Festival of American Fiddle Tunes/Paul Conklin

 

Summer 1999

ARTICLES

COLUMNS

  • The Practicing Fiddler, by Jack Tuttle
  • Bluegrass Fiddling, by Paul Shelasky
  • Violin Makers: Apache Violin Maker and Player Chesley Wilson, by Hollis Taylor
  • Folk Routes, by Peter Anick
  • And more!

TUNES

  • Niel Gow's Lament for the Death of His Second Wife
  • The Fly Fishing Reel, by Jackie Daly
  • McIllhatton's Retreat, by Máire O'Keeffe
  • Eagle Island Blues (Athabascan Love Long)
  • Geh Ch'adzah (Rabbit Dance)
  • Jig Ahtsii Ch'adzah (Red River Jig)
  • Waltz of the Winds, by Randy Elmore
  • Blues for Papa, by Randy Elmore
  • Hortencia, by Isaías Salmerón
  • Mockingbird Hill (part of The Practicing Fiddler column)
  • A Dark Road Is a Hard Road to Travel (Bluegrass Fiddling column)
  • Nine Pound Hammer (Bluegrass Fiddling column)

 

ARTICLE EXCERPTS

Scotland's Pete Clark: In the Footsteps of Niel Gow

by Michael Simmons

To most fiddlers tune titles are an abstraction. They don't think about what a Mississippi Sawyer does, what happened on the 8th of January, or where an Arkansas Traveler might be going. But to the Scottish fiddler Pete Clark, the titles of the tunes he plays are part of his highland landscape. When I visited him in November of 1998, he took me on a brief tour of his Perthshire neighborhood and as we drove along the small one lane road to his 17th century farmhouse, his description of the local landmarks sounded like a recitation of titles from a collection of Scottish fiddle tunes.

"We are just coming into the 'Braes of Tullymet.' That's Scottish for hills. A few miles down that road is the 'Dunkeld Bridge' and back there is the old public house where the 'Landlady of Inver Inn' used to preside." And then we passed a building that explained why so much of the local landscape was named in tune titles. "If you look between those trees you can just see Niel Gow's cottage."

Niel Gow was born in 1727 in Inver, not far from Pete Clark's house. In Gow's long life he composed dozens of strathspeys, reels and jigs that have become staples of the traditional fiddler's repertoire. His slow airs, particularly the "Lament for the Death of his Second Wife," are some of the most haunting melodies ever composed. Although Gow was a very popular musician and traveled widely throughout the highlands playing for the aristocracy ­­ his patrons included the Duke of Athole and the Duchess of Gordon ­­ he chose to live his entire life in the village where he was born. Many of the tunes he composed bear the names of the local rivers, villages and people of his native Perthshire.

Gow was not the only musician in his family. His brother Donald played the cello and three of Niel's sons went on to play the violin. One of them, Nathaniel, gained almost as much fame as his father. He was a gifted musician but more importantly, he was also a publisher who preserved many of his father's compositions. In late 1997 Pete Clark paid tribute to Inver's favorite son by recording Even Now, a compact disc of tunes that Gow composed or was known to have played.

The idea of making a recording of tunes associated with Niel Gow started with a benefit concert held at Blair Castle for Heartland FM, the local radio station. As Clark recalls, "The promoter wanted me to play some of Niel Gow's tunes on Gow's own fiddle, which is preserved at the castle." To everyone who attended the fundraiser, the highlight was hearing Gow's melodies played on the instrument on which they were composed two centuries ago. But Clark did more than just play some old tunes on an old fiddle. "I wanted to keep the arrangements and instrumentation as close as possible to what Gow would have played, so I used the same instruments he did: two violins, a cello and, on occasion, a piano. I went through the collections of Gow's compositions and chose the ones I liked. I made sets from the dance tunes and let the slow airs stand alone." Clark rounded up some local musicians to make up the band. Martin MacLeod played the second violin and viola, Neil Johnstone played cello, and Jim Leighton was the pianist.

The concert went so well that Neil Johnstone suggested that they make a recording. They approached Martin Hadden of Smiddymade Records, who was very receptive to the idea, and a few months later they were back in Blair Castle making a compact disc. Clark had played there before and knew that the ballroom had fine acoustics, which was just as well because he discovered, "The curators weren't too keen to let the fiddle out of the castle. The ballroom was built after Gow died so he didn't play in that very room, but he did play at the castle." Blair Castle is the ancestral home of one of Gow's patrons, the Duke of Athole, and it contains some other artifacts associated with the fiddler, including a portrait by Raeburn as well as more prosaic items like a kitchen knife.

The original idea was to record just the music of Niel Gow, but Clark realized that the various collections of Gow's tunes included traditional melodies as well as the work of other local composers. "We thought Gow wouldn't have played just his own tunes, he would have played other local melodies and whatever he picked up at the pub from musicians who were passing through. So I broadened the scope to include tunes that were created about the time and in the same place that Gow lived and performed ­­ tunes by his son Nathaniel as well as by Robert 'Red Rob' McIntosh and John Pringle. There is also one tune by Samson Duncan, who was a member of Gow's band. There is also a tune by Niel Gow, Jr., Nathaniel's son, so we have the music of three Gow generations on this recording!"

The recording session went smoothly, except, as Clark recalls, "for the occasional RAF jet flying by and the warning beeps of a lorry backing up." After the recording was finished, the group sat about trying to think of a title. Martin Hadden came up with "Even Now," which was based on a couplet about Gow that appeared in Scots Magazine in 1812:

"Time and Gow are even now,

Gow beat time, and time beat Gow."

Clark said the title "has a nice poetic sound and to me it means that even now, 200 years later, Gow's music is played and enjoyed."

One of the most exciting parts of the project was getting to actually play on Niel Gow's violin. "It's an old Scottish-made fiddle. It looks its age but there is really nothing remarkable about its construction. But it has a lot of character. There is no purfling on the belly and it has a few cracks here and there. It's as light as balsa wood. You think its going to crack as soon as you touch it. It spends most of its life in a small glass case on display at Blair Castle. It's probably not the only fiddle Niel Gow played on or owned. There are various other people who claim to have Gow's fiddle but no one really knows which fiddle was the one he played on most of the time."

The fiddle has a curious inscription inside: "Neil Gow's Fiddle." Clark explains why this is odd. "Gow always spelled his first name N-I-E-L rather than N-E-I-L. That suggests to me that perhaps after his death someone thought, 'We don't want to forget who this fiddle belongs to,' so they wrote out a label and stuck it inside. There is also a date inside of 1787. Gow died in 1807 so maybe the person who made it, or a patron like the Duke of Athole, gave it to him as a present. In either case Gow probably didn't put the label in there himself."

One of the unexpected benefits of making this record has been getting to meet the descendants of some of the dedicatees of the tunes. "There was a man, Major Montgomery from Ayrshire, visiting the school where I teach and I was introduced to him. On a hunch I asked him if the name Coilsfield House meant anything to him. He said that it was his family's ancestral home but that it had burnt down a few years ago. I had my fiddle with me so I played Nathaniel's tune 'Coilsfield House' and asked if he recognized it. He said no and when I told him that it was probably written for his great-great-great grandfather, he was flabbergasted." ...

[Michael Simmons plays guitar, is Fiddler Magazine's Review Editor, and also writes for Acoustic Guitar magazine.]

 

Randy Elmore: Texas' Finest

By Tim Hodgson

Several years ago, I was given a copy of a Texas-swing show, held at the Houston Livestock Show, featuring Johnny Gimble and a host of other talented musicians. I remember the first time I listened to that tape, hearing Johnny swinging like never before on "Don't Let the Deal Go Down." All of the sudden, he said, "Take one Randy and show 'em how a champion does it!" This guy was good; no, better than good. He was great! He was fiddling in the vintage Gimble style but with a few twists and turns that set him apart from other swing players. I had to find out who this guy was and where he had been hiding!

Randy Elmore, from Cleburne, Texas, a little town just south of Fort Worth, has been playing music since he asked his dad for a guitar for Christmas in 1963. He played guitar for a couple of years, learning chords from his uncle. "Then, Dad came home one day and asked me if I wanted to play a fiddle. I guess I was game for anything with strings on it. Fiddle soon became my main instrument."

Randy had family ties to fiddle music. "My two uncles played both guitar and fiddle. My grandpa played, too, but I never got to hear him play. I just remember all of the family get-togethers and the music. They were some of my favorites times."

Who has influenced your fiddling?

Norman Solomon and Bill Gilbert were my first teachers. Bill introduced me to Norman. Bill was real good at giving me the basics of the tune with good, basic bowing and then Norman would work from there. Norman never gave formal lessons, he'd just show me a few things whenever he was available. He never took any money for the lessons, either. Bill had me come over once a week for a couple of years, around 1966-67. I started learning from Vernon Solomon, Benny Thomasson, Louis Franklin, Major Franklin and several others. I found out that most of these great fiddlers liked to show young people things, but not on a regular basis. If one guy was too busy to show me something, I'd just call another. If you were lucky, you could get two or three lessons a week! I always had to be careful not to play one person's version of a tune for another because they'd try to change it. There was never any music or charts to learn from. It was all by ear, and usually not even taped on a recorder. Benny and Norman always talked more about bowing than any of the other fiddlers. I started competing around this time, 1966-67. Contests back then were so much fun. They always had jam sessions after the contests. I learned a lot about fiddling just playing guitar for the good fiddlers.

I know you play all styles of music, but you certainly have a knack for western swing. What is it about western swing that appeals to you?

For me, western swing has just always been more interesting to me than most other styles. I spent my high school years playing strictly contest fiddle music. After high school, I joined Warren Edward's band. It was a western swing band, so I got introduced to swing music right away. The thing that got my attention was the amount of freedom you had, as compared to the fairly straight melody breaks in most country bands. Swing music really improved my musical knowledge. I learned about augmented and diminished chords and other things that help no matter what style of music I am playing. I even found out I could learn a lot from the clarinet players. They are in the same register as the fiddle and usually played some pretty swingy stuff. I spent years on the road, playing country fiddle. I was with Red Steagall from 1975 to 1980. I spent one year, 1984, playing with Reba McEntire. I fiddled with Mel Tillis from 1985 to 1992, the last three years being at his theater in Branson, Missouri. As country music changed, swing seemed to fit more with the sound these performers were after. And Johnny Gimble's help on several of George Strait's recordings didn't hurt! Now, most fiddlers are emulating the sound that was really developed years ago, but has just recently become somewhat popular. Like I said, it just seems more interesting to me. I really enjoyed playing with Mel [Tillis]. His sound was a lot like Spade Cooley's. It was much more orchestrated than most other performers, with three or four fiddles. You very seldom got to take a break on your own.

With all that experience, how would you describe your fiddling today?

Well, I have been a free-lance musician since 1993. I do radio and television commercials, playing pretty much whatever they want. I get most of my calls for cowboy music recording sessions, demos and country recordings. I even get a chance to play top 40 and classical once in a while. I like to think of myself as a musician who plays whatever kind of music I feel like playing. My musical experiences have really helped me to be a more rounded musician.

Do you still go to the contests?

I haven't competed since 1984. Working with Red Steagall kept me from being able to hit the contests when I was really into them. After working with Red, I worked for a local gas company for about three years, about 1981 to 1984. This gave me an opportunity to hit the contest circuit again. Back then, there were many more contests than there are today. I have won the Texas State Championship six times and the World Championship in Crockett, Texas, twice. I guess at one time or another, I've won every contest in the state of Texas. Now, I go to a few contests to judge, but I don't compete. I do quite a few workshops these days, including Mark O'Connor's fiddle camp, Johnny Gimble's workshop, the Booher's camp in Oregon and the workshop at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas. Every once in a while, I get a call to teach private lessons. I feel like I keep too busy a schedule to be an effective teacher. If I can, I'll invite the caller over for an afternoon to show them what I can, but I don't have any full-time students.

How do you "work up" tunes?

One thing I do in western swing music, whether I am learning a new tune or writing a tune or just re-working one, is I learn the entire tune in double stops. It helps my intonation and also helps me know the harmony in case there is more than one fiddler, which is common around here. It makes me use all of the first four positions and eliminate open strings. I listen to a lot of clarinet players, too, like Benny Goodman and a great player from around here named Buddy DeFranco. I get a lot of ideas from them. I also get easily inspired by Johnny Gimble and Buddy Spicher. Buddy probably plays more double stops than any fiddler alive today. Last year, I played a session with him where I played two parts above and he played two parts below. This way, we covered everything in one take-it helped eliminate the need to over-dub. Gimble likes to play with one guy taking the lead and then he will straddle the lead, with one part above and one part below the lead. This is more like the old Bob Wills sound. But, back to your question, I generally try to keep up on every type of music I have ever played. That way, I have a lot to draw from when I am working up a tune.

What is important to you in describing or judging good music?

Normally, on breakdowns, I can tell who is the major influence on that player. I try not to judge against that, but I like to keep in mind how well they are doing with incorporating that player into their own fiddling. I really like to hear variation. I don't like to hear the same stuff twice. When judging two similar players, I'll always give the edge to the one who demonstrates more variety. I also listen closely to bowing. I think bowing is more important than what the left hand is doing. I guess my attitude about bowing stems from Norman Solomon. He always said a one-bow-per-note player sounded just like his playing-up and down! Of course, I listen to tone and intonation and all the other basics of good music. I think tone is closely related to bowing. Big tone comes from unique bowing patterns. I always stress the importance of not locking yourself into a single arrangement of a tune. Usually, fiddlers who do this will have trouble recovering from a mistake. If you learn the basic melody of a tune, you always have that to come back to. Also, if you learn more than one way to play a particular part, you have variety in your own playing. I guess that learning from so many different fiddlers has given me this attitude. I learned so many variations from different fiddlers that I guess I had a wealth of knowledge to draw from.

[Tim Hodgson is a two-time National Men's Champion Fiddler who has placed in the top five at the Grand Nationals seven of the last eight times entered and is a four-time Idaho State champion. Tim performs with the Bar J Wranglers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, singing Sons of the Pioneers style western music.]

 

Máire O'Keeffe: From Ireland to Cape Breton and Back Again

by Peter W. Marten

Máire O'Keeffe of Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland, plays an exciting variety of fiddling that reflects her many musical interests. Her repertoire incorporates stylistic elements and tunes from Sliabh Luachra, Donegal, and other areas of Ireland, as well as other Celtic traditions, such as Cape Breton. Some of her numerous musical friendships are in evidence on her album Cóisir - House Party, which is divided almost evenly between Irish and Cape Breton tunes. The recording boasts appearances by several well-known Cape Breton musicians whose playing complements Máire's uplifting sound. On the other side of the Atlantic, she has often worked with Sliabh Luachra accordionist Jackie Daly and plays on several tracks of his CD Domhnach Is Dálach - Many's a Wild Night. Her interest in the music of Sliabh Luachra has led to the inclusion in her repertoire of a large number of slides (single jigs or 12/8 jigs) and polkas, which are the most popular dances in that region. In her musical travels, Máire has played and taught all over the world, from Canada and Shetland in the North to Australia in the South. She took time out to talk to Fiddler Magazine during a busy week of workshops and concerts at Boston College's Gaelic Roots festival in June 1998.

How did you get started playing, and who were your first influences?

My first influence was a nun. Her name was Sister Kevin, and she was a music teacher in the primary school that I went to. I remember when I was about 4, she used to let me go into her music room, since my mother was a teacher as well, and just mess with the piano, and then she began to teach me. So she taught me the piano for years...

Would this have been Irish tunes?

No, it was classical. It was exams and all that kind of stuff. But in between the exams she would also teach me jigs and hornpipes out of a book called Allan's Irish Fiddler. I still have an old tattered copy of it somewhere. But I was also doing Irish dancing at the time, so I knew what jigs and reels were. And then, I suppose when I was about 13 or 14, I balked at doing piano exams-I wanted to just play the piano. I played a lot by ear, which is kind of frowned upon in the piano world, or I thought it was anyway. My mother joined me up with the local Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann1 group, and there was a great woman there called Máire Griffin. She and her husband, Paddy Griffin, really were great people for encouraging musicians. They had a class every Monday evening at 4 o'clock, and the man teaching was Nicky McAuliffe, who seemed to play every instrument under the sun. Máire Griffin played the fiddle, so she was always encouraging me to play the fiddle. I didn't even think about it too much, and then I heard the first album from the Bothy Band, somebody gave me a present of it. I heard Tommy Peoples playing on that album, and that was it. I didn't know anything about Kerry styles or Donegal styles, I just wanted to play the fiddle like the man on this record. So I got a fiddle and started learning. Máire Griffin showed me the scale, first of all, and I remember buying a mandolin book, because Nicky McAuliffe was gone to America on a three-week tour, so I couldn't start with him and I was dying to play this instrument. And that was actually great, because I got the idea of frets, of the spacing, so I had an idea, a mental image, of where you put your fingers. Even when I teach today, I think that's very important. I try to give people this idea of an inch from the top, an inch from that, and then right beside that, which is the way the frets on the mandolin seem to work.

And then I just started taking lessons with Nicky McAuliffe, and Nicky would teach in a variety of ways. He usually had a huge whistle class in the same room and I'd be given a tune, either on a tape, or sometimes he would write it out for me really quickly. Some weeks, if he was really busy, he'd say, "Have you got Tommy Peoples and Paul Brady, that album? Last track, side two, learn that this week."

And that was the lesson?

That was the lesson. Actually, the real lesson would be to come back the following week and play it for him. He would go through it with me and say, "Look, he doesn't do that here," or "Maybe you could try this here." He'd just quickly show me. There were no classes, like the way the classes this week have been, for instance. When I'm teaching, I tend to break it down into phrases. It was a real survival course, you had to really use your ear. But I'd played by ear all along anyway, so playing by ear wasn't a difficulty.

Aside from the sets that you learned from records, do you plan sets out before playing a performance? Some fiddlers-I'm thinking of Cape Bretoners-may pick the tunes as they go along, and the accompanist just has to follow their lead.

Well, the Cape Breton situation is different, because generally if they start in A major, they stay in A major, or they might move to A minor. But you will not catch Cape Bretoners going from D to G, to A, back to D, which, of course, is what happens in Irish music. So, for an accompanist in Irish music, it's actually harder. I think that's how the Cape Bretoners can be so much more inventive, because they don't have to worry about, "This fellow might change into G, and I'll be caught." They don't have to worry about that, because they generally start with, say, an A set of strathspeys and reels, a C set of jigsthey might go into F, but they stay around the home key, whereas the same is not true of Irish music. It also depends who you're playing with. If I'm playing with a melodeon player, for instance, I'll stay in D and play tunes in D, because they don't have a C natural and it's just really hard for them. Whereas if you're playing with an accordion player it's OK, it's different. They've got the chromatic situation.

How about sessions? With so many musicians and instruments involved, how are they coordinated?

For key changes, it's good to know what's happening in the session. I sat in a session the other night, and I just asked, seeing as I was used to this, "Could I have a situation where I knew what the next tune was before we started?" It kind of started going around and people started saying, "Alright, we'll play this one, and then we'll do this one after that." So everybody knew what was happening-they know what's coming.

In situations where musicians are very experienced, they very often don't have to do that. They might just raise an eyebrow, and you'll hear somebody say, "G." Then you know you're going to change key, and most experienced musicians will fall into the tune immediately, so there's not a break in the session. But in sessions where people are not terribly experienced with sessions, and you've got three people starting different tunes on the second tune, the bottom falls out of the session. It's a good idea to build up your repertoire in set structures. That's the way a lot of older musicians did it. You could sit in a session with all these older musicians at home, and because I've listened to a lot of their music, I know their repertoire. I know exactly what they're going to go into after. But if I don't, they'll always make sure that I do. They'll say, "How about this one? We usually play this one after." It makes you feel very welcome.

On the topic of Irish styles of playing, you mentioned in the workshop that you've run across people who think that you ought to know certain tunes just because you come from County Kerry.

Yes, there is certainly an element of the Irish music fraternity who would believe that because you're from Kerry, you should play Kerry music, or if you're from Donegal, you should play Donegal music. People get themselves into knots about labeling. And of course, I don't think anybody should be labeled. When I started out, Tommy Peoples was the first person I wanted to play like-I very quickly realized that's a very difficult thing to do. From Tommy Peoples, I suppose, I went into the Donegal connection, and I also ended up doing the Scoil Éigse with Paddy Glackin, and it happened to be in Buncrana in Donegal, before the Fleadh.

It was a very special Scoil Éigse, because the whole school-there were flute players and whistle players and so on-were taken off on a trip in the middle of the week. We were taken down to see this fiddle player. We walked in, he was at the back of a pub. There was a pool table at the pub, and this little old man with a cap and a pipe was sitting there, and it was John Doherty. It was just the most amazing experience, to actually meet him. At the time I didn't know who John Doherty was; I had no idea who we'd been brought to hear. It meant nothing to me when Paddy Glackin said, "We're going to visit the great John Doherty." I have this vivid memory of us all sitting on the floor, and he was sitting on a bench. He talked and played the fiddle-it was kind of a magic experienc. The first thing I did when I came away from that was to go looking for John Doherty records. And I got them, because Comhaltas had brought one out, a great one. And in about 1980, I think, Gael-Linn brought out a double album of John Doherty's music. I was in clover. I became really into Donegal and John Doherty's fiddle playing. From there, I kind of moved to go to West Donegal, Southwest Donegal, and started going up there a lot in the early '80s. There were a few of us that were really into that kind of music.

In the meantime I was getting stick from some musicians at home, who are now playing Donegal music themselves and will remain nameless-they know who they are. [Laughs.] They were saying, "This is terrible. You shouldn't be playing Donegal music, you should be playing Kerry music. You should be sticking to your own music." Nonsense.

Through the Donegal music and getting recordings, I began to come across recordings of [Sliabh Luachra fiddlers] Pádraig O'Keeffe, Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford. They weren't that accessible, commercially, so...if they weren't accessible commercially, it's very difficult to stick to your own music, as they said. I couldn't get my hands on what's supposedly my own music. I also moved to Dublin at that stage from Tralee, where I grew up. In the early '80s, Dublin was a major melting pot of traditional musicians from all parts of Ireland. So you could meet a Leitrim flute player one day and sit playing these lively, jumpy tunes, and you could meet a Donegal fiddle player the next day, and you could meet somebody from Connemara, or somebody from East Galway or East Clare. There was just a really strong melting pot of the different traditions, so you ended up playing sessions with all these different people. And every time you sit with a musician-unless they're talking football or something-if they're talking about the music, if they're playing, you're going to pick up something. You've come away with something. You mightn't consciously do it, but it'll be there, and I think that's just how my fiddle style developed. I wouldn't say I play in any particular style. I think there's a bit of everything fired into it....

[Peter Marten works as a translator and teacher in Helsinki, Finland. His main interests are Celtic, French-Canadian and Finnish fiddling.]

 

Bill Stevens: Preserving the Gwich'in Athabascan Fiddle Traditions

by Mary Larsen

Born in 1933 in a log cabin on the Black River, Alaska, Bill Stevens was raised thirty-five miles away in Fort Yukon, where all-night potlatches and other celebrations were not uncommon. He frequently heard fiddling at the home of his grandfather, Chief Esias Loola. Bill was inspired to take up the fiddle as a young teenager after hearing Old Crow (Yukon Territory) fiddler Paul Ben Kassi. After some begging, Bill finally persuaded his mother to buy him a fiddle; when the package arrived from Sears Roebuck, Bill was on his way. Ethnomusicologist Craig Mishler, who wrote the liner notes for Bill's latest CD, noted that Bill has brought his fiddling to more people in Alaska and northwest Canada than anyone else alive. Between his own playing and his efforts with the Athabascan Old-Time Fiddlers Festival, Bill can rightly take credit for a renewed interest in the art of fiddling. Bill says he has played his fiddle for dances in almost every community on the Yukon River, from Whitehorse to Alakanuk. Mishler notes, "You can hear his notes floating up and downstream for 2,000 miles. It's no wonder that they call him Ch'adzah Aghwaa ('He carries dances') in Gwich'in." It is Bill's desire that the traditions be passed onto the younger generation, and thanks to his efforts, that is indeed happening.

When Bill was in his early twenties, the Bureau of Indian Affairs sent him to California for a job training program. His life in California was not always an easy one, but finally things improved. After years of not playing much fiddle, Bill returned to it with new enthusiasm, taking lessons from Virgil Evans and playing with musicians from the Santa Clara Valley Fiddlers' Association. It was in California that Bill's musical interests expanded to include bluegrass, old-time, and country styles. Spending several years competing in fiddle contests, Bill acquired a collection of over eighteen trophies. In 1978, he won second place in the men's division of the California Old Time Fiddlers Association State Championship. He has also competed in the National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest in Weiser, Idaho, and in the National Indian Fiddlers Contest in Talequah, Oklahoma, as well as many contests throughout Alaska.

When Bill returned to Alaska in 1982, he was asked to help organize the first Athabascan Old-Time Fiddlers Festival, held in November 1983. This entailed extensive traveling around the villages of Alaska and northwest Canada, seeking out and recruiting fiddlers for the event. He was also M.C. of the first festival, and it continues to be one of the highlights of the year for him.

Bill's latest CD, Gwich'in Athabascan Fiddle Music, recorded this past January, is what he calls a "documentary story of our music." Many of the tunes on the CD were brought to Alaska and northwestern Canada from Scottish (mainly Orkney), Irish, and French-Canadian trappers and traders with the Hudson's Bay Company. Such tunes as "Nihk'iidoo" (Eight Couple), "Jig Ahtsii Ch'aadzaa" (Red River Jig, actually a reel), "K'oonii T'aii Ch'aadzaa" (Handkerchief Dance), "Geh Ch'aadzaa" (Rabbit Dance), and "Dat'san Ch'aadzaa" (Duck Dance) were quickly adopted by the Gwich'in people and have remained classics in the music and dance repertoire. Also included on the CD are old-time tunes such as "Soldier's Joy," "The Girl I Left Behind Me" (recorded unaccompanied, as was the Gwich'in tradition until the early 20th century), and "Devil's Dream," also standards in the repertoire. All the tunes on the CD were ones heard by Bill as a young boy. He learned some from other fiddlers, and some from recordings of the old fiddlers. Many of the tunes are "crooked," and some are cross-tuned. The CD liner notes include descriptions of the dances which accompany the tunes. Bill's aunt, Katherine Peter, a Gwich'in elder and linguist, talks about many of the tunes in the Gwich'in language (her comments are translated in the liner notes). There was a well-attended CD release party and lecture at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks Museum in March.

Bill's fiddling has certainly taken him places. In addition to the hundreds of places he's played in Alaska, northwest Canada, and California, Bill has performed at the Smithsonian Institution's Folk Life Festival, at Wolf Trap, and abroad. May 1999 will find him performing in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, at the Orkney Folk Festival as well as at an event called the Homecoming, which will bring together fiddlers from all over the world who have been influenced by the Orcadian style. He also hopes to travel to Ireland in the not-too-distant future. Bill performs solo and with his band The Ta-Nun Trio (Ta-Nun means Fairbanks in Gwich'in). If someday you find yourself heading up to Fairbanks, drop Bill a line; he just may invite you over for a few tunes, and, if it the hunting season has been good to him, maybe even a bowl of homemade moose stew.

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