Enjoy! You've just got to love the lyrics to Tommy's version of 'The Drunken Hiccups'
. His pizzicato is spot on. Check out his bridge as well - he's really got the bridge cut down where the E and A strings pass over it! Those drones can't help but come out loud and clear.
I received this film this morning from Les Blank. 30 minuutes of joy. What a fitting tribute and memory of Tommy Jerrell. Like you, I saw it on Youtube and just had to buy it.
ReplyDeleteHope you have a copy by now.
Regards
Bill
dear Melissa,
ReplyDeleteI just happened to stumble upon your blog, as I am big into oldtime fiddlin' myself. That may come as a surprise if you know that I'm from Belgium (Europe that is: think Brussels Sprouts, chocolates & the Battle of the Bulge), but that's how it is ... I got hooked onto country music by hearing Hank Williams on the radio (some 30 years ago now) and decided I wanted to learn to play te fiddle some 3 years ago... I went of to the music academy, had a long talk with my teacher, and there I was, in full classical training mode and throwing in the odd fiddle tune ... last month I played a tune set at a concert in the academy and it was great fun & a great success !
And do yourself a favour, a friend of mine who lives in Houston Texas ordered the DVD of Tommy Jarrell and sent it to me, and it's a great joy and a great inspiration to watch and hear him play !
kindest regards
Hi Patrick,
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear from you and that I still have visitors to my blog. :) My life has pulled me in many directions of late and the blog has suffered a bit of neglect as has my fiddle.
It's nice to hear that fiddle music is alive in Belgium as well. When I first discovered the Rockridge Brothers from Sweden, it surprised me that American old-time music was gaining a foothold in European countries.
Happy to hear your fiddle set was a success too! Playing in front of anyone has always given me the shakes!
Tommy's DVD is still on the wishlist. I guess I will simply have to buy it myself as the family is coming up short even with a couple years of hints. Ah well, so it goes. lol.
Kind regards to you and have a joyous holiday season,
Melissa
hi Melissa,
ReplyDeleteI do hope you'll find time to pick up the fiddle again, to me if I'm not able to play (last week I was down with a serious flue) I feel very uncomfortable about it ....
I was lucky in meeting an American friend (who lives in Brussels) at a gig I was playing some ten years ago now, we got into talking and found out that our musical tastes were alike, so now we get together as much as we can (which is never often enough :-)) to play oldtimey and bluegrass, last time around he brought along a Polish (yep !)friend of his who's an accomplished accordion player and into cajun music, so we added some tunes to our repertoire as well ...
All in all, it's so much fun playing music that we're not considering going out playing gigs, it's too much fun on the backporch so to say ... :-)
Apart from the fiddle I discovered that you have this beautiful mando-banjo, wow ! I bought myself a ukelele a few years back and I'm really hooked on that little instrument as well ...
I don't know if fiddle music is alive here, I mostly call it pockets of resistance if I happen to meet up with someone who's into it as well... I managed to get a friend of mine who's a classical composer and studied for 5 years in New York at the Juilard into oldtime music (last month we went to see and hear Gillain Welch and Dave Rawlings)... I also got in touch with a swedish friend of mine who's into bluegrass and oldtimey stuff, and so I manage to build a kind of little network gradually ... Then there's a friend from Greece who has a great voice and sometimes she sends me a recording and then I try to figure out a fiddle part, record it and send it back to her ... luckily there's the internet and youtube nowadays, but even my music teacher (who is highly classical trained) took a liking to it and admitted that he has difficulty with getting 'the bounce' right, what do you say about that !
A big Aloha from Belgium and enjoy the holidays
and even if you don't have the time pick up that fiddle :-)))
Patrick
hi Melissa,
ReplyDeletebefore I forget, I stumbled upon this page:
http://www.melbay.com/festivaltunes_fiddle.asp
where you can download recordings of all these tunes ....
enjoy
Patrick