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Fiddler's Dream: Old-Time, Swing, and Bluegrass Fiddling in Twentieth-Century Missouri
448Overview
In this sequel to Howard Marshall’s earlier book on old-time fiddlers in Missouri, Play Me Something Quick and Devilish, the author uses oral history, archival photographs, and transcriptions of selected tunes to trace the evolution of traditional fiddle music in Missouri from the early 1920s to the abrupt changes in American society and traditional music in the 1960s. The book focuses on fiddle music in everyday life at music parties, dances, pie suppers, festivals, contests, and oprys. Marshall’s wealth of knowledge, gained through a lifetime of involvement in Missouri fiddle traditions, gives the book exceptional richness and depth.
This book includes a CD with 30 archival recordings from 1939 to 2015, produced by Voyager Records.
A Missouri Humanities Council grant helped fund the production of this book.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780826221216 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Missouri Press |
| Publication date: | 06/30/2017 |
| Edition description: | 1 |
| Pages: | 448 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.70(d) |
| Age Range: | 14 - 18 Years |
About the Author
Howard Wight Marshall is Professor Emeritus and former chairman of Art History and Archaeology, and former director of the Missouri Cultural Heritage Center at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
After dropping out of college to join the Marine Corps in the early 1960s, Marshall took his BA in English at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and then took his MA and PhD in Folklore and Anthropology at Indiana University. He wrote his dissertation based on extensive field recording of traditional farm buildings in Missouri’s Little Dixie folk region.
Then after graduate school, Dr. Marshall worked briefly as director of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and then for several years as a curator and planner at a living history museum in Indiana, and consulted for the Smithsonian Institution. He then was called to a position at the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress. While in Washington, he taught a night course in architectural history at George Washington University.
Marshall left the Library of Congress after five years in 1981 to teach at Kansas State University. In 1982, he returned to Columbia to establish the Missouri Cultural Heritage Center in the Graduate School at the University of Missouri, and to teach material culture, vernacular architecture, and historic preservation in the Department of Art History and Archaeology. After the closing of the Cultural Heritage Center in 1993 (due to a campus budget crisis), Marshall served as professor and department chair in Art History and Archaeology, and took early retirement in 2000.
Dr. Marshall’s books include Buckaroos in Paradise: Cowboy Life in Paradise Valley, Nevada, Folk Architecture in Little Dixie: A Regional Culture in Missouri, Missouri Artist Jesse Howard, The German-American Experience in Missouri, Barns of Missouri: Storehouses of History, and Play Me Something Quick and Devilish: Old-Time Fiddlers in Missouri. Dr. Marshall’s latest book is Fiddler’s Dream: Old-Time, Swing, and Bluegrass Fiddling in Twentieth-Century Missouri, which continues the ethnography and discussion in Play Me Something Quick and Devilish.
Marshall plays the music he studies and writes about. He credits the memory of his grandfather, Wiley Marshall, a country schoolmaster and fiddler in Randolph County, with inspiring him to want to play the old dance tunes on the violin. Later, Marshall learned tunes and techniques from central Missouri fiddle legends such as Taylor McBaine, Jake Hockemeyer, Johnny Bruce, Nile Wilson, and Pete McMahan.
Dr. Marshall confesses that the best thing about his career was the good luck to meet his spouse, the charming and irrepressible Margot McMillen. Howard and Margot live in northern Callaway County, where they operate a small livestock farm.
Table of Contents
Preface xi
Transcriptions and Traditional Music xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
Abbreviations xix
Introduction 3
A Few More Words on Styles and Violinistic Skills in Old-Time Fiddling 9
1 Radio Fiddlers 13
Pioneer Radio Fiddlers 14
Elmer Schmutzler, Mt. Hope 20
Generations and Violins: From Asa White to Jessie and Kellie 25
Bill White and the Blue Ridge Mountaineers 27
Carrying It On 29
AM Radio and Old-Time Fiddlers 30
Early Radio and Fiddlers Contests 33
Whitty Elmore, "Champion of Dixie" 38
Depression Years and War Years 44
2 Lonnie Robertson 51
Lonnie Heads North 54
Lonnie and Roy, a Brother Duet 56
Roy McGeorge 57
The KWTO Years 61
Caney Mountain Records 62
Changing Tempos 64
3 Music Parties 71
Bert Lewis, Local Hero 71
A Region's Hot Shots: Cassity, Teague, and Wooliver 77
Orville Cassity 78
Howe Teague 79
Pie Suppers and House Dances 84
Teague Meets Wooliver 87
Roy Wooliver: Genius, Rascal 91
4 Missourians Out West 101
Earl Willis: A Boone Family Fiddler Leaves Little Dixie 103
"Missouri Picnics" in Northwest Washington State: Ellis Cowin 111
Ishmael (Ozark Red) Loveall, Radio Fiddler 114
Ron Hughey: Mentor, Model, "People Pleaser" 118
A Fiddler with Wanderlust: Bob Fast 124
Jim Herd, from Father to Son 129
5 Contests 135
Seriously Seeking Competition 136
Fiddling Contests in the Golden Age of Small-Town Newspapers 138
Paris, 1923 142
Paris, 1926: The Rematch 150
Macon, 1924: Fiddle Contests and Horse Races 156
Salisbury, October 1929 163
6 Shows 167
The Shifting Sands of Country Entertainment 167
Is the Word "Opry" Obsolete? 169
The Ozark Opry 171
Bluegrass Fiddler Don Russell 183
Leroy Canaday: A Night at Grandma's 186
Rooster Creek: Missouri's Last Live AM Radio Opry? 193
Seth Bradley 197
7 Opry Entrepreneurs and Born Showmen 201
Evolution: "Riverways Opry" to "Ozark Music at the VFW Hall" 201
Jim Orchard, the Bard of Ink 205
Tales of a Complete Fiddler: Larry Ellis 210
Show Fiddler, Bluegrass Fiddler 215
No Time for Contests 218
The Big Creek Country Show 219
8 Jazz / Swing / Western Swing 225
Venuti 226
Farm-Town Cowboys and Uptown Hepcats 229
Warren Helton: "Between Texas and Tennessee" 233
"Ozark Cave Dweller" to "Texas Cowboy": Emmett Heath 239
Too Hot for Old-Time Radio: Zed Tennis 243
Einstein of the Double-Stop, Dale Potter 248
9 Born to Play Swing 255
Claude "Fiddler" Williams: A Jazz Life 255
The Kansas City Scene 257
The Era of Arts-and-Culture Agencies 261
Unflappable Master of Cool Jazz 262
Bobby Joe Caldwell: "Play It like You Sing It" 266
His Mentor Was His Dad 266
Bobby Joe 267
10 Bluegrass Time in the Show-Me State 275
Fiddle and Banjo, the Crux of Bluegrass 280
Lonnie Hoppers: From Four Strings to Five 282
To Be or Not to Be a Bluegrass Fiddler 286
"I Want You to Play the Old Time": Delbert Spray 289
11 Family Tradition 299
Lyman Enloe: "I Like 'Em Just as Straight as Can Be" 299
"Bluegrass Kind of Got Me Hooked": Roger Williams 309
Cecil Goforth, Shannon County Southpaw 319
The 1960s and Beyond 328
Conclusion 331
Why End Fiddler's Dream in the 1960s? 331
"Gilsaw," a Lost Tune Returned 333
Interviews 339
Transcriptions 343
Notes 345
Selected Bibliography 387
Discography 397
Index to Text 405
Index to the Voyager Records Companion CD 421