Maggie Cole (fortepiano), Kati Debretzeni (violin), Sebastian Comberti (cello)
My all-time favourite non-traditional ‘band’.
‘Trio Goya play Classical chamber music on period instruments… a collective fascination with the new colours and narratives that these instruments suggest…’ says the website.
In fact, they are one of those dynamic, fluid bands/groups/ensembles who play out of intense mutual listening, so that you’re drawn right into the heart of the music. One of the things I love about them is that you can often hear the common-or-garden dance roots in their classical pieces – a touch of the street from a time when music was music, and not cordoned off into discrete disciplines.
Fantastic musicianship from three truly great players – and a real treat for Fiddletails fiddle-followers in violinist Kati Debretzeni’s magical playing.
A rare London performance – do go if you possibly can!
Here’s an old-time treat for singers, fiddlers, fiddle-singers, banjo players – or indeed anyone who loves a great tune rendered as a slow air.
The Blackest Crow is known as an Appalachian tune. Lyle Lofgren comments on its origins: Versions of this song containing references to glass breasts and superlatively black crows have been collected in both Appalachia and the Ozarks. Some of these versions are diary entries dating from the time of the American civil war. Written copies of the words and the existence of multiple tunes indicate that the song was spread by broadside or newspaper publication rather than in the oral tradition.
Current versions of the tune mostly derive from the playing/singing of acclaimed North Carolina fiddler and banjo player Tommy Jarrell (1901-1985), whose working life was spent on road construction.
There are any number of versions of the lyrics, though the tune is generally unchanging. My three personal choices are each utterly individual. Enjoy!
Red Tail Ring
Laura Premo (fiddle), Michael Beauchamp (guitar)
Michigan multi-instrumentalists and master harmonizers, with ‘old-timey roots, new-timey sounds’. (Fiddle tuned down to EBF#C# – ie corresponding to standard tuning, but at lower pitch, with the tune fingered as though in standard key of G.)
Melodic virtuoso solo performance at the 2010 Sore Fingers Summer School, Oxfordshire, England. Adam’s rendition is so clear, it might just be the exception to the old rule that a fiddler should never learn a tune from a banjo player!
Red Tail Ring: currently on tour, with an unmissable Old-Time Ensemble Workshop in Downers Grove, IL, USA this Saturday, 3 October. Further details of that and remaining tour dates on their website, along with videos and downloads of their CDs.
Adam Hurt: for more information on gigs, recordings and online banjo teaching, see his website.
Tommy Jarrell: there is a wealth of information and recordings online, including an interesting biography here, and a lovely piece on his first fiddle now in the keeping of the Smithsonian.
Purlongs is an intriguingly crooked tune from Playford’s Dancing Master (1651), and the roots of its inscrutable title are much debated. (Andy Cutting’s definition: ‘Any distance travelled by a cat.’)
However, the word appears to be a Middle English variation of ‘purloin’ – to steal, in a stealthy manner:
Purlong: Middle English purloinen, to remove, from Anglo-Norman purloigner. Noun: purloiner. (Via thefreedictionary.com)
And there you have it. Purlongs. Thieves/robbers. Case closed?
(Perhaps not. Googling purlongs also gave me furlongs/corruption of, and instructions for installing purlins when putting up a roof.)
Cut to the chase! Here are two wonderful bands – Leveret and Boldwood – playing the lovely Purlongs.
Leveret*
Andy Cutting (melodeon), Rob Harbron (concertina), Sam Sweeney (fiddle)
Purlongs played second in a set with Whitefriars Hornpipe, which was the tune for 28 May (Purlongs: 2:50). Mr Cutting half visible but entirely audible.
The set is on Leveret’s 2015 CD New Anything, available from their website.
*GIG ALERT!
Leveret kick off their UK tour at Cecil Sharp House, London. THURSDAY 1 OCTOBER
Boldwood
Becky Price (piano accordion), Matthew Coatsworth, Kate Moran, Daniel Wolverson (fiddles)
Played second in a set with Fete de Village (Purlongs: 2:10) in a live performance at The Queen’s College Chapel, Oxford, 1st June 2013, featured on the unpublished CD Mudlarking**.
It’s one of those weeks when you can step up to the plate and learn a set of tunes, or just kick back and focus on one. Or of course just kick back…
Oss is an English trio playing English regional ‘gems and forgotten songs’ unearthed from manuscripts. The featured tune is John Dipper’s reworking of a traditional English tune, played second in a surprising set with the lovely ‘Dance’ from Purcell’s 1688 opera Dido and Æneas.
(Worlds collide for me this week — I sang chorus in this opera at school!)
Oss
John Dipper (viola d’amore), Nick Hart (duet concertina, voice), Tom Moore (violin)
(When At War: 3:20)
The self-titled EP is available from the Oss website. You can also follow them on Facebook.
GIG ALERT!
Catch Oss live at Camden’s Green Note, MONDAY 21 SEPTEMBER
These guys really get around – here are just a few of their individual musical projects:
Nick Hart: melodeon and concertina player, multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire, maker of beautiful bones.
Co-hosts and teaches at East London’s great Trad Academy. (Look out for his amazing bones workshops, and read the fascinating esoteric notes on his handmade bones in his online shop!)
John Dipper: English Acoustic Collective and multiple projects/collaborations, including:
Laurel Swift (fiddle, voice, clogs), Colin Cotter (banjo, stompbox), Jon Brenner (piano accordion)
The mighty Gloworms play their ‘shiny-bright English ceilidh’ at a rare Knees Up Cecil Sharp ceilidh tomorrow night, Friday 20 September, at Cecil Sharp House. 8-11pm, £10/£8 on the door.
Dance, stumble, or just sit and soak up their amazing rhythms. Make it if you possibly can!
A lovely American old-time tune with a title suggesting Civil War origins, often associated with Ernie Carpenter (1907-1997), an acclaimed fifth-generation fiddler from Braxton County, West Virginia.
Andy Fitzgibbon
From the playing of Ernie Carpenter. The video was made for Andy’s students at the Wellington Bluegrass Society fiddle workshops. Fiddle tuned AEAE.
Fiddle/banjo duet, fiddle tuned AEAE. Ernie originally learnt this tune from family friend and neighbour Wallace Pritchard.
(From the Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes on the great Slippery Hill website )
Andy Fitzgibbon plays with the Iron Leg Boys, and is part of the New Young Fogies project co-run by Anna Roberts-Gevalt (of Anna & Elizabeth: see ‘Billy in the Lowground’ 7 May 2015)
Ernie Carpenter‘s fascinating family history is outlined on the Berea College website.
An attempt to conjure a golden September from this year’s grey English summer – if we all play it like mad, the sun will come out!
My beautiful namesake tune is from Playford’s Dancing Master of 1651. Two very different arrangements – it is traditionally played with the A and B parts in different time signatures. And (might have guessed!) any tune involving women and fruit had sexual connotations. Who knew…
Leveret
Andy Cutting (melodeon), Rob Harbron (concertina), Sam Sweeney (fiddle)
The tune is on Leveret’s 2015 CD New Anything, available from their website.
Leveret are touring in the UK in October – starting with a gem of a format: an acoustic set, performed in the round. Cecil Sharp House, 1 October. Details and booking here. Don’t miss it! Full tour dates here (scroll down to Gigs/Autumn Tour 2015).
Blowzabella
Andy Cutting (diatonic button accordion, triangle), Jo Freya (vocals, clarinet, bass clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophones, whistle), Paul James (border bagpipes, soprano and alto saxophones, whistle), Gregory Jolivet (alto hurdy-gurdy), Dave Shepherd (violin, octave violin), Barn Stradling (acoustic bass guitar, octave bass guitar), Jon Swayne (border bagpipes, soprano and alto saxophones)
Played here with the traditional time-changes, first in a set with Half Hanniken
This mercurial old-time tune was composed in the 1980s by North Carolina fiddler/luthier Joe Thrift, who named it after a favourite calf. It was first recorded by Joe’s band the Red Hots in 1989, and released on their album Ready to Roll.
A three-part tune, key Em (fiddles in standard tuning). Though it’s usually played fast, it’s not too complicated if you break it down – and it’s such a great tune to play!
Two fiddle videos: first Joe himself (audio plus stills), and then a very clear, slightly slower video of Rachel Eddy (who featured in the previous Fiddletails old-time post).
The old-time database Old Time Frederick has a very clear fiddle audio file from Centralia Parlour Pickers, as well as useful multi-instrumental chord suggestions and audio/video links.
As well as being a wonderful fiddler, Joe Thrift is an acclaimed luthier working in Dobson, North Carolina. You can see more about his violins here.
Rachel Eddy is a great player and teacher of old-time fiddle, banjo and guitar. Watch out for her various workshops in the UK! Her latest CD is Nothin’ but Corn. (Also featured in Fiddletails post Road to Malvern, 16 Aug 2015.)
The many lives of an English hill and its tune: morris meets mediaeval meets mazurka in this varied trio of videos – topped off by a slow audio teaching file.
Idbury Hill is an Iron Age hillfort near the village of Bledington in Oxfordshire, England. The tune is a Cotswold Morris dance tune originating in the village.
Charles Benfield (1841-1929), fiddler with the Bledington Morris in the second half of the nineteenth century. (Portrait by A. van Anrooy*)
Paul Martin (Dunholmpiper) (vielle/mediaeval fiddle)
Lively version – with a belting rhythm section! Paul says he plays mostly in GDGD or GCGD (but nb this is a 5-stringed fiddle…) [Correction: Paul’s instrument is a 4-stringed medieval fidel – see his comment below.]
See also Fiddletails 8 Julyfor details of Laurel’s forthcoming fiddle and multi-instrumental retreats.
* Reproduced under Creative Commons license from The Traditional Tune Archive, which has fascinating notes on the history of the tune and the characters associated with it, including a lovely story about Charles Benfield and his fiddle.
A lovely crooked ‘new’ old-time tune that’s becoming more widely known. The recording below is from the Stockholm session founded by West Virginia old-time fiddle, banjo and guitar player Rachel Eddy.
The tune was composed by another Virginia fiddler, Jim Childress, and named for his wife who was born in Malvern, Arkansas. Jim originally recorded it on the 2004 CD Turkey Sag with old-time stringband Uncle Henry’s Favorites. He plays it cross-tuned (AEAE), but it works very well in standard tuning too.
You can hear more great tunes from the Stockholm sessions at Bengt von Andreae’s Soundcloud page here.
Turkey Sag is available from Jim Childress’s website, from Uncle Henry’s Favorites, and online, including from Amazon where you can also hear a sample of Road to Malvern as originally played.
Rachel Eddy plays fantastic old-time fiddle, banjo and guitar, and is a brilliant teacher – sometimes in the UK, if you’re lucky enough to catch her. Her latest CD is Nothin’ but Corn.
Every couple of weeks or so I feature a tune that's caught my fancy – audio/video clips of brilliant musicians playing great, perhaps uncommon tunes to learn by ear. Most are from the English and American Old-time traditions; some hail from other musical worlds ‒ Scandi, perhaps, or French. But whatever you play ‒ fiddles or frets, free-reeds or fipples ‒ I hope you enjoy catching these wonderful tunes!
Jenny Glover's FIDDLETAILS 