Other Players, Other Sounds

It's amazing to me how different people can take the same set of notes and the same instruments and make a tune sound so different. I was reminded of this the last few days while playing with different sets of musicians.

The first was last Saturday evening. I got hired to play fiddle for a barn dance in The Middle Of Nowhere, Illinois with a band I've never played with before. Their regular fiddler couldn't make it and their mandolin player is a friend of mine. It was a fun time! The band is a little more bluegrass-y than I usually play with and their approach to the tunes is different. I think we sounded fine, and the people at the dance (both those who danced and those who sat by the bonfire outside) seemed to like the music just fine. But some tunes I've played for years came out sounding pretty interesting with this combination of players. One of the things that struck me was the guitar playing. This guitarist wasn't really familiar with most of the tunes and is much more used to playing flatpick leads and solos based on scales and chord patterns than he is with just chunking the rhythm behind a fiddle for square and contra dancers. Still, his playing was rhytmically solid though pretty much unornamented.

Then last night, Dan and I played with our friend Brandt; running through some of the more oddball tunes that we play together. The Hot Baloney Boys have been asked to be the opening act for a band playing at Pop's Blue Moon next Saturday evening (Nov. 10) and Colleen, our regular guitar player can't make it for the gig. So, Brandt has volunteered to sit in with us.

When playing with Brandt, he changes the whole tone of the Baloney Boys. Good rhythm, of course, because he understands the function of the guitar in old-time music. But with Brandt, there's a whole different chordal sensibility than what Colleen brings or what I would play in his place. Definitely not bad, but different. He'll hang on a chord a half a beat or a beat longer than I would expect or he'll try a G-chord where I'd use an E or an E-minor. And his bass runs often go to unexpected places. What's really surprising is how much Dan and my playing changed adapting to the different sounds we were hearing.

Two different guitarists (three if you count Colleen) and each brings a different sort of underpinning to the tunes. How cool is that?

Go See This Play!

When I'm not exercising my creative muscles with music, I do some work with local theater companies. The latest is directing David Hare's Skylight for West End Players. We're a little less than two weeks from opening and, so far, I have to say it's the best thing I've worked on. The script is one I really care about, the actors (Renee Sevier0Monsey, Robert Ashton, & Jared Nell) are doing some of the best work I've ever seen from them. I think we're headed in the right direction with this piece, and I couldn't be happier with the production overall.

The play is funny, sad, romantic, sexy, and disturbing all at the same time.

Directing this, I've seen it a couple of dozen times now and haven't been bored yet! What more could you want?

I really hope that all of my friends and those of you who read this and are in the St. Louis area will come out and see this.

BTW: Thanks to Marjorie Williamson for the great graphic above.

You Need This!

I was lucky enough to run into Jim Nelson while listening to Jim and Kim Lansford at Sqwires a couple of Sundays ago and found out about the recently released Bear Family CD focusing on Cousin Emmy that he was instrumental (along with Mike Seeger) in getting put together and released.

Some of you know Jim as a teacher and board member of the Folk School of St. Louis. Others know him as one of the best old-time guitarists in the country and a member of the Ill-Mo Boys string band or for his contributions to the Old-Time Herald magazine. And, of course, Jim's just a heckuva nice guy.

But he’s also a well respected folklorist and music historian. In this case, Jim contributed to the excellent and extensive liner notes in this package as well as having unearthed some of the radio recordings that make up a good portion of this CD.

There’s some information on Cousin Emmy here that I’d known before. My granddad was a country fiddler and guitarist in the St. Louis and Southern Illinois areas and had introduced me to Emmy’s music many years ago. There’s also a St. Louis connection since Emmy was based in the St. Louis area for a number of years and had a daily radio program on KMOX before it went to an all talk format. Even so, much of the biographical information on her contained in Jim’s fine essay was brand new to me.

The music here is great stuff. Thirty-eight tracks in all with Emmy on banjo (she taught Grandpa Jones to play claw-hammer), guitar, fiddle, and harmonica with vocals. Tracks include “Bowling Green”, “Johnny Booker”, “Chilly Scenes of Winter”, “Ruby”, “Milk Cow Blues”, “Free Little Bird”, “Groundhog” and many others. The sound has been remastered from the older recordings and radio acetates and is clear and remarkably free of extraneous noise.

Altogether, this is an impressive package and I can’t recommend it highly enough for fans of old-time music, early country, or Cousin Emmy.

I understand that Jim has a few copies for sale. Ask him about it next time you see him.

Current Tunes

Here's a short list of the tunes I've been working on getting into my fingers the last week or so.

• Old Mother Flannigan (a squared up version that can be played for dancers)
• Jump In The Well My Pretty Little Miss
• Bonaparte's March
• Hobart's Transformation
• John Short's Tune
• Jenny Lind Polka

Lately I've been in a polka kind of mood, which accounts for the last two titles. If this keeps up, I imagine it'll be "Red Hills Polka" next.

I've also promised some dulcimer players that I'll write out the tablature for "Bonaparte's March" for them. So, I guess I'd better find time for that in the next little while.

A Day At The Garlic Fair

I had a real nice time this last Saturday playing with some friends at the Gateway Greening
garden headquarters. They had their Garlic Day and Harvest Fair and wanted some Old-Time music for the occasion. We got together a pickup group for the occasion: Bill Stewart and myself on fiddle, Bob Clark and Uncle Dan’l Higgins on banjo, and Alice S. on guitar. The tunes were pretty good, the weather was beautiful and the setting couldn’t have been better.

These are such great folks to play with! When Bill and I get a head of steam up, it’s off to the races, buddy! But Bob, Dan and Alice were pretty good natured about it, even if we did strain their strumming arms a little keeping up with the tempos.

They had us play in a covered pavilion in the middle of their couple of acre big community garden. We were surrounded by raised beds of flowers, broccoli, okra, lettuce, cabbage, Italian sage, and lots of other crops. Greens, blues, purples. Really something to see and smell.

And the mix of folks sitting around listening and enjoying was good, too. I have to admit I felt good to have people of all colors, ages and economic rungs; inner city (where the garden is located) and suburban folks too, all sitting together listening to these old tunes. Maybe we’ll get over this ridiculous polarization that our government seems to foster yet with enough good music and good food to help us get through it.

The gardeners also had a table set up so folks could bottle their own herbed/flavored vinegars, which was great fun. I stuffed some garlic cloves, chili peppers, basil and thyme into a jar and covered it with red wine vinegar. Now, I gather I wait for about a month while the alchemy takes place and start using the vinegar to cook with. My mouth is watering already!

Things finished off with a pot luck barbecue and a pie contest. Unfortunately, I was so intent on playing “Squirrel Hunters” for Alice that I missed out on getting a piece of the prize-winning sweet potato pie. The pulled pork and all of the fresh home-made salads were enough to content me, though.

The day was capped for me (as it often is) by an older woman coming over as we were packing up our instruments to go. She said she had moved to St. Louis years ago from rural Alabama, but that our music took her right back there to where she’d grown up. She hadn’t heard that music in years and so much enjoyed it.

Pretty good day, if I must say so myself.