I’ve been playing and singing tunes around Bloomington since 1978, most regularly at our Farmers’ Market, until my fingers wore out a couple of years ago. Playing music has been a part of my life every week, whether at the Contra Dance, an art fair, birthday parties, Irish sessions, farmers’ markets, demonstrations, or campfires, anywhere folks are hanging out and enjoying each other’s company.
I started street singing in Cleveland as a folklore project while attending Cleveland State University, where I competed with the traffic and trains, then moved to playing at Coventry Village, where I had worked for years, but now on the street! When we moved to Coconut Grove, Florida, Eileen and I started playing at the local farmers’ market, banjo, harmonica & limberjack. We moved to Indiana in 1978, and started playing music at the Bloomington Farmers’ Market when it was in the parking lot at Waldron-Hill-Buskirk (aka 3rd St.) Park, then on the northside of the Square, the Old Library parking lot, and finally the new City Hall (Showers) parking lot. Here is a video of us playing, it is an early iPhone recording, but it shows the vibe at most of our shows!
[https://youtu.be/GieNprGaTXE]
As times have changed with Covid, so have I, and thus decided to record a few tunes for the internet. My latest video, Pedal Your Blues Away (learned from R. Crumb) needed to burst forth on Inauguation day, I could not stop it! Other versions may have better production values, but none are more heartfelt!
Bloomington is now a Bee City (i.e., we support native pollinators in our gardens and public spaces), and here is a clip of me singing my favorite bee song:
Fresh from the Market
With my wife Eileen, we performed at the Bloomington Farmers’ Market from 1979 through 2017, nearly forty years of Saturday morning fun and food! We recorded our album “Fresh from the Market” full of rural/food/farm tunes in 2002, through the generous support of audio guru Steve V. The tunes from Fresh from the Market were mostly arranged for banjo, harmonica and guitar, with a bit of fiddle and bazouki here and there.
- Hoosier Boys
- Who Broke the Lock
- Bile that Cabbage
- Crow Black Chicken
- Hopalong Peter
- All Go Hungry Hash House
- Farmer is the One
- Angeline the Baker
- Big Rock Candy Mountain
- Western Country
- Grey Cat on a Tennessee Farm
The Pirate Flags
For nearly a decade I was a member of The Pirate Flags, it was a great gig for me, my fellow pirates, rum, and music, who could ask for more! We recorded our album with the famous Lil Bub in the studio at Russian Recording Studio. Mike made my tenor banjo playing sound better than it was, and my harp work came through! We performed at WTIU’s Weekly Special in 2013 playing Sailor’s Consolation and Get Up Jack!
The Swingin’ Beets
With Wade Van Orman on clarinet and me on guitar and harmonica, we played a melange of tunes from the mento and jive jazz tunes around Bloomington. Here are tunes from our performance on WFHB’s Saturday’s child, with Michael Valliant backing us on bass.
Irish Music
A weekly session of Irish music at the Runcible was a tradition I loved as much as the weekly contra dance, I rarely missed a session when in town. I played guitar, uke, banjo and harmonica. The only recording I have of this style is on Deb Shebish’s Kitchen Music album, Donald Cameron’s, where I stretch the boundries of traditional Irish playing with my harmonica..
Fiddle Tunes
I’ve played 5 string banjo, guitar, and mandolin with a lot of great fiddlers, and thus learned a lot of great tunes, but more importantly, got to hang out with some really generous, skillful musicial humans.
Lotus Dickey – In the early 80’s I was lucky enough to (as he put it), “second” Lotus Dickey on guitar and banjo at various house parties and dances. Lotus was an exceptional person, whose generosity of spirit was evident to us all. He could knock you out with his version of Yellow-Eyed Cat, sing his song “Got Someone I’m Wild About”, ask “What have you got?”, genuinely interested in whatever anyone had to offer. He could fiddle till the dance was done, then jam till 4am and still be up for breakfast. (Ok, so he was working a night watchman job as a retired Laborer’s Union member, he was used to staying up all night while in his 70’s!)
For a couple of years in the 90’s I played banjo with Jake & Dara Krack, Jake was just 13 years old when we started playing, he had phenominal tone and rhythm, I had to just jump in and ride along. We played at the Bus-Chum for Lotus Fest the first year is was held there, before the remodel, with folding chairs for the audience as well as us! Through them I learned about West Virginia fiddlers, and had the chance to play with both Melvin Wine and Lester McCumbers, and as proof, I have a couple of poorly recorded tunes from the Krack House (aka Hootin’ Holler, West Virginia.)
Market Tunes too
About a decade ago, my son Tim recorded us in our living room in Bloomington. He did a great job of close mic-ing, and made us sound great. So here are a few new, old songs that did not make it into Fresh from the Market .
Joe Dawson
For a number of years in the early 00’s I had the fun of meeting at Joe Dawson’s house on the west side to play his unique collection of tunes, developed in the Salt Creek Valley communities in the early part of the 20th Century. Joe grew up on his grandparents farm in the valley (before Monroe Lake flooded their land in the 60’s), and he learned from the other musicians in Monroe and Lawrence counties. Most of his tunes are crooked, with extra beats and notes at the end of a stanza, and they ranged from familiar tunes and names, to a totally original mashup of fragments from different tunes traveled thorugh the folk/oral transmission process. Here is a great interview with Deb Shebish talking about Joe, and playing a few of his tunes: https://getupinthecool.fireside.fm/31
Fresh from the Market
With my wife Eileen, I performed at the Blo0mington Farmers’ Market from 1979 through 2017, nearly forty years of Saturday morning fun and food! We recorded our album “Fresh from the Market” full of rural/food/farm tunes in 2002, through the generous support of audio guru Steve V. The tunes from Fresh from the Market were mostly arranged for banjo, harmonica and guitar, with a bit of fiddle and bazouki here and there.
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