Back from Springfield & a video

We (the rest of the Mound City Slickers and I) made it back from our road trip to Springfield, MO in the heart of the Ozarks, where we played a dance last night. Had a real good time having Chinese food for dinner and playing for a small, but enthusiastic crowd. Of course, having Debi Harp call the figures for us was a treat! Debi's called for us a couple of times before and we always enjoy working with her.

With as much good fiddling as they have in that part of the state, I can't imagine that the Slickers would be anything special. But they all seemed to enjoy the tunes and the playing. One of the nicest parts of the evening was that they asked for a polka. We don't get a chance to play polkas often at dances, but love to do. So, we gave them "John Short's"

Can't wait to go back in October to play for them again.

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The band has a regular practice on Thursday evenings. Though, to be honest it's never as formal as a "practice" and usually winds up being more like an open session where friends stop by to play a few tunes and have a beer or two. This last Thursday, Jessie Evans and his wife Connie stopped by with Connie's new toy; a little digital flip camera and shot the footage I'm including below. It turned out pretty well, I think.

The players are Lindell Blackford, Mike Banvard, and Bill Stewart on fiddles, Bob Clark on banjo, me on the banjo uke, Roy Farwell on guitar, and Jessie Evans on button accordian. The tunes are an odd version of "Little Sadie" that Lindell got from the late, great Steve Mote, and "Setauket", which we think is an East coast tune that folks around here learned from either Mark Rennard or Mike Banvard. Hope you enjoy!

You Need This!

Ozarks Fiddle Music by Drew Beisswenger and Gordon McCann

This book, published by Mel Bay Publications is really something. Transcriptions of more than three hundred fiddle tunes common to the Ozarks from some eighty fiddlers, some living and some passed on. It also comes with a CD of thirty-seven of he tunes so you can hear what they sound like and what the regional style is made up of. Many of the tunes, like "Fort Smith", "Sugar in the Coffee", and "Chinky Pin" will be familiar to those of us acquainted with Ozark tunes. Many of the titles in this book, like "Around the World on a Dime" and "Hold Old Bald While I Dance" though, were new to me and, I suspect will also be new to you.

The transcriptions of tunes seem clear and accurate. My reading of standard notation is hesitant and clunky at the best of times. But I was able to get through a few of these at a sitting and they all sounded right to me. But as good as the transcriptions seem to be, the accompanying text, attributed as mostly by Mr. Beisswenger, is equally valuable. Each tune has information about where it comes from, alternate titles, and most importantly, source recordings available commercially so those, like myself who are more comfortable learning tunes by ear can find them. Reading the text is almost as entertaining as playing the tunes!

Beisswenger and McCann have done a bang up job on this book. Thanks to Mel Bay Publications for getting it out to the public. Now find a copy of it for yourself and dig in!

I. D. Stamper: Ozarks Dulcimer

If you haven't come across it already, let me point you towards the Digital Library of Appalachia. It's a terrific resource providing online access to the archives of about a dozen special collections of Appalachian College libraries relating to southern and central Appalachian culture. Of special interest to me are the collection of mp3 files of I.D. Stamper playing and talking.

Stamper was a dulcimer player who was born in the Ozarks of Arkansas in 1904 and moved with his family to eastern Kentucky when he was young. His dulcimer playing is just terrific with a drive and energy that one hears in the Appalachian styles, but tempered by the (to my ear) less rhytmic and more melodic playing of the Ozarks. I love his playing and can't get enough of it. I hope you enjoy it, too. As well as the rest of the gold mine of music and information in these archives!