes again!

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When Chirps Smith visited the Fiddle Club of the World, he played a tune called “Ten Strike” that, well, struck a chord. A Club member requested that the tune be posted to this blog. It already has, on the report of the April 20th meeting. It’s still worth taking a closer look at “Ten Strike.” (Here it is again.)

Ten Strike by Chirps Smith

Chirps learned the tune from the playing of Les Raber (1911-2000), a lifelong resident of Michigan. We both heard Les play the tune on numerous occasions. On this example, I am seconding on guitar and Paul Gifford is on hammered dulcimer. It’s February 1998, and we’re getting Les prepared to perform that summer at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Washington. The scene is the cozy living room of Les and Rosemary’s farmhouse outside of Hastings in rural Barry County.

Ten Strike by Les Raber

Properly speaking, the tune is for the 4th figure or change of the Ten Strike quadrille, as printed in Gems of the Ballroom, compiled circa 1890 by Geo. B. McCosh of Dekalb, Illinois. Les also played the tunes for both the 1st and 3rd changes. (In fact you can hear both on this CD: Come Dance With Me . . . Again.)

Ten Strike Quadrille in Gems of the Ballroom
(click to enlarge)

When I first met Les in 1981, Paul Gifford had, at my behest, brought him along from Michigan to Battle Ground to perform at the Indiana Fiddlers Gathering. Les had just acquired a copy of the first violin edition of Gems of the Ballroom, had polished up his music-reading skills, and was working his way through book while sitting under the shade of a tall oak that had witnessed the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, a full century before his birth.

Here’s how, over ten years ago, I wrote down what Les played.

Notation of Les

There is some debate whether Geo. B. McCosh’s “Ten Strike, No. 4” is the source for “Oklahoma Rooster,” a tune associated with old-time fiddler Uncle Dick Hutchison. You can judge for yourself.

Oklahoma Rooster

Paul Tyler, convener
May 14, 2008

Report on April 08 meeting

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Lynn “Chirps” Smith was our featured guest, playing a variety of old time dance tunes native to the Midwestern United States.

Chirps cut his old-time teeth during his college days in Charleston, Illinois, where he played with the Indian Creek Delta Boys. More importantly, following the lead of fiddler Garry Harrison, the “Crik Delters” recorded and learned tunes from scores of senior fiddlers in the southern and eastern reaches of the Prairie State. Several of these tunes showed up in Chirps’ performance at the Leadway Bar & Gallery.

Ten Cents
Joe Wingerter tune
Stella’s Jig
Gallatin Special

He started his set off with a version of “Paddy on the Turnpike,” which may owe something to Harvey “Pappy” Taylor of Effingham. But then again, it may have been closer to the “Paddy on the Handcar” recorded in 1928 by Texas fiddler A.L. “Red” Steeley.

For the last several decades, Chirps has lived in the Chicago area. For much of that time, he played with the Volo Bogtrotters an old-time string band named after a natural feature located a short hop away from Chirps’ home in Grayslake. Representing that period of his life are tunes he learned first-hand from elders elsewhere in the Midwest, including Les “Red” Raber from Michigan, Nile Wilson from Missouri, Dwight “Red” Lamb from Iowa, and Lotus Dickey from Indiana.

Ten Strike
Old Reunion
Old Ladies Pickin’ Chickens
Sweet Bundy

Other pieces he played were learned from lesser known recordings of Nebraska fiddler Bob Walters, and a favorite piece of the Native and Métis fiddlers from Central provinces of Canada.

Bob Walter’s Hornpipe
Red River Jig

Finally, we must note that Chirps is now a resident of Wisconsin. Thus he performed a piece learned from a recording of Leonard Finseth of Mondovi, and a waltz from Madison-area concertinist (I believe he calls a bandoneon), Bruce Bollerud.

Stegen Waltz
Leonard Finseth’s Polka

Around 30 musicians enjoyed the performance and the jam that followed. We played all six of the tunes posted earlier on this blog. Plus a bunch more. A request was made for “Ten Strike,” the Les Raber quadrille piece, to be posted here. The tune is, in fact, the melody to be played for the 4th figure of the Ten Strike quadrille, as printed in Gems of the Ballroom (compiled circa 1890 by Geo. B. McCosh of Dekalb, Illinois). Les learned the tune from the book, which he had just acquired in 1981 when I brought him to perform at the Indiana Fiddlers Gathering in Battle Ground. Here’s the the tune as played by Chirps. It’s in C.


Ten Strike
[audio  http://drdosido.net/fiddleclub/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/ten-strike1.mp3]

The next Fiddle Club of the World meeting is coming up soon, on Saturday, May 10. It will feature the Cajun team of Will & Holly Whedbee.

Paul Tyler, convener