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Matt's Blog
Summer Tour, Part III - Rocky Mountain Fiddle CampMonday, August 9, 2010I finished up the summer tour with my first appearance at the Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp. I had a terrific experience. I was honored to be on staff with the likes of Dennis Cahill, Randal Bays, Grey Larsen, Abby Newton, Ward MacDonald and Andy Stein. Just being in their numbers could have been enough of a rush for me, but the real joy came from getting to know a great number of the campers through the classes, jams, and activities. We were able to delve fairly deeply into what makes old-time music distinctive, timeless, and so much fun, and we shared some really good music.
Then I drove east for twenty four hours to make my way to Clifftop, the mecca of modern old-time music. While there I picked up my gorgeous custom-made Kevin Enoch banjo, which I have been playing continually. There's nothing like having a tailor-made instrument to make "practicing" (i.e. sitting around and shredding) loads of fun. Next time you see me, ask me to show you the Enoch, but prepare yourself for a long-winded and wholehearted monologue lauding the latest addition to my musical family.
Matt's Blog
Summer Tour, Part II — My Week in ArkansasSunday, July 11, 2010 I just finished a wonderful week in the Natural State. Sitting here in Shamrock, Texas, watching the waning moments of the World Cup Final, I'm amazed at how much good music and good food I consumed while I was there. 
I arrived in Mountain View last Sunday, July 4th. I went there to teach fiddle at the Ozark Folk Center's String Band Week. My fiddle class had just three people in it (the whole camp only had about two dozen students), so we covered a lot of territory, from old-time repertoire to the subleties of bowing and how to learn new tunes in a jam. I highly recommend the camp, partially because it is small enough that one is guaranteed to get a good amount of attention, and also because of its format. Students spend each of the four mornings focusing on their instrument, and then the afternoon session is devoted to developing skills for playing together in jam sessions. Mountain View is such a neat place that I really recommend going for any reason you can find. Did you know that starting in fourth grade, school students in Mountain View can learn to play an old-time instrument, free of charge? That's part of the reason they've got such a vibrant scene of folks who play traditional music, and many of them are under the age of twenty. The food in Mountain View is worth mentioning. I ate several times at Tommy's Famous Pizza, including one night when I ordered a whole wheat pizza with a pesto base, the bianca cheese blend, and pineapple, green olives, and roasted garlic on top. Wow! Sounds terrible, I know, but it was absolutely delicious. My friend Barry and I ate at Jo-Jo's Catfish Wharf two nights in a row (we favor the grilled catfish with sweet potato fries), and Laura Boosinger, Pat Franklin, and I had a great lunch at Joy's on the Square right before I left town.
Then it was on to Siloam Springs, Arkansas, where Bill & Deanna Lisk hosted me for their Second Saturday Concert Series. After a glorious day in Fayetteville visiting the Farmer's Market, getting my glasses fixed at Walmart, and shopping at Ozark Natural Foods, I got my gear together and drove the few short blocks to the park in downtown Siloam where the concerts are held. Bill & Deanna's band played an opening set, then I did a solid hour of my music, including a few numbers on a borrowed David Hyatt gourd banjo, which I loved. As I told the crowd, Arkansas has very quickly become one of my favorite places to play. The gigs are good, the food is delicious, and the people really love traditional music. 
Summer Tour, Part ISunday, July 4, 2010 I departed West Chester in early June to make my way out to the Colorado Suzuki Institute, where I taught fiddle for two glorious weeks. On my way there, I stopped in St. Louis, Missouri, for a concert at the Focal Point and a pair of workshops at the Folk School, then went on to Lawrence, Kansas, where I performed another concert and led a fiddle workshop. The show in Lawrence was particularly fun, as it was a co-bill featuring Matt Brown & Friends and a great local bluegrass band, the Midday Ramblers. Before the show started, the Ramblers and I worked up a couple of songs (including Jimmy Martin's Ocean of Diamonds and the fiddle tune Carroll County Blues), which we played together during their second set. My friends Doug and Bayliss did a splendid job coordinating and marketing the Lawrence show, as well as playing host to me, and Doug's stringband Peghead became the "& Friends" part of my band. In the midst of the show, I rechristened the combined ensemble Matte Brown Peghead.
I left Boulder the next morning and headed to Beaver Creek for the Colorado Suzuki Institute. I attended the Institute in the mid-nineties as a student, and was returning for my second year as the fiddle instructor. It is a blast for me to be on staff with some of the same musicians who taught me, and I am honored to teach fiddling to the current generation of Suzuki students. Even my youngest students, at the age of seven, are remarkable musicians who can learn and retain entire fiddle tunes (and their bowing!) without ever seeing them on paper. On the second-to-last night of each week, the fiddlers played their new tunes for a square dance while their friends, family, and teachers danced. Larry Edelman came in from Denver to call the figures. It was a wonderful experience all around!
Footworks in Oriental, North Carolina
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 Saturday saw me down in Oriental, North Carolina, performing with Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble. As this was only my third performance with the group, I spent a couple of days in Maryland rehearsing with Mark Schatz, the musical director, and the dancers. For this jaunt to the eastern coast of North Carolina, the band was mostly just me and Mark, each playing a variety of instruments. Known globally as one of the best bass players in acoustic music, Mark also plays banjo, guitar, and mandolin with remarkable skill, and is a terrific dancer. It is a blast to work with him, whether on the stage or in the studio (he played bass on three tracks of My Native Home). Eileen Carson, Mark's wife, is the founding director of Footworks (once known as the Fiddle Puppet Dancers), and splits her time between the dance floor and singing on the bandstand.
The ride down to the North Carolina was DJ'ed by yours truly, and everyone involved agreed that early George Jones on Mercury (1953 to 1961) is about as good as it gets in country music. The van ride back was also musical, as Footworks dancer Shannon Dunne and I serenaded our fellow passengers from the middle row with instrumental Irish duets on the tenor banjo and guitar, and concertina and guitar. Then we had a several-hour sing-along that put to rest once and for all the notion that iPods are essential for long trips.
Creating a New Fiddle WorkshopThursday, April 22, 2010 I'm in the midst of planning a fiddle workshop that I will be presenting in Chicago and St. Louis, as well as several other locations to be determined. The workshop is called Gems from the Kentucky Solo Fiddle Tradition, and it has me quite inspired. One could very easily fill several hours with cross-tuned masterpieces from John Salyer, Luther Strong, and William H. Stepp, but in browsing my iTunes library of archival recordings, I am reminded that there are many types of solo fiddle pieces. Were the workshop in West Virginia, I could fill an afternoon with the solo numbers of Edden Hammons. But since the focus is on Kentucky's solo repertoire, I find myself gravitating toward Clyde Davenport and Isham Monday in particular. These gentlemen give us material that isn't always haunting or incredibly fast, but they are masters of the self-sufficient stately numbers. The material reminds me of the time when the fiddle was the entire band. The rhythms are subtle and flexible, yet the pulse never ceases. The sound is both archaic and timeless. Take Isham Monday's New Five Cents, for example. Here's a beautiful D tune that in the hands of another fiddler might become the basis for a string band rendition. Monday's version though, has a completeness that warns off any would-be accompanist. And it is this kind of tune that I think will receive the bulk of our attention in the workshops. I will gladly show folks how to play Ways of the World, Indian Squaw, or any of those cross-tuned beauties, but I think I'll be starting off with a straight forward tune in a major key, say Clyde Davenport's Sugar in the Gourd. We will investigate what it is about that tune that fills all the spaces so well, and politely but firmly asks to be left alone. 
Tour with The Steel WheelsWednesday, March 24, 2010 Whew. I just returned from a ten day tour with The Steel Wheels, a great band based in Harrisonburg, VA. Their fiddle player couldn't make the trip, so they asked me to fill in, playing fiddle and singing some bass lines. They have a brand new album, Red Wing, that is moving up the AMA radio charts, and which provided much of the repertoire for the tour. It was neat to get to know and play music with Trent, Jay, and Brian, and a fun challenge to wedge my way into their arrangements and attempt to do justice to the parts created by Eric, their very tall fiddler with a great bass voice.
The third day saw us driving the winding, mountain roads down to Marlington, WV, to play at the Pocahontas County Opera House. It was a treat to be in the home county of the Hammons Family, though my role as a substitute meant that I didn't get a chance to play Fine Times at Our House, Falls of Richmond, or any of those stark, gnarly solo fiddle pieces that Edden Hammons played so well. It was a neat show, though, one of those evenings when the audience is reverently quiet and the hall feels perfectly tuned for the music. Sunday saw us in Norwood (basically Cincinnati), OH, where we had some very good pizza at Dewey's. On Monday we packed the house at the Electric Brew in Goshen, IN. We were treated to an uninvited break-dance soloist who seemed unfazed by slow songs, and only after a complaint from the management did he grouchily depart. He would have been quite welcome on St. Patrick's Day, when we played three hour-long sets in Grand Rapids, MI, to serenade the crowd of college students drinking green beer and gyrating quite inappropriately to gospel songs. We did sprinkle in a few of my favorite Irish fiddle tunes learned from recordings of Frankie Gavin, Martin Hayes, and Tommy Peoples. We were rewarded by some Irish step dancing from one member of the crowd who had obviously received some dance instruction in her youth. Between the two dances parties in Goshen and Grand Rapids, we played a show that was also a wedding in South Haven, MI. Jay's sister, Rachel, decided that she wanted to get married at the show (the decision was made several weeks previously, so we were prepared), which made what would have been a normal Tuesday-night gig into a much more festive affair replete with cupcakes and a moving ceremony. The tour started winding down with a show in Iowa City, a set in Chicago, and finally an appearance at The White Crow Conservatory of Music in Saginaw, MI. We had cheese curds in Iowa, great Mexican food in Chicago, and a surprise encounter with Rayna Gellert and Susie Goehring in Michigan. The band decided to make a stop at Elderly Instruments on the way to Saginaw. Trent got a new banjo bridge, Matt and Jay bought strings, and we all saw and got to visit a bit with Rayna and Susie, who were in the midst of several appearances in Lansing, MI. So that's it. Ten shows in ten days, a fair bit of driving, but plenty of fun. I urge you to check out The Steel Wheels. They are very good folks and they make really good music (just wait until you hear those four part harmonies!). 
Folk AllianceMonday, February 22, 2010 I just returned from the 22nd International Folk Alliance Conference way down in Memphis, Tennessee. It's quite a long haul to Memphis from Pennsylvania, but I was able to share the driving with fellow musicians Kevin Neidig and Camela Widad Kraemer. We piled into a borrowed touring van and made the trek there and back. Folk Alliance is known as one of the primary breeding grounds for nascent singer-songwriters and their potential agents, managers, DJs, and presenters. Fortunately, it also has an increasing population of traditional (and particularly old-time) folk musicians. It was great to see old-time jam sessions springing up around the Marriott's common areas. One doesn't see many singer-songwriter jam sessions, but old-time musicians sure know how to get together and play in synchronicity. It was equally amusing to see the attempts of the powers-that-be to silence some of the aforementioned jam sessions. Apparently the boisterous string band sounds were at times impeding on the formal proceedings. 
This year, my second at the conference, I was honored to be included as a panelist for several of the workshops. I hosted a fiddle summit that covered a wide spectrum of styles from North America (Al Berard's Cajun fiddling was a highlight). I was also included in a banjo workshop with Buddy Ingram, Allison Williams, and Leonard Podolak. I tried to hold my own alongside those bona fide banjo pickers. The biggest treat for me, though, was the presence of Violet Hensley. Violet Hensley is a 93 year-old fiddler from Yellville, Arkansas. I met her this summer after playing a show in Mountain View, Arkansas. Brad Leftwich told me earlier in the year that if I were going to be anywhere near Yellville, that I needed to pay Violet a visit. I did, and as a result, she was nominated for (and last week received) Folk Alliance's inaugural Mike Seeger Memorial Scholarship. She was honored in the Awards Show, interviewed by me, and featured in an early-evening showcase concert. She could also be found in the center of jam sessions playing one of the fiddles she has made or the jawbone she uses as a rhythm instrument (it's properly called a "jackassaphone"). People loved her music, her sense of humor, and her stories. One of my favorite moments was when she was talking about being a craftswoman at Silver Dollar City. She is advertised as "making fiddles by hand" and is a legendary presence there. Well, one day, a woman walked up as Violet was using a hand saw on a piece of wood that would become the back of the fiddle. The woman was indignant, exclaiming, "I thought you made these instruments by hand?!?!" 
Tracy Schwarz and I backed Violet up during the Awards ceremony as well as for her featured performance. For the latter, Violet's grandson, Sterling, also helped out on guitar. It was wonderful to see that the Hensley tradition continues on with this talented and good-natured seventeen year-old. Also accompanying Violet on the trip was Ashlie Hueter, who is learning both fiddling and fiddle-making from Violet. Just the previous week, Ashlie had completed her first instrument, which she brought along. Violet proudly showed it off and played it for one of her numbers. In all she did, Violet's knowledge, passion, talent, and enthusiasm infused the proceedings and made her one of the highlights of the week. Thanks to Ashlie Hueter for the photos of Violet at this year's Folk Alliance |
RMFC is a great choice for musicians interested in
a variety of styles, and I proudly put myself in that
category. I got to play Irish and old-time music with Dennis, Randal
and Grey, and rhythm guitar for Andy's swingin' jazz set. A particular highlight was
getting to know a young bluegrass band of campers who call
themselves The Bogglemuffins. We jammed on several occasions, and I was blown away
by their talent, taste, knowledge, and show-stopping potential.
On Friday afternoon I stopped in Yellville to visit
Violet Hensley. The last time I had seen her was way
down in Memphis in February (details can be found in the 'Folk Alliance'
Then it was on to Boulder. While there, I frequented several of the Whole Foods Markets (they have a preponderance of them, due to Whole Foods' imperialistic takeovers of independent health food stores), and had a great lunch and jam session with 
For our day off between the two weeks of the Institute, Bill Kronenberg, Renata Bratt, Scott Walker, and I went to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. It was a four hour and forty minute drive from Beaver Creek, and we managed to arrive in Telluride just in time to hear our favorite band, 
It was amazing to finally see Väsen perform. After years of listening to and learning their tunes, I was still unprepared for how good they are in concert. The combination of incredible musicianship, awe-inspiring synergy, and Swedish humor makes for an unforgettable show. After their set and a chicken gyro, I strolled over to where "The Tallest Band in the World" was signing merchandise and greeting fans. I was delighted to see that one of my students from the Suzuki Institute was waiting in line, eager to meet them. When she got to the front, she asked them to sign her violin (don't try this at home!), and then proceeded to play for them the Silkesvalsen, a traditional Swedish waltz that I taught her class that previous week. They listened in reverent silence. As a teacher, it was a moment I will never forget.
The show had a great variety of music: I played strathspeys
on the fiddle, rock and roll on my Huss & Dalton guitar, and sang baritone and bass parts on several songs. The material included Old-Time, Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton, Swing and South African numbers, and there were a capella dance pieces from Hungary and the Cherokee nation.
Oriental is a neat little town, known as the Sailing Capital
of North Carolina, and most all of the businesses are on or near
the water. We arrived on Friday night and enjoyed a great meal at M&M's, just
a few bow lengths from one of the marinas. Then on Saturday morning
I strolled around the town with my hostess, Ellen, who showed me
the farmer's market, one of the art galleries, the dentist's office, the
boats, the water, and the coffee shop. Our show Saturday night
was sold out, and the Old Theater proved to be the perfect venue
for the vaudevillian variety show that is Footworks' specialty.
We started out in Frederick, MD, at a restaurant and bar called
Cafe Nola. Then it was on to Grafton, WV, the home of Mother's
Day. Grafton has been in a bit of a slump for the past few decades,
but the Grafton 123 is making a strong attempt to help reinvigorate downtown. With a neat combination of coffee, wireless internet,
live music, freshly baked treats, and good intentions, the 123 is
on the right track, and hopefully will help this small town welcome
in another profitable era.