Texas Folklife Presents : Festival of Texas Fiddling.

Yes, not "Texas Fiddle" but "Texas Fiddling." Doesn't seem much more than semantics, but there is a real change in the wind afoot and from my perspective that's a very good thing.

I see folks other than Anglo-Texan here, do you?

The term "Texas Fiddle" has for far too long been restricted to the very narrowest band of the contemporary "contest" culture of Anglo-Texan music. To be clear here, we're talking about music played primarily to impress a judge at a contest, so as to win a cash prize. It may have started out as something quite different, but like so many American institutions, the people who started it would be hard pressed to recognize, much less enjoy, what it has become. 

In my youth, not THAT long ago, the Fiddle Contest was held at the Country Fair where there would be prizes for champion Hog Breeding, Best Apple Pie and a display of Steam Engines and Tractors. There'd be a dance band, sometimes a polka band if it was held in a Bohemian or Moravian populated county. And coincidentally, there was a Fiddle Contest; all in good fun, with age slots for everyone from the rank beginner to actual Pros.

But things changed, gradually at first but now quite completely. The "hey let's get all the neighbors together for some family fun" element has receded, replaced with atmosphere of oft-acrimonious combat, where the weak were vanquished and humiliated in public by decidedly un-neighborly out-of-towners who made a side business of snatching prize purses wherever they could. As the context changed, so too did the music. In many way it became the perfect "kudzu" of fiddling style, and testosterone boosted version of Scots-Irish traditional tunes that appealed to the listener and in many ways washed over and drowned all the many regional styles of fiddling around the whole US, much less here in Texas. It was, and is, a "white" washing of Texas culture.

But there's always been so much more to the story and it has been one of the great joys of my life to seek out and promote these other "flavors" of Texas fiddle music. This festival marks what I hope is a sea-change in how the public see "Texas" fiddling, in all it's many shades, ethnicities and communities.

(I will relate however that this festival feels really familiar. I guess maybe its because I've been actively working with, in some cases actually discovering, 80% of the participants at this event. I guess it really is true that a "prophet has no honor in his hometown;" in my 25 years in Texas hardly any of these folks got any attention at home, but I leave for good and this happens. Not sure how to feel about that, other than to be validated in my contention that these voices are worth listening to all along. Dad always said: "Pass on the credit, but take the cash!")

I first encountered border fiderelo Jose Moreno, at a Panchanga in San Benito TX while on tour with Santiago Jimenz, Jr. and Don Walser 1995. Eventually and with much prodding got Arhoolie to cut a CD with him, which lead to an invitation teaching staff of the The Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Pt. Townsend, (and there was that time at the Blackpot Festival his drummer didn't show up and was my first and last time as a conjunto drummer!!) His music is a genuine mixture of Native American "matachine" music, Orquestra Tipica and even classic border Tex-Mex. He's a fine accordionist and mandolinist as well and not to be missed.

A very proud Polish Papa

Union Organizer/Independent Radio DJ Frank Motley introduced me to Brian Marshall's community of familial music making over 20 years ago and in that time we've been up in Pt. Townsend twice and have appeared on many stages around the US including the Lincoln Center for the Arts,  Lowell Folk Festival and the American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront. We've been playing music log enough for Brian to raise up a whole second generation of Marshall Musicians, Jakub and Mika, clarinet and fiddle respectively.

Mr. Poullard

And it was through Brian I met the amazing Ed Poullard, equally deft on fiddle or one of his very sought after hand built accordions, and his Creole community as well. Ed's one of the nicest people I have ever met and his smile shines through in his fiddle playing especially.

Seanorr.com

Though he will have his "Celtic" fiddler hat pull on tight at this event Sean Orr, one of the longest collaborators I have in the music business, and I just released a CD of our collective Texas/Oklahoma traditions called "Texas Fiddle - Okie Guitar." 

KITHFOLK said "Texas fiddler Sean Orr and Texas-based, Okie guitarist Mark Rubin say there's no "right" way to play Texas fiddle, but they're wrong. THIS is the right way to play Texas fiddle. Full of heart, brimming over with camaraderie, rough-hewn and rowdy, dusty as hell, and beholden to no man. There's a freedom in this music and a powerful sense of love. All the things that make Texas great." 

I'll let Howard Rains tell you himself how he came to his calling. 

Howard Rains

I will say it involved my apartment, his artwork, a really nice Tonk Bros. Guitar, a few glasses of Portuguese Absenthe and quite a bit of yelling and screaming. It did however lead to a controversy involving the New York Times and a series of delusional and public tirades by a very well known one-time Contest winning violinist. Really, its a great story. Ask him when you see him. Seriously.

These are just the guys I've been working with for many year however and there are plenty of mighty fine fiddlers to be heard there as well. Follow this link for more info.

In Yiddish we call the feeling I have about this event as "kvelling."

Please thing about coming out and seeing what all the hub bub is about!

Sign up for my Email List!

First Review in for Texas Fiddle-Okie Guitar

"Texas fiddler Sean Orr and Texas-based, Okie guitarist Mark Rubin say there's no "right" way to play Texas fiddle, but they're wrong. THIS is the right way to play Texas fiddle. Full of heart, brimming over with camaraderie, rough-hewn and rowdy, dusty as hell, and beholden to no man. There's a freedom in this music and a powerful sense of love. All the things that make Texas great." 

-KITHFOLK

Ridgetop Syncopators Reappreciation

I still contend that this little outfit never got its due.



Named after the neighborhood that I had been living in since I got to Austin in '89, the Ridgetop Syncopators were always band looking for an audience. Styled entirely in the mold of the Milton Brown and Cliff Bruner bands, we were told over and over again by promoters that we weren't "Western Swing" at least by modernist standards. In fact the rejection letters were unintentionally hilarious, noting pointedly that we didn't have a pedal steel guitar or matching vests so how could we be a Texas Swing band? Ah, yes...

We made did big splashes at the Calgary and Winnipeg Folk Festivals in 2006 and appeared as a special guest at the Kennedy Center's Duke Ellington celebration, but couldn't catch the ear of the local hipsters or the old guard C&W folks. We had a regular Wednesday night stand opening for the then very popular WT Special, who when they eventually folded re-formed as JWW and the Prospectors, essentially cloning our lineup and material. But I doubt they've gotten any further than we did!

I still work with nearly everyone of the old Syncopators to this day, and fiddler Sean Orr and I just released a new CD as did steel man George Carver which is worth checking out.



But do me a favor and checkout the little EP we made. I think its still pretty cool.

The first of a Trypich of planned recordings for 2013.

I've got 3 recording projects that I plan to have released this year. Ok, ok, call it making up for lost time. I had planned on directing my creative efforts on more Atomic Duo releases and touring, but when I was let go from that project, I kinda dropped all the balls I had up in the air, personally and professionally. It was time for a deep breath as it turned out, and through the process of recovery and reassessment, I was happily introduced to a community of musicians and players who have been very inspiring, encouraging and actively supportive. Everything happens for a reason I guess, so I'm very happy to have gone through the BS if this is what it can look like on the other side.

Sean Orr & Texas Gold @ Ginny's

In an effort to honor old friendship and long standing mutual appreciation, my first release is a no-frills, nuthin' fancy picking session with one of my oldest musical companions, fiddler Sean Orr. No foolin', Sean and I have been passing ships in the night since the days when we played in different combos that would find themselves gigging at the Samurai Sake House in OKC, OK. Ran into him again when I was playing with Killbilly in Dallas and he was with Cowboys & Indians. Then I ran into him the first week I moved to Austin to find that he was now in Bastrop. Since then, together we've played the stages of the Calgary and Winnipeg Folk Festivals and even a date at the Kennedy Center. We've played Arabic music together, and we've played Polish dances. Can't say there's another cat outside of Danny Barnes that I've played a wider mess of music with, and I've got plenty of recordings of us, but very little with Sean.

2000-2008

Sean and I did put out a traditionalist Texas Swing EP many years ago which was for whatever reason pretty much entirely ignored, but evidently spawned other local groups who seem to be doing pretty well with it at the hipster clubs on the Eastside of Austin where brown people used to live.

When we released "DANCE" back in 2006, we worked hard to get onto the "Western Swing" Festivals, but were uniformly turned down, sometimes quite bitterly, being told that the music of Milton Brown and Cliff Brunner was in fact NOT "Western Swing," but if we added a drummer and wore matching outfits, it would still be "Jazz." That experience lead up to proposed and as of yet unrealized recording project in conjunction with Cornell Hurd (of the "we liked your band but you need to keep your shirts tucked in" Cornell Hurd Band) working title "A Tribute to Rayond Seifert and Asleep at the Wheel: Popular Wheel tunes played in a Texas Swing Style OR 30 Years in and Those Poor Yankees Still Can't Get the Beat Right, Bless Their Dear Hearts." But alas, time moves on and there are in fact much, much better things to do.

original artwork by Howard Rains

Which leads us to this release: "Sean Orr & Mark Rubin present Texas Fiddle - Okie Guitar" for which we have started a modest Kickstarter campaign. Please take a moment and visit this link and consider helping us get this made.

The second proposed release is with songwriter-harmonica player Sean Tracey, and will consist of mostly original material that our former band mates didn't like, rescue our tunes from releases we don't own and cover about a half dozen Bad Livers numbers that I've worked out on claw-hammer banjo and fiddle, currently scheduled for November. Soon after, I plan on releasing the very first "Mark Rubin" release, which is currently in production, working title "The Triumph of Assimilation." Details to follow as they become realized.

Note to my musico pals: Barnes is right, MAKE and don't second guess yourself.

Bless you all for even reading this.

Forward!