Tunes from Lotus Dickey

Posted on November 27, 2013 by Paul Tyler

Lotus Dickey CD Release Celebration
Sunday, December 1, 7pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)
$15 at the door for a concert, followed by a session of tunes

Music at the celebration provided by Dickey’s Disciples.

Lotus Dickey & the Sugar Hill Serenaders

1984 Disciples – aka Sugar Hill Serenaders
in front of Lotus’s cabin on Grease Gravy Hill

Lotus Dickey & Friends at Fermilab barn dance

1989 Disciples – aka & Friends
at the Fermilab Barn Dance
(click for full photo)

Here are some tunes recorded in 1989 for the album that has recently been reissued on Vigortone Records. The CD will be on sale at the Fiddle Club of the World meeting (more info here).

Oyster River Hornpipe

Kiss Waltz

Holiness Piece

The following recordings are from 1986. The quality is not as good as the recordings on the CD. But Lotus was playing a bit stronger at the time. The first two tunes, but not the waltz, can be heard on the CD.

Porter

Little Bess

Albert Dougherty D Waltz #2 (guitar; in A dorian, aka 1 sharp)

Complete and corrected notation is here.
Complete and corrected ABC notation is here.
(Click your pick.)

Dickey’s Disciples (aka the Volo Bogtrotters)
circa 2009 at Breaking Up Thanksgiving

More tunes here.

Paul Tyler -convener
Fiddle Club of the World, Chicago Chapter

Tunes from Stuart Rosenberg

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Paul Tyler

Stuart Rosenberg
Sunday, Oct. 13, 7pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)
$15 at the door for a concert, followed by a session of tunes
>

From his days with the Laketown Buskers in the ’80s, through his years behind the mic of Radio Gumbo in the ’90s, to his current weekly appearances leading the Bagels and Bluegrass jam at Kaufman’s deli, Stuart Rosenberg has been a fixture on the Chicago folk scene. Stuart’s talents range from blues and swing to bluegrass and Klezmer. You can hear a sample at his MySpace page. Make sure you work on the two tunes posted below, and come to Fiddle Club next weekend when Stuart will hold forth with great stories and inspired tunes. As always, we’ll form the chairs into a circle and play some tunes together.

Fiselekh Fiselekh, a Klezmer (aka Jewish) dance tune

Golden Slippers Stuart learned this distinctive version of an American standard from working with Gatemouth Brown.

More Tunes from Vidar Skrede

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Paul Tyler

It’s a Nordic palooza of fun tunes. Vidar Skrede, this month’s featured guest at Fiddle Club of the World sent recordings of three tunes that we can play at the session after his concert this Sunday (9/29) at Seman Violins (4447 Oakton in Skokie).

Here they are, straight and simple, with the slow versions offered up by themselves:

Eg e liten eg

Eg e liten eg slow

Kari Trestakk (fiddle version of Reinlender-see previous post)

Kari Trestakk slow

Vals

Vals slow

For the first batch of tunes from Vidar, click here!

Music notation for most of the tunes is here.
ABC notation is here.
(Click your pick.)

Tunes from Vidar Skrede

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Paul Tyler

Vidar Skrede
Sunday, Sept. 29, 7pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)
$15 at the door for a concert, followed by a session of tunes

(click for another image)

Vidar Skrede

I know this one will be great. I met Vidar Skrede during my visit to Helsinki last fall. He’s a powerhouse of a musician from Haugesand, Norway, now living in Finland. His background is the traditional music from Rogaland (South West of Norway), but he also has a masters degree in Nordic folk music from the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. He is best known from his work with such bands as the Dynamo Band, Geitungen and The Secret Carpet Club. This summer he has toured the Midwest in The Blue and the Blonde, a duo with Jutta Rahmel (from Kardemimmit, a quartet featured at the Chicago World Music Fest).

Vidar is a master of both the hardingfele and the flatfele. The first is the eight-string hardanger fiddle that features four (sometimes five) sympathetic that run under the fingerboard. The second is the flat or regular fiddle. His mastery extends to the guitar and mandolin.

But let the tunes speak for themselves. (More can be found on Vidar’s MySpace.)

Bullaremarschen

Halling frå Lysekil

Reinlender (on guitar; see below for a live version in another key)

Here are a couple of tunes from an incredible session at the Musta Kissa (Black Cat) bar in Helsinki last October. The session was organized by accordionist Tejia Niku, who was a Fiddle Club guest in 2010 with the Polka Chicks. Antti Järvelä (Arto’s cousin) was there with a mandolin. (Antti, any time you want to visit Fiddle Club, just let me know.) Gail Tyler played some banjo uke. I was doing my best to keep up on fiddle as Vidar led the way on guitar.

Johan på Loftet aka John in the Hayloft

Griffenfeld (perhaps named after Peder Griffenfeld)

Reinlender (guitar; in A dorian, aka 1 sharp)

For more great tunes from Vidar, click here!

Music notation for most of the tunes is here.
ABC notation is here.
(Click your pick.)

Fiddlers, guitarists, folk music lovers &c. Don’t miss this one.

Paul Tyler -convener
Fiddle Club of the World, Chicago Chapter

More tunes from Bjärv

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Paul Tyler

Ain’t the interwebs wonderful. Olof Göthlin of Bjärv sent me some tunes last night for our jam session tomorrow. I can get them posted just in time for some of you to start learning them.

Polska From Ekshärad

Marsch från Bohuslän by Bjärv

I really enjoy this march. The recording starts with the jaw harp and then nyckleharpa leading the tune in G. After a guitar interlude, the fiddle takes over, but now the tune is in A.

Notation and ABCs for Marsch från Bohuslän

X:1
T:Marsch från Bohuslän
M:C|
L:1/8
K:G
(3DEF | GGB^c d2dB | GBAF D2(3DEF | G2B2 G2B2- | BcAF D2 ::
D2 | EECE D2D2 | {D}EECE {EF}E2D2-| DEFG AB^cd | BGAF G2 :|
z4 D2 |: EECE D2D2 | {D}EECE {EF}E2D2-| DEFG AB^cd | BGAF G2 :|

If you want notation for the key of A, copy the whole Abc block and paste it into the box at this Abc Converter. Chose the Transpose option, up 2 semitones, and click submit.

Paul Tyler, convener

Some Tunes from Bjärv

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Paul Tyler

Swedish tunes with Bjärv
Monday, June 24, 7pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)

Here are a couple of tunes to give you an idea of the fine music to come on Monday evening.

Olof Göthlin here plays a duet with an unidentified clarinetist. The title translates as ‘Calle’s final composition.’ The Calle in question may be Calle Lindström, an early Swedish comic singer who is perhaps best remembered for his 1908 recording of Chikago. Yes, it is a song about our fair city, and the adventures of Lasse, an immigrant from Ossebo, Sweden. (Calle Lindström, by the way, never set foot in Chicago, or even the USA.)

Calles sista komposition

Olof Göthlin

Calle Lindström
(Learn about Chikago, the song )

And here’s a piece from the band. The song is a fun one taught at the Old Town School by Mary Allsopp a couple of years ago at a World Music Wednesday workshop. Mary is the leader of the Chicago Spelmanslag, a group of Swedish players. Another tune or two are woven into the setting.

Vi Ska Ut Och Ga (Up and Out We Go)

Bjärv will give us a bit of a concert and teach us a tune or two.
$15 donation, payable at the door – goes to the musicians

Fiddle Club meetings at Seman Violins are BYOB. Munchies will be provided.

Tunes from Kirk Sutphin

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Paul Tyler

Kirk Sutphin & Bertram Levy
Banjos, Bows and Bellows
Sunday, March 10, 2013, 6:30pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)
B.Y.O.B. Snacks will be provided.

Fiddler Kirk Sutphin, from Walkertown, North Carolina, joins with banjoist and concertinist Bertram Levy for a unique presentation of old-time tunes from the Blue Ridge Mountains. For more background, visit this earlier Fiddle Club post, or Bertram Levy’s website.

All fiddlers and friends of fiddlers, including players of other instruments, are welcome. $15 admission. Click here to register.

Kirk and Bertram will present a short concert, followed by a jam session. Here’s some of the tunes we’ll play in the session. (Some teaching may happen.)

The Rout learned from Burt Edwards

The Rout slower

Jump Jim Crow learned from Alan Jabbour

Jump Jim Crow slow

Paddy on the Turnpike learned from a recording of Frank Jenkins

Paddy on the Turnpike slower

Paul Tyler, convener

Tune of the Week for July 2, 2012

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Paul Tyler

A classic rag, as played by Les Raber of Hastings, Michigan.
Check out his cool Michigan Fiddler trading card.
Collect the whole set.

NB Twenty-four Tunes of the Week have been posted through the first half of 2012. Since the second half of the year just started, I’ve started the numbering back at 1.

Paul Tyler, convener

Clarke Buehling Tunes

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Paul Tyler

Clarke Buehling will guest at Fiddle Club on Sunday, July 8 at 6:30 pm in the backroom of the Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln). Click here to register for a single meeting ($15 ), or click here for a year-long subscription ($60) to all Fiddle Club events..

Clarke sent us written music for two tunes.

Here’s how they sound . . .

Peaceful Henry

Peaceful Henry slow

Spanish Galopade

Spanish Galopade slow

As played by . . .
Paul Tyler, convener

Tune of the Week for June 18, 2012

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Paul Tyler

It’s Battle Ground week! That is, time for the Indiana Fiddlers Gathering in lovely Battle Ground, Indiana, just a couple hours out of Chicago, just off interstate 65. This years festival will be the 40th. I missed the first four, but have only missed two since. Lots of folks look forward to reuniting for a weekend of tunes and friendship. Plus there are concerts on the stage, workshops under the trees and an old-time square dance on Saturday with music by the Bum Ditty Barn Dance Band.

I think the year was 1979 when the Gathering was treated to the music of the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers, a family band from Tennessee. Their tunes were great. Their spirit infectious. And they hawked their most recent album in LP and 8-track tape formats! (Now available on the CD Down Home.) Banjoists take note of the distinctive left-hand style in the picture below. The Easy Street String Band, an outfit from Bloomington, was inspired by a Hilltoppers original, and included it on their LP Money in Both Pockets. (Originally released on the Prairie Schooner label out of St. Louis, it is now available as a CD from Yodel A-Hee.)

Bill & Joe Birchfield
of the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers
Photo by Al Smitley
(click photo to enlarge)

Easy Street String Band
On the right is Frank Hall, who was the source for an earlier Tune of the Week.

Paul Tyler, convener

Fiddle Club of the World

(Chicago Chapter)

Category Archives: Tunes

Tunes from Lotus Dickey

Tunes from Stuart Rosenberg

More Tunes from Vidar Skrede

Tunes from Vidar Skrede

More tunes from Bjärv

Some Tunes from Bjärv

Tunes from Kirk Sutphin

Tune of the Week for July 2, 2012

Clarke Buehling Tunes

Tune of the Week for June 18, 2012