old time birthdays for July
Kerry Blech
Fiddle Tunes since the first of the month and were
tied up with houseguests the end of June (Joe Thompson
and Bob Carlin). I've been away from a computer that
whole time (and it felt really good).
Enjoy, Kerry
1 Fiddler Joe Brown; Wil Bremer
2 Rich Kirby; Ray Alden; Janette Carter
3 Pop Wagner; Ruth Crawford Seeger
4 Paul Cofer; Charlie Monroe; Stephen Foster
6 Byron Berline
7 Linda Williams
8 Earnest East; Alice Gerrard
9 Molly O'Day; Bobbi Nikles
10 Candy Goldman; Susie Colpetzer Goehring; Rick Ruble; Bill Shull
11 Mark Simos; Blind Lemon Jefferson; Mel Durham
12 Emily Fine
13 Bradley Kincaid; Blanche Stirrat
14 Woody Guthrie; David Mount
15 Cowboy Copas
16 Fred Price; Jerry Mitchell
17 Eldridge Montgomery
18 Ricky Skaggs; Bruce Molsky
20 James T Newberry; JE Mainer; Burk Barbour
21 Ken Maynard; Sara Carter
22 Rodney Freeland; Obed Pickard; Mable Hillary; Tommy Thompson
23 Dock Walsh
25 Rick Good
26 Tom Bledsoe; Ray Offutt
27 Clark Kessinger
28 Sarah Carleton; Phil Levy; Dave Murray; Steve Millard
30 Charlie Bowman; Henry Ford
31 Burr Beard
--
Blec...@WolfeNet.com
"When you get above the clouds, you can do just as you choose."
- The Rector Trio, Asheville, NC 1930
Steve Senderoff
news:396B4E49...@Wolfenet.com...
> Sorry I'm so late in getting this out -- we were at
> Fiddle Tunes since the first of the month
hmmmmm....could we have a report, at your convenience?
thanks, steve
--
______________________________________
Steve Senderoff & Trish Vierling
"...Ya run your E string down oh, I don't know, about three frets...anyway,
it corresponds to the third note on the A string...here's ya tuning..."
.........Tommy Jarrell
Kerry Blech
> "Kerry Blech" wrote:
> > Sorry I'm so late in getting this out -- we were at
> > Fiddle Tunes since the first of the month
> hmmmmm....could we have a report, at your convenience?
Geez, where to start? Melvin Wine was in fine form, playing well
and sharp as a tack.. even mischievous at lunch (trying to put
a pat of butter into Sheila's lemonade, for instance). In one
of his classes, I asked him to play "Wilson's Clog," which is
the first tune I ever heard him play live (at Glenville in the
early 1970s). He not only played his version of it, but also
played it like he would for a clog dancer, more like one
of those English clog tunes. And he and Gerry Milnes had a running
repartee that was as entertaining as the music.
I spent quite a bit of time at Dwight Lamb's classes, making
up for totally missing him last time he was here. We also
talked a bunch outside of class. Now there is a guy who
has a mess of great tunes, most on the extremely rare side,
and who can bow with the best. I especially liked his
"Hiram Allen's Tune."
Though I didn't get to their classes, I talked a lot with
(and enjoyed the concerts) Ramona and Mark Jones -- I had loaned
Ramona my mandolin for the week.
I got to play mandolin (had to borrow it back from Ramona)
for Lee and Robert Stripling's Monday night dance set -- great
fun. I only made it to one of their classes, the one dedicated
to the music of their father, Charlie. It was great, with
soem fun sibling interjections, great reminiscences, and
excellent old music. Robert seemed to get stronger as the week wore
on (recovering from a stroke), so much so, that he felt his
guitar playing becoming more comfortable that he and Lee did some
recording with Phil Williams at the console this past Monday,
6 hours worth. Perhaps the highlight of their class came
when Robert too picked up the fiddle and he and Lee did
a duet of "Pop Goes the Weasel" (their Dad's version, with a
very swingy cadence) with synchronized gimmicks, culminating
in their throwing bows to each other, then finishing the tune.
The room went wild.
My main focus this year, though, was to hang out with Joe Thompson.
He was playing great. We also had the good fortune to host him and
Bob Carlin at our house for a few days prior to Fiddle Tunes, a great
treat. Joe and his band played a square dance in Seattle the Friday
before FT (and I got to sit in on extraneous fiddle). Joe
called and danced a House Frolic at the "Polo Grounds" (the house where
Polo Burguiere and crew were staying) on the Thursday afternoon of FT.
He asked me to fiddle for it, with his band. "Great big 8," indeed!
We ran three sets (that is, one square, but with three sets of people
dancing, one after another). What a gas!
I only caught one of Polo's classes, of French music (I love it, as
it is part of my personal heritage). And we also went to their French
dance, exquisite.
We had some great sessions in 204 at night (average income -- 3am).
Also a few on the porch and the lawn in front of the schoolhouse.
And I finally got to play some music with Gail Heil and Bob Bovee,
after missing the opportunity the last two times they were out --
we dragooned them into a late night session on the last evening.
We also got into some wonderful non-old-time music (only to listen
to or dance to -- I still don't play nuthin' but old-time), really
enjoying Jose Moreno's Rio Grande music (and really liking the
verbal interplay with Mark Rubin -- that is my discussions with Mark).
Sheila also spent a lot of time with the brilliant fiddler Yvon
Mimeault,
from Quebec -- I especially enjoyed his old-style of playing (another
part of my heritage). Bob McQuillen.... what can one say about him?
What a wonderful human being, great musician and composer. He had the
perfect band in Cathie Whitesides on fiddle and Laurie Andres on
accordion.
And Ira Bernstein just tore the place down with his stellar
dancing, capping it all off with his encore at the Saturday
night concert where he clogged and fiddled simultaneously.
John Hatton got a bunch of my money, too. We bought more CDs than
we thought we would. There were a few more I had planned on getting,
but just ran out of money. I was told by Catherine Alexander that
I am quoted in the liner notes to the Art Stamper CD that Steve
Goldfield
mentioned in another post, so I guess I will have to get that one.
It was a good one. Now we start the countdown to Cliff Top. I hope to
get some sleep between festivals.
Kerry
Steve Goldfield
Steve Senderoff <steve...@mindspring.com> wrote:
#>"Kerry Blech" <Blec...@Wolfenet.com> wrote in message
#>news:396B4E49...@Wolfenet.com...
#>> Sorry I'm so late in getting this out -- we were at
#>> Fiddle Tunes since the first of the month
#>
#>hmmmmm....could we have a report, at your convenience?
#>
#>thanks, steve
#>--
#>______________________________________
#>Steve Senderoff & Trish Vierling
Everybody who goes to Fiddle Tunes has a somewhat
different experience, although I saw Kerry at a number
of the workshops I attended. That said, here's my
report, minus most of the late-night jamming (except
that I played with Mel Durham a few times).
Fiddle Tunes has a fairly unique feature called a
Band Lab in which participants work with faculty
to learn their tunes and perform them in something
like their styles. I chose to do that with Lee and
Robert Stripling. I was going to try to play fiddle,
but there were a lot of fiddlers and we chose tunes
in F ("Big Four" and "My Little Girl"). I did learn
the top part of "Big Four" on fiddle but then switched
to banjo. A. B. "Bruce" Reid was also on the faculty.
Lee (fiddle) and Robert (mainly guitar, but he did play
fiddle on a trick fiddling version of "Pop Goes the Weasel")
told a lot of stories about going with their father,
Charlie Stripling to fiddle contests and later to perform
since Ira was a storekeeper who didn't like to travel.
Robert is recovering from a stroke, but both his guitar
playing and fiddling are coming back. Lee plays many of
his father's tunes but he and Robert also sing lots of
other tunes. Lee has a new CD on Voyager called "Hogs
Picking Up Acorns." Our band played "Big Four" for a
dance and both tunes in the band lab concert. Note
that there's another song called "My Little Girl."
This one is a parody of that one and goes like this:
My little girl, when we were married,
and we were going to go to bed.
You put your glasses upon the dresser.
You took your pretty curls from your hair.
You put your false teeth upon the mantle.
You laid your wooden leg in a chair.
My little girl, I'd love to squeeze you,
but you are scattered everywhere.
It's not on Lee's new CD, but perhaps it will be on
one done by Robert and Lee.
Melvin Wine was there and playing well. I went to one
of his workshops but also got to spend some time with
him at meals and walking back to his house. He played
some tunes I haven't heard him play before, including
"Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss." He told me that his
brother, Clarence, had recorded a 78 on guitar and
singing with his wife. But since neither Kerry nor
the Major have heard of it, I suspect that it was not
commercially released. He also said that Clarence played
with Blackie Cool.
I went to two of Gerry Milnes workshops, one on fiddle
and one on banjo. The fiddle workshop covered a wide
range of WV tunes, but on banjo, Gerry only played
tunes from about ten banjo players in a single small
town in Randolph County where he used to live. Lots
of different tunings, and he taught us an unusual
version of "Cumberland Gap."
I went to one of Dwight Lamb's workshops; Kerry was
there, too. Dwight just played lots of great tunes.
I went to part of one of Polo's workshops. He mainly
played French tunes, and when he started teaching a
French waltz, I departed.
I went to workshops by Ramona and Mark Jones (this
turned out to be an extension of their band lab)
and Joe Thompson. Joe played tunes, but I recall
that when he played in a large concert, he sang
a song which was a big hit with the audience. I
hadn't heard him sing a song, as opposed to lyrics
with a tune, before.
That's nine. The tenth workshop I attended was with
Greg Canote. Greg taught us "Camp Meeting on the
Fourth of July" first in standard and then in DDAD.
He played some other tunes in two different tunings,
I think standard and Calico. On Friday afternoon,
I went to a very funny workshop given by Greg and
brother Jeri.
I went to Helen White's fiddle tutorials.
Aside from the old-time, there was cajun (Danny Poullard
and Delilah ??), northern (Cathie Whitesides, Bob McQuillen,
and Laurie Andres), Quebec (Yves Mimault sp? and Guy
Bouchard), Cape Breton (a MacIsaac whose first name I
forget), Irish (Bob McCaffrey and Grey Larsen from
Cleveland), and Mexican (Juan Reynoso and Jose Moreno).
I may have forgotten someone.
Steve
(8<})>(8<})>(8<})>(8<})>(8<})>(8<})>(8<})>(8<})>(8<})>(8<})>
-------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Goldfield <stev...@best.com> * Oakland, California
* Home Page--<http://www.best.com/~stevesag/stevesag.html> *
Blech Family (Kerry & Sheila)
[snip]
>A. B. "Bruce" Reid was also on the faculty.
[regarding Steve's Band Lab band, coached by Lee
and Robert Stripling and W.B. Reid]:
> Our band played "Big Four" for a
> dance and both tunes in the band lab concert. Note
> that there's another song called "My Little Girl."
> This one is a parody of that one and goes like this:
...and they sounded just great, too. Steve, I loved your
banjo work on those pieces... I forgot to mention that to
you at Fiddle Tunes. The song was wonderfully funny
and caught many of the audience unawares. Kind of like
the "Burglar and the Old Maid" ditty.
> Melvin Wine was there and playing well.
[snip]
> He told me that his
> brother, Clarence, had recorded a 78 on guitar and
> singing with his wife. But since neither Kerry nor
> the Major have heard of it, I suspect that it was not
> commercially released.
I haven't yet had a chance to search for any sign of it, Steve,
but as I mentioned at Fiddle Tunes, it does not ring a bell.
> I went to one of Dwight Lamb's workshops; Kerry was
> there, too. Dwight just played lots of great tunes.
Amen. And with great style and technique and soul.
> and Joe Thompson. Joe played tunes, but I recall
> that when he played in a large concert, he sang
> a song which was a big hit with the audience. I
> hadn't heard him sing a song, as opposed to lyrics
> with a tune, before.
That was "Oil in My Vessel" and/or "Careless Love."
Joe has quite a few songs in him -- his Friday workshop
was all songs.
> Aside from the old-time, there was cajun (Danny Poullard
> and Delilah ??),
Delilah Lewis.
>Quebec (Yves Mimault sp? and Guy Bouchard),
Mimeault
>Cape Breton (a MacIsaac whose first name I forget),
David
>Irish (Bob McCaffrey and Grey Larsen from Cleveland),
Tom McCaffrey lives on the West Side of Cleveland, originally
from Co. Leitrim. Grey lives in Bloomington, IN, though probably
met Tom when he (Grey) was attending Oberlin College.
>and Mexican (Juan Reynoso and Jose Moreno).
> I may have forgotten someone.
Jose Moreno played some old-time tunes for folks
between the Saturday concerts. There are plans afoot
to get these nice versions recorded.
Best,
Kerry
-
Blech Family (Kerry, Sheila, Mirabelle & Louise)
Blec...@WolfeNet.com www.wolfenet.com/~blechfam
"The Old Tunes Are the Best Tunes" -- Luther Davis
Steve Senderoff
northwest...
see ya soon, s and t
--
______________________________________
Steve Senderoff & Trish Vierling
"...Ya run your E string down oh, I don't know, about three frets...anyway,
it corresponds to the third note on the A string...here's ya tuning..."
.........Tommy Jarrell
http://steventrish.home.mindspring.com/webpage_files/start.html
John W. Beland
Steve Goldfield wrote:
> (snip).
>
> Aside from the old-time, there was cajun (Danny Poullard
> and Delilah ??)
Delilah Lewis - who conducted delightful workshops on cajun fiddle. She
is a great musician and an excellent instructor who gets right to the
point. Great fun, cool tunes and lots of technique in the two sessions
I attended.
Also not mentioned were John Herrman's great workshops on banjo and
guitar. "How to make the fiddler sound good".
Greg Canote deserves accolades for this tutorials - taught a tune a day
in his clear humorous style.
Ok, so Polo taught a waltz. He also taught several traditional french
dance tunes including a Bouree, a Mazurka, a Rigadon and a few I didn't
get the proper names for. (One of them I play by 'Not Playing' Forked
Deer). There were a few banjo's, and guitars in the band lab, but we
also has a bass, some drums, 2 hurdy gurdys and french bagpipes. Great
fun. Loud too, just ask Bob Carlin who was trying to teach in the room
below. For me, one of the high points of the week was when Polo, Nadine,
John Herrman and Meredith would do the dances that the tunes were
designed for.
I also learned how to eat my fiddle.
john b
Blech Family (Kerry & Sheila)
> thanks for the report!!! some say we may make the trek to the great
> northwest...
>
> see ya soon, s and t
welcome out here too, whenever you can make it.
Kerry