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Voyager Recordings & Publications
Oldtime and Fiddle Music from the Pacific Northwest and beyond
HISTORY
Voyager Recordings was founded in 1967 by Phil and Vivian Williams. Phil and
Vivian had been playing old time and bluegrass music for many years themselves,
and had been recording many others, especially oldtime fiddlers. Phil had been
involved in recording since the mid-1950's and made some of the first "in-line"
stereo recordings in the Northwest in this period. In the early 1960's, Phil
was the recording engineer and Vivian was a producer for "Crossroad Records,"
a Seattle label that recorded and issued primarily 45's including Country-Western,
Rhythm & Blues, Bluegrass, and Square Dance releases. These records were
featured on juke boxes all over the West and Alaska, and made enough money for
Phil to improve his recording equipment and to get good equipment for field
recording.
Besides the oldtime and bluegrass shows and jams in the Pacific Northwest, the
Williams had been accumulating many hours of field recordings of fiddle and
oldtime music made at jam sessions at fiddle contests and shows they attended,
most notably the National Fiddle Contest in Missoula, MT, in 1964, and the National
Oldtime Fiddle Contest in Weiser, ID. Realizing that these jam session recordings
were dynamic, that the jam sessions were why most fiddlers went to contests
in the first place, and that nothing like this was available on record, they
released their first Lp, VRLP 301 "Fiddle Jam Sessions," in 1967 from
the best of these jam session recordings.
Since its founding, Voyager Recordings has released over fifty albums featuring
the playing of over 95 fiddlers. While most of the releases are fiddle and oldtime
music, Voyager also has released traditional jazz, Russian balalaika music,
African marimba music, a classical choral record, and cassettes of Jewish stories.
Some of the releases are field recordings in the same spirit as the initial
release. Most recordings have been made at Voyager's own studio, initially on
Magnecord and Ampex recorders, and more recently, in its digital studio and
on location using digital recorders.
In 1983 Voyager added "Publications" to its name when Vivian published
the first of the Brand New Old Time Fiddle Tunes books. This series provides
a publication forum for the many wonderful oldtime style fiddle tunes being
written by contemporary fiddlers. Many of these tunes are being performed regularly
at old time fiddle shows and gathering and for contra dancing in the Pacific
Northwest and elsewhere. Voyager has also published Pleasures of Home,
a book of previously unpublished fiddle tunes collected many years ago in North
Dakota by Joe Pancerzewski, and The Mandolin Player's Pastime,a collection
of 140 traditional reels, hornpipes, jigs, etc. that play well on the mandolin,
set in both standard notation and mandolin tablature, along with a CD illustrating
57 of the tunes in the book.
Voyager Recordings & Publications now issues recordings on compact disc, including re-releases of some of the material previously issued on Lp.