It’s coming up next weekend: July 11 & 12. Here’s the basic info and a full schedule. What follows are some of the highlights of special interest to fiddlers and friends. There’s a lot of stuff here. I’m sure you’ll find something that moves you . . .

First up, on Thursday July 9, is a preview of Folk & Roots in Giddings Plaza in Lincoln Square. For the past 6 years this has been the invitational round of the Midwest Fiddle Championship, with the finals scheduled for the Festival’s main stage. This year the preview will feature music from the dance tent: polkas, waltzes and square dancing. Everyone is invited to dance. All the dances are easy.  There will be instruction for the square dances. Music starts at 7 pm. The last waltz is at 9:30.

Dr. Hojka’s Medicine Show (click to enlarge)

Fantastic Toe Trippers Orchestra (click to enlarge)

Don’t miss this! Two special workshops are scheduled for 7 pm Friday evening, July 10 with Dan and Rayna Gellert. Dan was a guest at a Fiddle Club of the World meeting last March. He’ll be doing a workshop on old-time banjo (clawhammer). The workshop is titled “Drum on a Stick.” Register for it here.
Here’s Dan playing “Lonesome John” on a low-strung, gut-string banjo.

Or you could do “Old-Time Fiddle with Rayna” (she’s Dan’s daughter). Register here.
Here’s Rayna playing “Winder Slide,” a favorite with the Old Time Ensemble classes a few years back. You’ll want to get all the tunes on her wonderful first CD, The Ways of the World”

Saturday (July 11) is the big day. It all starts with the 7th annualMidwest Fiddle Championship at 12:55 on the main stage. This year’s contest, presented by the Fiddle Club of the World (Chicago Chapter), is an invitational for five bands. Each band will be led by one or more fiddlers, and each band must also bring along one or more dancers. The bands will compete for $1,200 in prize money.

The full list of competing fiddlers is on the home page of the Folk & Roots website.

Los Pichardos with Juan Rivera (click to enlarge)

The Hatfield Sisters (click to enlarge)

There’s more. Here are the fiddle-istic highlights for the Main Stage and Dance Tent. (Click on the blue link for more info.)

Main Stage
Saturday, July 11th
• 2:45 Dan & Rayna Gellert [old-time banjo and fiddle]
• 4:00 Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole [Cajun]
• 5:25 Caleb Klauder Country Band [with fiddler Sammy Lind from Foghorn]

Dance Tent
Saturday, July 11th
• 6:30p | Square Dance! Open Band
Sunday, July 12th
• 1:00p | Waltz Across Chicago!

For the Square Dance!, Walter Hoijka will lead a mass open band, with Paul Tyler and Lynn Garren sharing the calling. Some special guests will join the open band.

Waltz Across Chicago will feature instruction for the waltz, polka, and hora. Music will be provide by three bands: The Fantastic Toe Trippers Orchestra, an American/Mexican/Baltic polka band, The Alte Schteibeles (The Old Schoolers), the School’s Klezmer Ensemble led by Jon Spiegel and Stu Rosenberg; and Simbolo Norteño, a neighborhood conjunto. Have a listen to a couple of the bands in rehearsal:
The Toe Trippers the Venezuelan classic “Sombra en Los Medanos”

Simbolo Norteño plays a polka.

There’s still more! More fiddles and fiddle-friendly music can be heard on the Staff Stage and in the open jam sessions in the Welles Park Gazebo. Highlights include, but are not limited to, the following . . .

Staff Stage
Saturday, July 11th
• 4:00 WAZO County Warblers (Paul Tyler)
Sunday, July 12th
• 2:30 Lanialoha
• 3:00 Light, Sweet & Crude (Bau Graves)
• 3:30 Rosenpalooza (Steve Rosen)
• 4:30 The Barehand Jug Band (Jonas Friddle)

Welles Park Gazebo
Saturday, July 11th
• 12:00 Old Time Jam with Dan & Rayna Gellert
• 4:00 Fandango with Raul Fernandez - Nuestra Música
Sunday, July 12th
• 12:00 Family String Jam with Maria McCullough
• 1:00 Woody Guthrie Folk Jam with Mark Dvorak
• 2:00 Bluegrass Jam with Colby Maddox

Wow! What a fiddle-packed weekend to look forward to. Plus there’s lots of other great music as well. Don’t forget to check out the Nuestra Música stage and the Kids Tent

Let us know what you what you liked the most. Any surprises? Any tunes you heard you want to learn? See you there.

Paul Tyler, Convener
Fiddle Club of the World, Chicago Chapter

Or maybe you’d like to hear Geoff Seitz play the fiddle. Here’s a couple of tracks from his 1995 CD, The Good Old Days Are Here.

Louisiana Hornpipe

Learned from the great French fiddler, Joe Politte, of Old Mines, Missouri. The Louisiana of the title refers to a town in the Show Me State.

Chicago Fiddlin’

A tune made up by Geoff and named after his music buddies from the Windy City, especially Chirps Smith, who was featured at a Fiddle Club meeting April 2008.

It would be a good thing if Geoff could come to Chicago someday and be a featured guest artist at a meeting of the Fiddle Club of the World. I’ll work on it.

Paul Tyler, convener

Click here for tips and troubleshooting on how to get at these .mp3s.

Over 30 fiddlers, pickers and fans showed up at the Leadway Bar & Gallery on North Damon on a Saturday night to hear Dan Gellert. After serenading us with a dozen wonderful old fiddle and banjo tunes, Dan and Debbie led a jam session for the next hour through a number of old chestnuts and few rare treasures.
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The Fiddle Club of the World is not just for fiddlers. Players of all kinds are welcome to participate. And it’s okay to come just to listen.
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Click here for tips and troubleshooting on how to get at these .mp3s.

Dan sent us recordings of these tunes played at a moderate tempo. The first two are in the key of C. The third is in Bb. Be brave and give it a try.

Shelvin’ Rock

New Five Cents

Brushy Run

Just added, a D tune, from a 1985 album of Dan’s band, Shoofly.

Sugar Hill

Send a comment and let us know which two of these four tunes you especially want to work through at the Fiddle Club session.

Dan Gellert will be performing at the Fiddle Club of the World’s meeting on Saturday, March 28 at the Leadway Bar & Gallery.

You can register for the Fiddle Club meetings as a workshop. Cost is $20. Call 773.728.6000 or to register on line, go here. Space is limited. ]]> http://oldtownschool.org/connect/fiddleclub/2009/03/23/some-tunes-from-dan-gellert/feed/ http://oldtownschool.org/connect/fiddleclub/2009/03/22/ive-been-thinking-about-lotus-dickey/ http://oldtownschool.org/connect/fiddleclub/2009/03/22/ive-been-thinking-about-lotus-dickey/#comments Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:51:49 +0000 Paul http://oldtownschool.org/connect/fiddleclub/2009/03/23/ive-been-thinking-about-lotus-dickey/ 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.

Lotus Dickey, Paul Tyler, John Bealle, Teri Klassen
(click to enlarge)

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

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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

March 28 (Sat) 8:00
Dan Gellert
Old-Time doesn’t get any better than this!
Leadway Bar and Gallery (5233 N. Damen)

(click to enlarge)

Sugar in the Gourd

From “Roustabout,” an LP documenting the 1976 Indiana Fiddlers Gathering (aka Battle Ground)

Black-Eyed Susie

From the 2006 Midwest Banjo Camp, with bones by Clif Ervin!

Follow this link to Dan’s website for more audio samples from his incredible new CD, “Waitin’ on the Break of Day.” You can buy it there, too.

To register, go here. Or you can browse through all the workshop listings at oldtownschool.org.

And if you’ve been wondering the same about the Fiddle Club of the World, I’m glad to tell you that it has reawakened from its Winter-long slumber. Announcements of a three or four meetings with featured guest artists will be coming soon.

For right now, mark your calendars for Saturday, March 28. Dan Gellert will be in town to perform and jam at a meeting of the Fiddle Club. As soon as I nail down a site, we’ll get the registration information posted here at in the workshop listings at oldtownschool.org.

In the meantime, check out the new fiddle pages at oldtownschool.org/fiddle. Teachers are posting information and links in the Flog (Fiddle Students Blog). All tunes are accessible through the archive link. You will also find a jukebox version of the Hands On CD.

Check back early and often.

Paul Tyler, convener
Fiddle Club of the World
Chicago Chapter

Go to Karen Solgard’s transcriptions of these Norwegian tunes.

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Karen Solgard will be performing at the Fiddle Club of the World’s meeting on Sunday, November 30 at the Leadway Bar & Gallery. Click here to register, or call 773.728.6000.
or ]]> http://oldtownschool.org/connect/fiddleclub/2008/11/18/tunes-from-karen-solgard/feed/ http://oldtownschool.org/connect/fiddleclub/2008/11/17/notation-for-karen-solgard-tunes/ http://oldtownschool.org/connect/fiddleclub/2008/11/17/notation-for-karen-solgard-tunes/#comments Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:58:40 +0000 Paul http://oldtownschool.org/connect/fiddleclub/2008/11/25/notation-for-karen-solgard-tunes/ These are Karen Solgard’s transcriptions of some of Norwegian tunes for the hardanger fiddle. Musical notation is only a guide to one way to play a tune. Use the written notes along with the recordings. If you hear something different than what is written down, good. Trust your ears. Play what you hear.

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Click on thumbnail to enlarge.

Go to Alan Jabbour’s transcriptions of these Henry Reed tunes.

Alan Jabbour will be performing at the Fiddle Club of the World’s meeting on Wednesday, October 29 at Paddy O’Splaines. Click here to register, or call 773.728.6000. ]]> http://oldtownschool.org/connect/fiddleclub/2008/10/15/alan-jabbour-tunes/feed/