Varise Conner (1906-1994) should be better known than he is. He quit playing for dances in the 1930s in favor of more intimate sessions with friends, like Lionel Leleux. The first album dedicated to his music was not issued until ten years after his death. And what a dandy it is! The CD is made from field recordings by folklorist Barry Ancelet in the 1970s.

(click to enlarge)

This lovely waltz was recorded in 1938 by J.B. Fusilier & his Merrymakers, a band that at one time included Varise Conner. This is one of two tunes that Fusilier named for his wives. The other is the better known Chère Bassette.

Chère-Bouclette by Varise Conner of Lake Arthur, Louisiana, circa 1975

X:20
T:Chère Bouclette
M:3/4
L:1/8
S:Varise Connor of Lake Arthur, Louisiana
K:G
g2g2 |: e4 ec | Gce2 e2 | A3B AF | DFAd fa |
f3g fe | dcBF AF |1 G4 G2 | DGBd gB :|2 G3 GBd |:
ggdg ba | (3gag dg ba | bafd Ad | ffdf ag |
(3fgf df ag | fedc BA |1 BAG GBd :|2 G4 G2 | DGBd gB ||

Fiddle Club is proud to have brought some great Cajun fiddling to your ears. In our inaugural season of 2008, our lineup of featured guests included Will & Holly Whedbee of the Chicago Cajun Aces. (Click their name to hear some of the tunes.) Will was a first teacher of our featured guest for the next Fiddle Club of the World meeting.

Dorian Gehring, Cajun
Sunday, May 20 – 6:30p
Room E324 – Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln)

Single meeting dues is $15: register here

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

-Paul Tyler, convener
(Did you find the second tune linked on this post? Besides the Whedbee tunes?)

NB Text on this eCard is misleading. It’s all square dancing all night long! Every dance will be taught. Dancing starts at 8:30 and runs till 11. (There is not a separate teaching half hour followed by a concert.)

And the music will be fabulous, provided by Genevieve & Smith Koester, who were featured guests at Fiddle Club of the World on April 19, 2010. Here’s a sample from that meeting . . .

Litchfield

1. Fiddle Club of the World meetings

Dorian Gehring, Cajun
Sunday, May 20 – 6:30p
Room E324 – Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln)

Single meeting dues is $15: register here

Sample these tunes recorded live from the grounds at the Chicago Folk & Roots Festival in 2010, when Dorian Gehring & the Cajun Vagabonds took first place in the 8th Midwest Fiddle Championship Band Division.
Cajun waltz

Lacassine Special

Dorian Gehring & the Cajun Vagabonds (click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge) Anders & Maria Larson of Svanevit

xx
A special meeting, just scheduled
Anders & Maria Larsson, from Sweden
Monday, June 4 – 7p
Room E124 — Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln)

Single meeting dues is $15: register here

From their album Rikedom och gåvor with their quartet Svanevit.
Kardborren

Tranan

Or come to both meetings, plus all Fiddle Club events for the next 12 months with a yearly subscription of $60.

xx
2. Old Time Square Dances (part of Global Dance Party)

The White Mules (Genevieve & Smith Koester)
with caller Bridget Edwards from Bloomington, Indiana
Friday, May 18 – 8:30p
Szold Hall – Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln)

All tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance by clicking here.

More square dances have been added to the schedule
Patt & Possum
with caller Bill Sudkamp
Friday, August 17

Geoff Seitz & Friends (from St. Louis)
with caller Paul Tyler
Friday, October 26 (tentative)

xx
3. As part of the Square Roots Festival

10th Midwest Fiddle Championship
Finals will be held on Saturday, July 21 – 1:45-2:45p
Maurer Hall – Old Town School West (4544 Lincoln)

and

Fiddle Club of the World Battle of the Bands
an invitational, same day – 7-8p
Szold Hall – Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln)

Opening round and registration information to be announced soon.

-Paul Tyler, convener

I got to dance to Wally Heppner when he represented the Ukrainian community of Alberta, Canada at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall in Washington D.C. in 2006. The band at that event was called Zabava, and besides the fiddling of Mr. Heppner, it featured a tsymbaly, or hammered dulcimer.

That same core of fiddle and dulcimer is heard in this Tune of the Week, by the Radomsky Trio from Alberta, with Metro Radomsky on fiddle and Metro Lastiwka on tsymbaly. This 1952 recording was just recently posted by my old friend Paul Gifford, whose website devoted to northern old-time music just went online. Check it out: Paul Gifford’s Collection of Old-Time Fiddling, Dulcimer Playing and Songs from Michigan and the Great-Lakes Region. (The Radomsky Trio can be found under Dulcimer / Ethnic Dulcimers.)

Two-step from a 1952 Stinson recording of the Radomsky Trio

Used with permission from Paul Gifford, who supplied this link for more on Metro Radomsky and Ukrainian-Canadian old-time.

X:19
T:Two-Step
M:C|
L:1/8
S:Radomsky Trio
K:F
C2^B,C D2E2 | F2G2 A2B2 | c2^Bc d2E2 | FEFG A2F2 |
C2^B,C D2E2 | F2G2 A2B2 | c2^Bc d2E2 | FGAG F4 ::
z2c2 ^B2c2 | d3c B4 | zB2 A2B2 | c3B A4 |
z2c2 ^B2c2 | d3c B4 | C2^B,C D2DE | F2AG F4 :|

Check out what the Traditional Tune Archive has to say about Little Billy Wilson. It names Billy Wilson, as recorded in 1926 by Uncle Jimmie Thompson, the first fiddler on the Grand Ole Opry, as the ultimate source for the tune as played today. Lynn “Chirps” Smith, formerly of Grayslake, Illinois, now living on the other side of the Cheddar Curtain in Wisconsin, can play the tune Uncle Jimmie’s way (as well as anybody can that I know.) But this recent recording by him mostly follows the common contemporary setting of the tune.

Little Billy Wilson, Chirps Smith of Lagrange, Wisconsin

That distinctive first strain appears in many other tunes. According to Guthrie “Gus” Meade, the tune scholar who compiled the incredibly mammoth and helpful reference work, Country Music Sources, Little or plain old Billy Wilson resembles such tunes as Ace of Spade, Jack of Diamonds, Possum Up a Gumstump and Indiana Home. Of course, some of those titles also float around a bit, and have been attached to dissimilar tunes. Nearly 25 years ago, I recorded an Indiana fiddler who played that first strain in a tune he called “Old Woman, Stop Your Quarreling.” Are we talking about the same tune? I’m not sure. And that first strain can be found in two unnamed breakdowns in A, printed in the Old-Time Fiddler’s Repertory: one each in Vol 1 (#37) and Volume 2 (#14). R.P. Christeson collected both of these pieces from Bill Driver of Iberia, Missouri. Paul Gifford also learned a few unnamed breakdowns with that A strain from old-timers in Michigan.

But I think it is the second and/or third strain of Little Billy Wilson that carries some of the distinctiveness of this week’s Tune of the Week. That distinctive flavor is reflected in this unnamed tune found in a rare tunebook published in Fort Wayne, Indiana the same year that Uncle Jimmy Thompson recorded Billy Wilson. Check out old number 29 below from Charles Blee’s Ball Room and Country Dance Music: Quadrilles, Schottisches, Watlzes, Polkas and the Danish, Rye Waltz, Varsouvienna, Oxford Minuet.

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

xx

And then give a listen to this unnamed tune on hammer dulcimer, recorded by Paul Gifford in 1975 (click on Paul’s name for more traditional dulcimer playing).

[Little Billy Wilson], Paul Van Arsdale, Frewsburg, New York

The Abcs that follow are fairly generic, based on how the tune has commonly been played since the old-time music revival of the 1970s.

X:18
T:Little Billy Wilson
M:C|
L:1/8
K:A
fg | a2g2 a2e2 | fedf edcA | B2E2 B2GB | ABcd e2fg |
a2g2 a2e2 | fedf edcB | ABcd efed | cABc A2 ::
cB |ABcd efed | cAcA B2cB |ABcd efed | cABc A2 ::
cB | A3 A2cBA | F3E F2EF | A3 A2Bcd | e3f e2c2 |
B3 B2cBA | F3E F2EF | A2ae fecA | BABc A2 :|

- Paul Tyler, convener.
NB This post has been amended to rectify various assumptions wrongfully made.

Dorian Gehring (click to enlarge)

Fresh out of college, Dorian is always ready with his fiddle. He won top prize in the 2010 Midwest Fiddle Championship with his band, the Cajun Vagabonds. xx xx Dorian plans to discuss different Cajun styles and talk about the modern Cajun scene. He would also like to help Fiddle Clubbers learn how to play second or chording fiddle.

xx
Here are some tunes
Eunice Two-Step

Eunice Two-Step slow

Cherokee Waltz

Cherokee Waltz slow

$15 dues for this workshop, click here, or choose the year-long subscription option ($60 for 12 months of Fiddle Club).

All meetings will start at 7:30pm, except * May 20, which will start at 6:30.
Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln in Chicago)

Albert Farmer (click to enlarge)

English band pictured on Bocastle Breakdown (click to enlarge)

xx
Albert Farmer, a butcher before heading off to fight in the second World War, returned home to find his shop was gone. In a career change, he added a drum to his melodeon and became a one-man band and street musician. Click this link for more of his story and the story of the bonfire as told in the Traditional Tune Archive.

And now for the tune . . .
Bonfire Tune, as played by Albert Farmer in 1964

(from a 1970s LP on the Topic Label, Bocastle Breakdown)

Albert Farmer’s Bonfire Tune, as played by the Bismarks, circa 2000

(from the CD Hardcore English)

The Bismarks are Nina Hansell (fiddle), Gareth Kiddier (piano) and Ed Rennie (melodeon).

X:17
T:Albert Farmer’s Bonfire Tune
M:C|
L:1/8
S:Albert Farmer
K:D
de | f3d A2F2 | G2GF G2B2 | edcA B2c2 | dffd A2de |
f3d A2F2 | G2GF G2B2 | edcA B2c2 | d2dc d2 ::
de | f2fd f2fd | gefd e2ef | gfed cABc | dffd A2de |
f3d A2F2 | G2GF G2B2 | edcA B2c2 | d2dc d2 :|

In 1981–while living in Bloomington, Indiana–I was invited to a friend’s house for an intimate session of tunes and folklorist chat with Bobby Fulcher, a banjo-player and park ranger (actually, a cultural conservation officer) for Tennessee State Parks. Bobby had spent years researching the rich old-time music tradition of the Cumberland Plateau that stretched back to the pioneering 1920s recordings of the banjo and fiddle team of Richard Burnett and Leonard Rutherford. That duo from Monticello, Kentucky had a huge impact on music of players from the region, such as Clyde Davenport and the Troxell brothers, Ralph and Clyde. But many locals held that the best fiddler around had been Cuje Bertram, an African-American who had long since moved North.

Burnett & Rutherford (click to enlarge)

Daniel Decatur Emmett (click to enlarge)

After much searching, Bobby had finally located the Bertram family in Indianapolis. That was the reason for Bobby’s visit to Bloomington. It was a stopover the night before his long anticipated meeting with Cuje Bertram. The next day Bobby had an extensive interview with Mr. Bertram about his life and music. Sadly, the octogenarian could no longer play. But the family allowed Bobby to duplicate a home recording from 1970 that contained a couple dozen tunes.

That tape was not intended for commercial consumption, but a European record company issued it anyway, without permission from the Bertram Family or Bobby Fulcher. This, of course, is just another sad chapter in an old story of the commercial co-opting of minority cultural for the gain or advancement of others. I came into possession of a copy of those home recordings, but until I can obtain permission from Bobby Fulcher or the descendents of Cuje Bertram, I will not post the recording here. However, one of the traditional songs that Mr. Bertram played and sang is of continuing interest. His Big Cat, Little Cat is a version of a song recorded by Uncle Dave Macon in 1927.

The Gray Cat on a Tennessee Farm Uncle Dave Macon & his Fruit Jar Drinkers

The melodies of the two settings are very similar, though Mr. Bertram is set a step higher in the key of E, an usual key for an old-time fiddler.

X:16
T:Big Cat, Little Cat
M:C|
L:1/8
S:Cuje Bertram
K:E
z2 | B2cd e2ef | gefg efec | B2cd efeB | GEFG E2 ::
GA |B2BE G2E2 | GEFE G2GA | B2BE G2E2 | GEFG E2 :|

The lyrics of the two performances are also similar in theme, but they differ in actual wording. A transcription of Mr. Bertram’s lyrics are here.

Then, just this week, I was introduced to a new You Tube video of an Australian band playing an old dance tune The Black Cat Piddled in the White Cat’s Eye (in a medley following the Jenny Lind Polka). The video contains a graphic that reads: “This lively Australian Bush tune was popularised from the version performed by minstrel favorite, Dan Emmett.” Daniel Decatur Emmett, a native of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, was a founding member of the Virginia Minstrels, a four-piece string band that took the theater world of New York and beyond by storm in 1843. The four minstrels were all white men who performed in black face, pretending to be African-American while co-opting Black folk expression for their own financial gain.

The history of Blackface Minstrelsy is fascinating and difficult. Much of America’s old-time music tradition passed through the maelstrom of minstrelsy and was distinctively transformed. Sufficient for our consideration is that both our Tunes of the Week have a theme of confrontation, difference, and power struggle. I’ll leave it to you for further contemplation and consideration. You may want to start with this fascinating discussion about the two songs on the Mudcat Cafe. Most contributors to that thread were not aware they were discussing two completely different melodies. If there is any common ground between the two, it resides in the life and career of Dan Emmett.

Here is notation for The Black Cat Piddled in the White Cat’s Eye. It was collected on Cape Barren Island in the Australian state of Tasmania by folklorist Rob Willis. He learned the tune from local musician Les Brown.

The Black Cat Piddled in the White Cat’s Eye by Warren Fahey’s Australian Bush Orchestra

X:16
T:The Black Cat Piddled in the Little Cat’s Eye
M:C|
L:1/8
S:Rob Willis from Les Brown of Cape Barren Island
K:G
D2 | G2BB BBBB | G2BB B4 | G2BB BBBB | d2A2 A2AB |
c2cc c2A2 | F2AA A2AB | c2cc B2A2 | B2G2 G2 ::
ef| g2(3fgf e2dd | g2f2 e3f | g2f2 e2d2 | c2A2 A3d |
f2e2 ddde | g2e2 dddd | A2Bc B2A2 | B2G2 G2 :|

-Paul Tyler, convener
Chicago Chapter

Katie Bern & Matt Danaher
(click to enlarge)

Katie Bern drove up to Lincoln Square from Palos Heights to enter our Midwest Fiddle Championship for several years running. (Her younger sister Kristen is still a regular entry, but Katie has missed the last few contests as she completed a degree in music education at Belmont University in Nashville.) In 2006, Katie placed fourth in the Fiddle Team division in a duet with her neighbor Matt Danaher. They came back the next year and took 2nd place.

This week’s tune of the week (submitted just in the nick of time) was played by Katie and Matt in the Championship finals in 2007 on the main stage at the Chicago Folk & Roots Festival. “Poor Muriel” was composed by local bluegrass and jazz guitarist John Parrott.

[Click the arrow to hear only Poor Muriel. Click the blue title to hear the whole medley, along with Katie's introduction of the tune, in which she mentions their teacher. He, of course, was Ed Cosner. BTW you can right-click the blue title to download and save the link, meaning the mp3.]

Poor Muriel-St. Anne’s Reel

X:15
T:Poor Muriel
M:C|
L:1/8
O:John Parrott
K:G
BA | GFGA BGBd | edef g2fe | d^cde dBGB | A^GAB cBAF |
GFGA BGBd | edef g2fe | dgba gedc | (3BcB AF G2 ::
K:D
+D2A2+ | a3b afdf | e^def gfec | dcde fd(3fgf | ecAc e2(3efg |
a2ab afdf | e^def gfec | dfed BABc | (3dcB AF D2 :|

More info about Katie’s visit to Fiddle Club — and more tunes! — is posted below.

Frank Hall, my good friend and fellow Hoosier-in-exile, visited a while back from Ireland, where he has lived for the past decade. Our session served as the maiden voyage for my then brand new Zoom digital recorder, which has since been a real work horse for Fiddle Club of the World. Here is a tune from that October 2007 session in my living room. Frank played one that was first recorded by the great Emmett Lundy of Galax, Virginia. Compare the versions below. Obviously the same tune, but quite different treatments.

Also, compare the photos above. Both men are quite dapper and accomplished. Frank, however, has recently become a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. Sláinte (to your health), Buddy!

Piney Wood Gal by Frank Hall (2007), with Lena Olsen, banjo

Piney Wood Girl by Emmett Lundy (1925), with E.V. Stoneman, harmonica

BTW Frank Hall has an open invitation to be a featured guest at the Fiddle Club of the World any time he flies in to O’Hare from Dublin.

X:14
T:Piney Woods Gal
M:C|
L:1/8
S:Frank Hall after Emmett Lundy
K:G
+E3B3+B AGEG | ABBA Be3 | +E3B3+B AGEG | DEGB AG3 |
+E3B3+B AGEG | E3D EFGE | DGBG AG3 ::
dega bgag | eddd edeg | dega bgag | egag abag |
dega bgag | eddd eged | b3b ageg | dgbg aG3 :|