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[McCann-1989-06-07-B] Bethel, Mo. Fiddle Camp; 6/7/89; 4a and 4b; RM 60
[McCann-1989-06-07-C] Bethel, Mo. Fiddle Camp; 6/7/89; 5a and 5b; 60
[McCann-1989-06-07-D] Bethel, Mo. Fiddle Camp; June 7, 1989; tape 6a; 90 [Side 1]; Thurs. morning; 6/8/98; side 6b
Part of the Gordon McCann Ozarks Folk Music Collection at Missouri State University's Special Collections and Archives.
This recording include tapes 4-6. The tapes were recorded in Bethel, Missouri on June 7 and 8, 1989 for the Bethel Fiddle Camp. Amy Skillman- moderator, Pete McMahon- main speaker, Vesta Johnson- speaker.
At the bandstand in Bethel, Fiddle Masters and Students participate in a group discussion about fiddle contests. Amy Skillman introduces the discussion.
Pete: “I’ve played in quite a few in my time. The main thing about a fiddling contest when you get up there to play, pick a tune to play that you comfortable with. Don’t play something that you’re afraid you’re going to make a mistake with. That’s what costs you, a mistake in a fiddling contest. That’s what the judges look for is your rhythm and timing and the way you handle the fiddle, the way you present your tune. And they look for mistakes, especially after they ... break in tape... Of course, that’s what you have to look for when you get a whole bunch of good fiddlers together. You have to look to see who plays his tune better than the others do and without any mistakes. But your timing and rhythm is the main thing in the fiddling contest. It’s got to be danceable music, or there’s no use for you to play it at all. Your waltzes, when you play a waltz, they like a good clean waltz. And like in some areas where you’re playing, they like a lot of double stops in a tune. But up in the north where the Canadian fiddlers are, they use more single string, because Canadians don’t play anything but single string waltzes. You pick a tune that you don’t think you’re going to make a mistake in and feel comfortable when you play it that you’re not going to make a mistake.”
Q: “Are there any tunes that are always good not to use?”
Pete: “No, a lot of it depends upon the area that you’re in. It’s any tune that is played exceptionally well is good in a fiddling contest. Anything but hornpipes. The reason that the hornpipe is not usually used in a contest, anything besides ‘Durang’s’ or ‘Marmaduke’s’, is because a hornpipe is a complicated tune. They’re hard to play and anybody that plays one of them, if he plays it well, he plays it over most judges’ heads. They don’t understand what a hornpipe is or how it should go. They’re so complicated that lots of judges that they have in a contest don’t understand them at all. People just don’t do playing one in a contest. But most of your old hoedown tunes played well are good in a contest. In some areas you can take just a normal tune where you have to play against some professionals or progressive style fiddlers, and you got to dress it up a little bit if you play it in a contest against that kind of competition. Because so much of the fiddling today has gone to progressive style, there’s few old time fiddlers left in the country today, real old time. That’s what I like to see in this younger generation: learn the old time tunes. Because if they don’t, when us old squirrels are gone, they’ll be gone. Won’t nobody know any of the tunes at all. Guys like Niles and Dwight and myself and Johnny play old tunes that nobody else plays. When we’re gone, they’ll be gone if someone don’t learn them. It’ll be a shame, ‘cause they’ve been handed down from generation to generation. And they’re good old tunes. But people just don’t pick them up. Because the reason they don’t is because some of them aren’t too good a tunes in a contest. And they pick some tune that they think’s gonna win the contest, and they’ll play that. They don’t even want to learn those old tunes. I expect Dwight and Niles and myself and all of the old fiddlers around here play tunes either one of us don’t play. They’ll play a tune that I don’t play or vice versa. Because they’re from different areas than I’m from, and the tunes are not played in that area. They’ll learn it, and unless we pick them up from each other they’re gone.”
Talk about Charlie Walden going around learning these old tunes to preserve them. Pete notices that some of students in this group are good at learning these tunes like Walden.
Pete: “I’ve noticed that that young boy here has just learned a tune that nobody else that I ever heard of plays it. Dwight told him what the name of the tune was, and he decided he wanted to learn it in this single session I had with him. He learned the tune. And it’s a tune you can’t call it by the right name, because the real name of it is ‘Dead Nigger.’ So we call it ‘Fiddler’s Hoedown.’ He learned the whole thing, all three parts of it. That’s good, that they can learn things like that. Contests are nice to go to, and they’re a lot of fun. But then they’re... if you’re too set on winning first place, you’re in a bad place. Because it don’t make any difference how good you play or how good you are, you’re not going to win them all. You can sit down to the judges. They’ll have three judges here, and you sit down and play a tune to them and play it well and win first place. Tomorrow, you’ll have three different judges, and you sit down and play the same tune the same as you played it the day before just as good. And you won’t win nothing. It all depends upon how the judges hear your music. ‘Cause everybody don’t hear a tune just exactly alike. A good judge, it don’t make any difference what you play. If you play ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ and do it well, you’ll be judged well on it. Don’t make any difference whether you’re a Canadian, Arkansas, or where you’re from. If you play the tune well, you should be scored high.
Question: “What kind of standardization of rules is there? Does it vary a lot?”
Pete: “Not just a whole lot. Basically, they’re all the same. Some will add more to their list of rules for judges to go by, but a lot of them should be throwed out. A lot of areas where they have contests they’ll have a rule in there. Traditional. Which should be throwed out, because nobody knows what traditional is really. Everybody plays a tune different. Probably none of them probably play a traditional like it was first set up to play.”
Q: “You usually find waltz, hoedown, and tune of choice?”
Pete: “Lot of places, they have a waltz and a hoedown and a tune of choice. And some places, they have a waltz and a hoedown and tune of your choice other than a hoedown or a waltz. But where is a tune of choice you can play anything other than ‘Black Mountain Rag’ and ‘Orange Blossom Special’ and tunes like that. You can play another hoedown or another waltz, but where it calls for three separate style tunes, like the tune of your choice other than a hoedown or a waltz, then it’s got to be a schottische, rag, or a polka, etc.”
Q: “Don’t some have fiddler draw their tunes to play?”
Pete: “Some places they do. In Canada, some places they do. They pick the tunes out of a hat and also some of the contests, they tell you what to play. That’s in Canada, but they don’t do that in the US.”
Q: “What about some judges that say there’s only one way to play this tune?”
Pete: “That’s wrong! Because, just take for instance, and all these people were fiddling here and all played the same tune. Played it exactly alike. It’d be the most boring thing to listen to there ever was. What makes fiddling great is the different ways that people play tunes. I wouldn’t be right for them to play them exactly alike. I believe like these apprentices here, learning the basic part of a tune and after they learn it well, where they don’t have to look for the notes. Take the tune and add what they want to it. Put their self in it. The way you play a tune expresses the way that you feel when you play it.”
Bruce: “That’s showing what your particular taste is for the tune.”
Pete: “And what you’re able to do.”
Vesta: “I run into a problem down below Potosi one time when I went to judge a contest at Old Mines. John Akins was one of the judges and Gary Watson and myself. Some of them was throwing out hoedowns. Now where do you define hoedowns? They was throwing out like ‘Soldier’s Joy’ and some of those tunes. Now I didn’t and I have never understood where they were throwing out these four or five tunes and making the people come back. Something they said weren’t hoedowns, and I always thought they were hoedowns. I’m not talking about hornpipes. I’m talking about what I played for square dances.”
Pete: “What a hoedown is, I don’t care what tune. You can take any tune, and it’ll be a hornpipe. It’s got to be played in square dance time. If you want to play ‘Nearer My God to Thee,’ if you can play it in square dance time, and they can square dance to it, that’s fine. It’s the timing it’s got to it. It’s what it is. It’s not the name of the tune.”
Vesta: “They made us take those on out and I, to this day… I’d like to have a definition of it.”
Pete: “That’s wrong, ‘cause old tunes like Soldier’s Joy that’s what they did to them. They square danced to every one of them. I’ve played ‘Soldier’s Joy’ for many a square dance.”
Lamb: “Any of those old tunes you can square dance to are a hoedown.”
Pete: “Long as it’s got that beat to it.”
Wilson: “I agree, a hoedown is anything that’s square danceable. Even ‘Shortenin’ Bread.’”
Vesta: “I’ve been confused ever since that day.”
Pete: “Yes sir, even ‘Shortenin’ Bread’ has been played for many a square dance.”
Wilson: “They change them over. The tune’s the same, but it’s made into a different time so they can dance to it.”
Bruce: “There’s an old tune that there’s not much to, but it’s gonna be gone, ‘Shortenin’ Bread.’”
….Tape 4a… Pete: (to Vesta) “There’s no need to be confused about it. That was somebody’s idea that didn’t know what they were doing.”
Wilson: “The one’s that made that deal up was the one’s that was confused.”
Pete: “Something else that I see a lot of around these contests… They’ll pick a music teacher to judge a fiddling contest. That’s wrong. They don’t know the first thing about fiddling.”
Vesta: “Or a TV announcer...”
Q: (student) “Tell me the difference between a hoedown and tune of choice.”
Pete: “It all depends upon what the contest rules call for. If it calls for a tune of choice other than a hoedown, then it’s got to be other. But if it’s just as a tune of choice you can play anything you want to. Discussion goes on to discuss it depends upon the rules of the contest and the different tunes possible.”
Pete: “What a lot of people don’t realize that judging a contest is a complicated thing if’s it’s done right. It’s very complicated. It don’t make any difference what you do, you’re going to make somebody mad. Course, it don’t worry me at all to make somebody mad. When I judge a contest, I judge who I think is the best. And that’s the guy that’s gonna get it, and I don’t care whether they like it or don’t. I don’t care what he’s ever done before or since, it’s what he did right then. What a lot of people don’t realize is playing the fiddle is a mood thing. If you’re not in the mood to play it, you’re not going to play it well.” Danielle’s father: “Pete, one of the troubles we’ve out in our area in Arizona with kids playing or anybody playing is on this tune of choice, on several occasions to have the judges say it wasn’t “old time” and down grade them for it.”
Pete: “There’s another thing of what you contest calls for. The heading of the contest… If it says a ‘fiddling contest’ you can play any damn thing you want to play, but if it says ‘old time fiddling contest’ then you’d better play old time tunes if it’s judged right. When they send to contest flyer out that should tell you right there what you’re supposed to do. The fiddlers, the judges and everybody else. Another fault that the fiddlers has got when they go to a contest, they will not read the rules. They’ll just take it, look at it, and throw it away.”
Bruce: “If they’ve got any questions, the thing to do is to ask about it before it starts.”
Q: “What about categories, the way the break up age groups?”
Pete: “That’s almost everywhere, only in your smaller contests. In your contests where you have several categories is where they have a lot of money. Involved in the contest… but most of your smaller contests, they’ll just be one division or you’ll have a open and a senior division if there’s not too much money to put up. If they have a lot of money, they’ll have several categories: they’ll have a Junior/Junior, Junior, Senior 59 - 70, and Senior/Senior (over 70 yrs.), Open Division and then a Lady Division. And they’ll have a First Ever Division (someone who’s never played in fiddling contest before). These run into a long deal, you have to sit for a long time.”
Q: “Ladies in their own division only?”
Pete: “They can have their own division, but they can compete the Open or Championship Division if they think they’re good enough. But they can’t play in the women’s division and the open both. You’ve got to stick with the one division you’re going to play in. A man has to play in the Open and if that can’t in Championship. They have to stick with the one they’re going to play in. Can’t play in others. Championship can be any age, but if you’re in your age group you can’t play in this division.”
Bruce: “Another thing about judgin’, you’d better know what you’re doing. You better do it quick, because there’s going to be two or three more up there before you even get a score wrote down. You’ll be wondering what they done and they’ll be calling for another one.”
Vesta: “But that’s the MC’s fault.”
Bruce: “But I’ve seen it where they’re trying to 100 or so through there...”
Vesta: “A judge can make them slow it down.”
Dwight: “I always keep my own tally sheet too, so I know ‘cause otherwise you forget. You have to if you’ve many fiddlers.”
Pete: “The worst mess of judging I ever got into was at Weiser, Idaho. Back in 1970. They had 160 fiddlers and you payed those off and then the judges cut them down to 80. Then down to 40, then down to 20, then to 10 and then the 10 off and to 5 and the 5 play off for the champion and that’s just days on end. And when you get on home of a night, your head’s just spinning. It gets nerve wracking.”
Dwight: “I was out there in ‘68.” Pete: “You sit in a room. They have five judges, and they have five tables. Every judge sits at a table to himself and each one has a speaker on it. You can hear a pin drop when them guys get up there to play. You don’t talk to nobody. Now after he finishes his tunes, you can say something. But there’s a man that walks around in there to make you keep your mouth shut.”
Dwight: “And they pick up your score sheets before you visit, too.”
Pete: “Just as quick as you quit writing it down, they walk around and pick up the scores.”
Q: “Can you see the stage at all?”
Pete: “No, not at all. You’re clear across the building from them where you can’t even see the stage. You don’t know who’s playing. They’re just by numbers.”
Dwight: “They really have a traffic sound system.”
Pete: “I can go to these contests around the central part of the US, and they can put me in a room a hundred miles from there. And if they’ve got a speaker there I can tell you every fiddler that gets up there and plays. It’s just a gimmick, I guess, but I guess every judge can’t do that.”
Q: (From student) “Why do that- keep judges away?”
Pete: “If you saw them, you might judge them on how they looked. But what’s fun at the contests is the jams that they have around. Bunch of fiddlers get together and do what we call just “butt heads.” Face to face and one play a tune and the others start along with guitar pickers and banjo players. That’s what’s fun. Of course, it’s nice to win, but don’t be too disappointed if you don’t.”
Q: “Do you remember Shad cobb, that young boy? I thought he played exceptionally well, but he didn’t make the finals.”
Pete: “He didn’t, but because he broke the first rule in a fiddling contest. It has to be danceable music. And there’s no way in the world you could have square danced to his music, because he played even faster than bluegrass. And that’s the way his daddy tells them to play, and the faster they can play the better he likes. But they won’t ever do any good in a fiddling contest if it’s judged right, because there’s no danceable time to it. And that’s the first rule in a contest. It’s got to be danceable music. And that’s what ruined him right there. He’s got good time, but it’s too high a tempo. Can’t dance to it.”
Vesta: “Pete have you run around O’Fallon to George Forrest’s contests. There’s an example. He lets anything go. You know George. You can’t dance to his music. But, yet, he ramrods a lot of contests.”
McCann: talks about AR State contest where there were eight finalists, and when they’d finished they took them all out on stage. 1000 people sitting out there. They played seven places, and they started with 7th place and named them to where the two last standing there was the one who was going to be first place and the one who would get nothing. Poor planning. I felt sorry for fellow who got nothing. That was a state contest too.”
Pete: “That’s bad! You see some odd things happen at contests. I’ve seen them do in a contest like there’ll be a guys tied for some place, say third place. And the guy that wins gets 3rd, and the other guy don’t get nothing. And yet he outscored the ones for 4th and 5th or how many.”
Dwight and McCann talk about judging at contests. Q: “Explain why a tune like ‘Leather Britches’ is a better dance tune than __ for contests?”
Pete: “Reason is that “Leather Britches” is a wonderful tune and in some areas it’s a good contest tune. But in other areas, it’s no good because it don’t have enough variation. You difference in your variations from your high to your low is what makes the difference in some areas in a contest. A lot of them like McMahon/ contest discussion cont. ‘Tom and Jerry’ and ‘Grey Eagle’ and tunes like that that have a second position part in them are better in a lot of contests than others. It all depends on what area you’re in. Down south like in Kentucky and Tennessee, tunes like ‘Leather Britches’ and ‘Bittercreek’ and tunes like that are good in a contest. But out in the west and some places in the east tunes like ‘Tom & Jerry,’ ‘Grey Eagle,’ ‘Sail Goodwin’ are especially good because there are so many variations they can put in. Which makes it a progressive tune, but then it’s not an old time fiddle contest. With a whole lot of different notes and variations and highs and lows in it. But there never was a better tune written than LB.”
...end side 4a…
Side 4b
Q: “In some locations does the degree of difficulty of the song make a difference with the judges?”
Pete: “A lot of your contest rules call for the difficulty of the tune to be scored high. To know about this, you’ve got to read the rules to know about this. About the one coming up this Saturday, I imagine it will be old time style and you all play old time style. Not any of you are progressive fiddlers.”
Q: “What if they put in some bluegrass licks on the old tunes?”
Pete: “Wrong. Any time you make a blues note in an old time tune, you’ve ruined it because there never was an old time fiddle tune written with a blues note in it. No bluegrass in contest either... just old time.”
Q: “What is a blues note?”
Pete: “Anytime you slide your finger to make a note on a fiddle that’s a blues note on any string.” (Correction: A blues note is a note played in variation of the standard scale. The note is a half-step or a semitone away from what the note is supposed to be in the scale. A semitone is a note between a note and its half step.)
More talk about contests.
Q: “Who would you say would be a good example of old time fiddling style?”
Pete: “There’s a lot of albums out with just old time tunes on them. Kenny Baker has one. Tommy Jackson, Howdy Forester… There’s a lot of them. Then other Midwest fiddlers. One was Ed Mahoney- ‘Mahoney’s Reel’- who was a sheriff.”
Talk about other fiddlers in the area- past and now. Charlie Bennett, fiddling sheriff in Missouri. Strawley Pettis from NE. Skillman asks if the masters would play the same tunes so the students can hear different styles.
...end contest discussion...
Masters play for students.
Lamb, McMahon
1. “Stoney Point” (in G) Put a 3rd part in it from Bob Walters.
Pete
2. “Waltz of Shannon” (in G)
Lamb
3. “Bill Powell’s Waltz” (in A)
Jason Shaw
4. “Whiskey Before Breakfast” (in D)
5. “Rutland’s Reel” (in C)
Howdy Forrester composed in memory of Georgia Slim Rutland.
...end session at bandstand...
...rest of 4b blank...
June 8, 1989
Tape 5 Side 5a
Thursday Morning Sessions
Johnny Bruce/ Group #2:
Matt Sutterfield, Amy Quackenbush, Erin Breen
All
1. “Clarinet Polka” (in G & C & D)
Bruce
2. “Lorane Schottische” (in G)
3. “Irish Washerwoman” (in G)
4. “Carroll County Blues” (in D)
Johnny: “Just like I was sitting here, your dad (Breen) and Gordon, the minute we started that they start coming alive. And when you’re playing for a dance, whatever you got to do, watch them people. And if they don’t come to life, you better change and hunt something else up. And whatever it is when they start coming the life, that’s when they’re going to start following you around and wanting you to fiddle.”
5. “In the Mood” (in A)
Gene Breen, Erin’s dad, plays guitar. We talk about scarcity of guitar seconds. They’re hard to find anymore. Talk about a Jim Lindsey, whom they say is a good second.
6. “Swinging Doors” (in D) Talk about banjo, other second Instruments, and about Devil’s Box journal.
Bruce/ Erin
7. “Blackberry Blossoms” (in G)
Bruce
8. “Cowboy Waltz” (in D)
9. “Spotted Pony” (in A)
...end Bruce session...
Nile Wilson/ Group #1: Jason Shaw of Lincoln, Nebraska
Justin Bertoldie of Marshfield, MO
Tim Todd of Chinle, AZ
Justin Bertoldie
1. “Dixie Blossoms” (in G)
Talk about Percy Wenrich
...end side 5a...
Side 5b
Wilson session cont.
Jason Shaw
2. “First of May” (in G)
James Bryan tune
Nile: “Did you ever stop to think what got all these good tunes started? Charlie and I were on the road and the Santa Fe RR hadn’t been up in our country for long. Up were we lived was lots of white oak timber, and they made the ties and bought the ties from the people there. There was a gang that come up through there and camped. They’d leased the timber land to cut the ties off for the RR. My dad didn’t tell me too much about it, that part of it, but I heard about this from another man who had a team and wagon and hauled ties. These guys were good fiddler’s and my dad and his friends would go visit them sometimes twice a week, maybe oftener. And they learned a lot of the tunes they played, didn’t learn the names of them, if they did they didn’t specify too much ‘cause I don’t remember the name for them. They called them tie hacker tunes. That’s where they learned them from those guys who made those ties. They made them by hand, with axes, what they called broad axes.
Shaw
3. “Agnes Campbell” (in A) About fiddlers tapping feet about Fr/Can. doing this. The Beaudoin Family. Wilson tells of his father and other fiddler would trade off playing melody the other was chord on the fiddle. “Skillet Licking” after the fiddlers in that group doing it on their 78’s.
Bertoldie
4. “Old Indiana” (in G)
Wilson
5. “Tie Hacker Tune” (in C)
6. Unidentified tune (in C)
Tim Todd
7. “Down Home Rag” (in G & D)
Bertoldie
8. “Rye Straw” (in D)
From a Wayne Sprouse tape.
Wilson
9. “Rye Straw” (in D)
Todd
10. “Chicken Reel” (in D)
11. “Whiskey Before Breakfast” (in D)
Wilson Session cont.
...end side 5b...
Tape 6 Side 6a
Wilson cont.
Group plays
12. “Mississippi Sawyer” (in D)
...end Wilson session...
Vesta Johnson/ Group #4
Reese Stanley, Tim Salis, Coleen Donahue
Group
1. “Down Home Rag” (in G & D) Vesta/ group
2. Unidentified tune (in A)
3. “Spotted Pony” (in G)
Vesta
4. “Hog House Rag” (in A)
Reece
5. “Arkansas Traveler” (in D)
6. “Tennessee Waltz” (in D)
7. “Ragtime Annie” (in D)
8. “Devil’s Dream” (in A)
…end Johnson session...
Pete McMahon/ Group
1. “Cowboy Waltz” (in D)
Talk about 2 different Whistler Waltzes.
2. “Rose of My Heart” (in A)
3. “Gold and Silver Waltz” (in D)
...end McMahon...
Dwight Lamb/ Group #4
1. “Step Up Susie” (in D)
Group
2. “Listen to the Mockingbird” (in D)
Donahue
3. “Angeline the Baker” (in D)
4. “Clarinet Polka” (in G & C & D)
5. “Soldier’s Joy” (in D)
Lamb
6. “Fiddler’s Dream” (in G & D) talk about waltzes
7. “Red Fox Waltz” (in D) ...end side 6a…
Lamb session cont.
Donahue
7. “Waltz You Saved for Me” (in C)
Sutterfield
8. “Tennessee Waltz” (in D)
Reese
9. “Missouri Waltz” (in G)
Lamb
10. “Canary Waltz” (in A)
Donahue
11. “Polka” (in G)
12. “Old Mother Flanagan” (in G)
Matt
13. “Arkansas Traveler” (in D)
Lamb
14. “Old Molly Hare” (in D)
15. “Hooker’s Hornpipe” (in G)
16. “Lady of the Lake” (in D)
Lonnie Robertson learned this from Dwight when met him at
Fillmore, MO
Dwight met Lonnie back in the 70’s at Fillmore, MO. He named his son after Lonnie. Dwight learned most of his tunes from Bob Walters, Casey Jones, Ed Mohonee, Cyril Stinnette, and Lonnie Robertson. He knew Clyde Walter when Clyde had a big cattle feeding at Missouri Valley, Iowa, just 35 miles South of where Dwight lives. Clyde sold out and moved to Branson, MO. That’s where McCann met him. About Clyde and his daughter becoming expert wood carvers.
Lamb cont.
17. “Lady on the Steamboat” (in G)
18. “Old Parnell” (in D)
Talk about Lyman Enloe. Tim Salis
19. “Bonaparte Crossing the Rocky Mountain” (in Am)
Reece
20. Medley in D:
“Arkansas Traveler”
“Tennessee Waltz”
“Ragtime Annie”
Donahue
21. “Red Apple Rag” (in G)
Lamb
22. “Casey’s Reel” (in D)
23. “Lonnie’s Hornpipe” (in Bb & F)
24. “Miller’s Reel” (in A)
25. “Mahonee’s Reel” (in A)
26. “Natchez Under the Hill” (in A)
Different from Galbraith’s “Turkey in the Straw” version.
...end side 6b...
Digital Sound Files: Bethel, MO, fiddle camp--6-6-89 Bethel fiddle camp--tapes 4-6.mp3 tape 4.wav tape 5.wav tape 6.wav