Return to Voyager Home PageLiner Notes
VRCD355: Eat n' Run
Lori and I have played banjo and fiddle together since 1983 after meeting at
the National Old-Time Fiddle Contest at Weiser, Idaho. Our first band name was
The Interstate Ramblers. After we had played with several guitar players, like
Paul Michel, John Daughtry and Laurel Bliss, Jack Link became a regular. In
1999 we entered a bluegrass band contest in Chilliwack, BC and bluegrasser and
friend Jake de Villier said, "You need a bass player...there's one now!"
Turned out to be Rod Backman who said "sure, why not?" when we asked
him to play in the contest with us. We won the contest (although we weren't
really playing "bluegrass") and Rod has played with us ever since.
This recording came about because Phil and Vivian Williams of Voyager Recordings
kept after us for years until they finally got us in their studio. These are
tunes we've played at dances, parties and festivals, some learned recently and
some since the very beginning. By the time you get to listen we probably play
them differently, we just play 'em how we feel 'em.
Lori grew up in a musical family, her mom Betty is a singer who discovered Lori's
ability to pick out harmony at an early age. She played guitar and sang folk
and country songs as a teenager but after hearing the bluegrass band Old and
In the Way with Jerry Garcia playing banjo she immediately went for that instrument.
She learned finger picking and later switched to the older frailing or clawhammer
style. Her style is rhythmic and chord oriented, she's our drummer!
Jack started the Gypsy Gyppo String Band in the early 1970s and is a dynamite
fiddler himself. The Gyppo House in Seattle saw many parties and tunes played
back in the day. His tune Skipping Cat is popular all over. He also sings country
songs with great passion. As our guitar player he claims to be "just the
guitar player" but his wild playing suits us more than just fine.
Rod can be found wherever there is swing, jazz or bluegrass happening. He is
much sought after and we are lucky that he likes playing with us!
I've been fiddling for about 30 years. Most of that time I played for square,
contra and Irish ceili dances. While there are many fiddlers I love listening
to I never tried to copy anyone else's style, guess I was lucky enough to play
with people who didn't mind me playing my own way.
Crank up the volume and enjoy! Howie Meltzer, June 2004
1. Cumberland Gap Practically everybody knows at least one version of
Cumberland Gap. This one is the result of Howie's decades of hearing and playing
it. Lori picked up the banjo setting (an F tuning) from Rick McCracken of Idaho
Falls, Idaho.
2. Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase Learned ca. late 1980s from Jim Newberry
(of Jolly Farmers and Cayenne fame) at the Northwest Folklife Festival. Stole
the little "stop for breath" from Greg & Jere Canote. County Records
issued (on LP) a previously unissued test pressing (from 78 RPM days) of Vance's
Tennessee Breakdowners. That's probably how the tune escaped into the party/festival
circuit.
3. Bob's Farewell/ Red Rocking Chair Bob's Farewell was composed about
1985 by Joe Thrift of the Red Hots to commemorate the loss of band member Rich
Hartness to academe. Learned from Genavie Thomas at the big fiddle hooraw in
Weiser, Idaho, about 1997.
Lori learned Red Rocking Chair from Suzanne Edmundson of the Hotmud Family at
a party at Elderly Instruments in Michigan about 1979. Suzanne's version was
based on Lily Mae Ledford's. A song about breaking up and being lonesome, with
a haunting, bluesy tune…pretty universal, don't you think? It never loses
its emotional power.
4. Buck Mountain/Shoo Fly Howie learned Buck Mountain in the key of D at a jam at Weiser. It comes from "Uncle Nip" Chisholm of Woodridge, VA. Armin Barnett says Claudio Buchwald probably brought it out west--in its original key of G, where Armin prefers playing it--from Charlottesville, VA, in the 1970s. Shoo Fly was out and around in jam sessions in the ‘70s. It's probably a descendant of Clark Kessinger's 1920s recording.
5. Polecat Blues Recorded originally in 1941 by Roy Hall's Blue Ridge
Entertainers, with the great fiddler Tommy Magness, who probably composed it.
Our version begins with Benton Flippen's popular rework that circulated in and
around Surry County, NC. Paul Michel of Seattle played it in A instead of the
usual D, and Howie learned it from Paul. Listen to them polecats a-growlin'!
6. Old Christmas Tom Carter of the Utah-based Deseret String Band collected
Old Christmas from Uncle Dick Hutchinson in Disney, OK sometime in the mid-seventies.
Fellow Deseret fiddler Ron Kane learned it from Tom and passed it on to Howie
and Lori at the Northwest Folklife Festival some year or other.
7. Georgia Horseshoe From Fiddlin' Bill Hensley, who was born about
1870 and lived in Madison County, NC. He attributed this tune to Junalaska,
"an Indian chieftain during the Civil War…" Hensley called this
tuning (AEAE) "Shelton Laurel Key." Howie fiddles and Lori plays fiddlesticks
on the fiddle neck.
8. Kiowa Special Howie learned this from Craig Carroll in Okanogan County,
WA. About everybody else out this way learned it directly or indirectly from
Howie. Mike Schway made a straightened-out version that he can play for contra
dancers. Howie left it pretty much as he found it, hiccup and all. The title
also refers to a popular style of hair-salon sink. Not everybody knows that.
Ain't the Internet grand?
9. Hell Amongst the Yearlings A widespread, perennially popular, virtually
indestructible favorite. Both Clark Kessinger and Arthur Smith recorded it in
the 1960s with the extra beats in the first part, but I've often heard Texas
and Oklahoma fiddlers play it without them. The second part is pretty similar
to Marmaduke's Hornpipe or Cricket on the Hearth.
10. Johnson Gals The Leake County Revelers of Mississippi recorded this
in 1927 as Johnson Gal. Howie prefers the plural, Gals. I wouldn't touch that
line, would you?
11. Moses Hoe Your Corn Reworked by both Pat Conte and Kerry Blech.
Here's Kerry's story: "Moses, Hoe the Corn -- Pat Conte took the Vernon
Dalhart song ‘Razors in the Air' from 78 and concocted a tune, set in G,
with some bluesy overtones, and created this tune. I later wanted to turn it
into a dance tune, got Pat to send me a tape copy of the Dalhart song, so I
adapted it, in the key of D, adhering more to the Dalhart melody contour than
Pat's setting." Our version is based on Kerry's.
12. Ways of the World Recorded by W H Stepp of Magoffin county, KY,
for the Library of Congress in 1937. Howie learned it from the Northern Valley
Boys of Maine, off their 1975 Quagmire LP. I used to play it slightly differently
with Bob Naess, who got it from Sandy Stark. Nearly everyone who knows it places
it in their All-Time Top Ten Tunes. For Howie, it's Number One.
13. Laughing Rag (Hale's Rag) Lori learned Laughing Rag (or is it really
Hale's Rag?) from Mike Williams in Helena, MT. It's been recorded many times,
under one title or the other, since the 1920s.
14. Mad River A favorite of ours for many years that Howie had taken
for French-Canadian. We just recently learned that Pete Sutherland wrote it,
and that the title refers to a river near Pete's home in Vermont. Howie learned
it from Genavie Thomas, who got it from Matt Hummel up on Lopez Island. Howie
sez: "Matt actually played it crooked, but when we later tried to remember
how it went we seem to have straightened it out. Who knows what else we did
to it! We don't straighten out tunes to use for contra or square dancing, but
in this case we accidentally straightened it first then discovered it was a
good contra tune."
15. John Henry Some folks claim John Henry beat that steam drill at
the Big Bend Tunnel in West Virginia. Hogwash, say others, it was the Oak Mountain
Tunnel in Alabama. We deftly remain neutral with this instrumental based, if
loosely, on the Galax (VA)/Round Peak (NC) version recorded by Da Costa Woltz's
Southern Broadcasters in 1927 and forty-plus years later by Tommy Jarrell, with
and without various of his high-powered music pals.
16. New Market Lori's tune, composed on the spot while busking at the
Bellingham Farmers' Market. Spiffy, huh?
17. Sandy Boys Close relatives of this tune abound in West Virginia;
it bears a similarity to Ralph Stanley's Clinch Mountain Backstep, too. A likely
story: Our version probably begins with Edn/Edden/Eddon Hammons' recording,
which inspired copious festival jamming, which led to a changed (and maybe simplified)
version. On the other hand, it may be based on Burl Hammons' banjo version.
As Fats Waller said, one just never knows, do one? There are words, but we don't
sing ‘em. Feel free.
18. Big Scioty Howie plays this in F since Lori doesn't use a capo on Phil's fretless banjo.
Thanks to the following folks:
All of our families, special thanks to Betty and Russ Brazeau, Uncle Tommy,
Sid and Rosalie, Unky Dave, Graham.
Friends and co-conspirators: Mike (watch out for the goat!) Williams, Gary Morris,
Helena Parlour Pickers, Bob Cole, Rick McCracken, Terry Williams, Jim Sigler,
Marcy Marxer, Sue Hammond, Ron Kane, Paul Michel, John Daughtery, Jake and Maiken
de Villiers, Laurel Bliss and John Clark, Bruce Reid and Bonnie Zahnow, Stu
Herrick, Scott Herrick, Kerry Blech, Pat Conte, Nancy Katz, Robert, Harry, Dave
Nerad and Pacific Rim Strings, Dorothy and Allegro Strings, John Gough, everyone
at every jam for the last bunch of decades, Mt. Baker Ski Area for supporting
local music and feeding my skiing addiction, FMly at a.m.f.
Howie and Lori
Liner notes: Jack Link. Recorded November 2000 by Phil Williams. Cover art: Kelly Mulford. Production assistance: W.B. Reid.
Banjo Lady
A long time ago we used to come to town
To the Farmers Market in the old town square.
A lady moving slowly would open up her case,
Sit down, tune her banjo, and play for any there.
And as she played the pain would fade away,
Her eyes would shine and her face would glow.
She'd lead us to a place where we'd laugh our cares away
With nothing but her voice and her old banjo.
Just the other morning I was driving through that town,
Telling my daughter about that woman in the square.
And there she was sitting down and tuning up,
Still making magic for everyone to share.
And as she played the years just fell away,
Her eyes began to shine, and her face to glow.
She led us to a place where we laughed our cares away
With nothing but her voice and her old banjo.
© 2001 Denise Ann Carr
© 2005 Voyager Recordings, 424 35th Avenue, Seattle WA 98122
www.VoyagerRecords.com