TELL US ABOUT YOUR MUSICAL JOURNEY!     

Wow. Daunting challenge. So to begin, I’ll relieve those of you who may read this, the mental exercise of determining my age. I’m 72…which underscores that it is never too late in your life to pick up your axe, and start making it put out tunes! Doesn’t matter if you strum it, squeeze it, pick it, bow it, blow it, tinkle its keys, slobber on its reed, bang on or beat on it, or any of the many more ways to let the music in your soul come to the fore. Let it OUT! In tune, sort of in tune, doesn’t matter!

Because Katie’s Musical Journey invitation established that vocals and playing instruments qualify equally, my journey began with vocals. To wit, as a seven year old American kid temporarily living in a British suburb of London, England. Me and my british mates in the days leading up the Christmas Eve would trek up and down our neighborhood street, knocking on neighbors’ front doors, offering our Christmas Carol vocals, for which we would be rewarded a few ‘pence each. Wow…a paid gig! When my mates got too cold to continue, my capitalistic, entrepreneurial spirit sprang forth and I soldiered on until the venue was exhausted. (And that, was pretty much, other than singing along with John Denver tunes on the drive to work, the end of my vocal career).

So, shortly thereafter, back living on the east coast as a short and stocky, very proper British-speaking 4th grader, I decided, here’s a good idea, “I’ll take up violin”. This did not go well…First, it quickly became clear I wasn’t a childhood prodigy; second, it required practicing every day, which apparently just didn’t work for me (you’ll see this pattern again later); third, none of my school mates, all of whom were striving to soon depose Mickey Mantle (major league baseball hero) were inclined toward picking up a violin. So, – actually I can’t any longer remember the end of the 4th grade violin era – moving on.

Next, while trying to navigate the travails of life as a still stocky short sixth grader, my Mother, in her arguably wise ways, decided that I was well suited to playing Accordion…not just a squeeze box that an 11 year old might play…no, a 128 button, full blown keyboard with at least 8,000 keys. An instrument housed in a box that took a crane assist while ascending the stairs to my music teacher’s second story studio. This was such a massive instrument that if you spread the bellows to their full extension, it would have required assistance from Arnold Schwarzenegger to compress. Like the violin, this did not go on long.

So, on to 12 or maybe 13 years old. Aaahhh, Electric Guitar! Got one for Christmas. A Silvertone electric two-pickup guitar, with amp, from Sears. In case you are trying to figure out timing, 1961. Now living in Panama City, Florida. Gonna be Elvis The 2nd. My Dad signed me up with a 950 year old guitar teacher (he was really good by the way). But dang, he wanted me to first practice these boring scales, and learn to read, of all things, musical notation. Nah, wanna be a Rock N’ Roll star…NOW! I suspect you’re getting the picture. Rock N’ Roll star didn’t pan out, guitar went to the back of the closet. Now 16-17 years old, living in Northern California (1963-1965). SURFIN USA!!! I’m all over that! Broke out that Silvertone, started playing with neighborhood buds, got better…not great… sorta practicing…and one of my buds kind of oversold our skills and song list, and the next thing I know, we’re on the stage of my High School doing a Friday night dance gig…wait, I’m the rhythm guy, why am I now playing lead???!!! It wasn’t pretty, and we weren’t invited back, not only for an encore that night, but ever! Guitar…back in the closet (wish Instill had that axe, it was really sweet).

Advance the clock about 40 years…no musical instruments touched during that time. Moved to the central coast of California. Big bluegrass fan. Hmmm, like the sound of mandolins. Bought one.  Don’t need no stinking lessons…I’ll teach myself. And did, sort of. Relearned how to sight read music, evolved to starting to step it up on Irish and bluegrass mandolin stuff…but that dang practicing thing – I just want to play like David Grisman or Sam Bush, NOW…kept getting in the way of my musical success.

A few years later, my wife and I took off as full time live aboard ocean-going  sailors on our 50’ sailboat.  My mandolin’s on board, sharing space with my wife and I in the forward bunk of our home, she blabbing something about “play the damn thing or lets use it as a dinghy paddle”.  By happenstance I got hooked into taking lessons in Puerta Vallarta at a mexican bar/night club owned by a very excellent gringo musician. Something sparked, I lit off, got serious, haven’t stopped playing and seriously practicing since. And several years later bought my first of now five fiddles (way up in the mountains of Mexico).  Fiddle became my passion. I’ve since been playing mando and more recently almost exclusively fiddle with fellow sailing musicians who come from across the world while sailing throughout the Caribbean and Pacific waters and coastlines of Centraland South America. My fellow musician’s skills range from rookies like me, to a retired 50-year long cellist who was at one time the lead cellist in the Washington DC symphony.

But, as as largely self-taught fiddler, I knew if I was ever going to play at a level that I seek, I needed instruction. By pure coincidence in 2019 I attended California Coastal Music Camp, and ended up in Katie’s Swing Fiddle class which brings us to today. When I signed up for the Camp, hoping to find help in simply getting help to better play my fiddle and saw that “Swing Fiddle” was the only option, I ended up spending five days in her class. That led to my becoming  Fiddle School student, for which my wife is eternally grateful…my cat-screeching Fiddle play is pretty much a thing of the past. I have a repertoire of pieces that I am able to play without having to endlessly repeat a phrase to nail it, and most of the time my notes are on key. Now…about that Rock N’ Roll Star part!

Cheers, Bob

A Note About My Music

I grew up on a farm on the land my grandfather homesteaded and in the house he and my grandmother built. My dad grew up there too. He and my mom remained hereafter they married. My mom was raised in a musical family. She sang and played the piano. The Allen family would get together each Thanksgiving and have a huge meal. Following dinner, we would all gather round and sing songs that my granddad Allen passed on to my mom, her siblings, and their children. My uncle would play the guitar and harmonica, my cousins would take turns playing the piano, one cousin played the banjo and other cousins would play their guitars as we all sang. We sang and played old time music and religious hymns. It was always a magical time.

My mom sang in the church choir and as we got older she had us join the choir. I went to a small school with a combined grade school and high school students. Our school would put on plays and some were musicals. I auditioned for a singing part in one play when I was in grade school. I got the main character part and still remember one of the songs I had to sing! The whole community would come to see the plays in the high school auditorium.

I took piano lessons and played the trumpet in the junior high and high school bands. My cousin lent me her trumpet to play. I was actually pretty good at not taking lessons. We had some good band teachers who taught us in school. I was in the marching band and we competed in state music competitions. I remember going to CU Boulder for band day where bands from all over the state competed. It was a treat to participate. I tried to teach myself how to play the guitar. I was never very good at it. I took piano lessons but didn’t practice like I wish I would have.

Fast forward to getting married and having four children. My children played a variety of instruments. One or the other played piano, clarinet, flute, saxophone, bagpipes, and the fiddle. Our family loved music and went on family vacations to the Telluride Blue Grass Festival for many years.

When our youngest, Kaitlin, was 6, I asked if she would like to learn how to play the fiddle. She said sure, so I started taking her to lessons. Her teacher taught Suzuki and Texas-style fiddling. She learned quickly and was naturally talented. I loved to hear her play. I took her to many group performances, fiddle contests – including Weiser, jam sessions, and fiddle workshops. I didn’t realize how much I absorbed from Kaitlin’s fiddling experiences. My love of fiddling became deep-seated. In high school, she took lessons from Katie Glassman who taught her Texas-style, jazz and improv. As life takes twists and turns, we lost Kaitlin in 2013 at 21 years of age. My heart was heavy when seeing Kaitlin’s fiddle in its case.

Katie encouraged me to take lessons and give her beloved fiddle some love. In 2018 I finally decided it was time. I did it with trepidation that I wouldn’t be able to play by ear. To my delight with Katie’s thoughtful teaching program she showed me I could do it, even at my age! I love that I can now play the fiddle! I look forward to learning new techniques to improve my playing and enjoy the challenge of learning new songs. The fiddle has become part of my musical soul.

I took Kaitlin to pick out her last fiddle from Lisa and Dick Barrett. Fiddles and fiddlers choose each other. I realize she picked this fiddle not just herself but also for me. Kaitlin’s fiddle no longer sits lonely in its case. I pick it up to practice every day and look forward to hearing the music it can play. It brings me great joy and Kaitlin is in my heart every time I pick up her fiddle to play.

—Linnea Kenney

I currently reside in the rural west Tennessee community that I grew up in. We raised cotton, hogs, and a large garden. We were poor people like most in the community. We had music and making music to fill the hours that chores and the cotton patch didn’t require. Yes, I know too much about hoeing and picking cotton by hand. No complaints though, it built a strong work ethic.

At 67 and now retired for seven years, you get plenty of time to reflect on things  (and music is one of those that has made my to-do list off and on), but a lot of years were absorbed working and rearing children.

To begin with, music was always a part of my Dad’s family even though neither of his parents played instruments or sang. Gone before my birth, it was said my grandfather Levi John Eli was a fiddler but he died before my arrival. My dad’s siblings, six in total, sang and or played. Family gatherings always included a few hours of music…singing, mandolin, and guitar but no fiddling. My dad had an old Harmony guitar that had given up the ghost but was still a little playable. It wasn’t beginner friendly and was falling apart. My sister, Nancy, was taking piano lessons at school from Ms. Kate, who was a rather large old maid who gave piano lessons for a $1.00 per month. Nancy stayed on the piano stool from the first grade through graduation. The piano was one of the household treasures as it had been purchased by my maternal grandfather for his wife in the early 1900s. He purchased it from New York and it made the trip to Saltillo Tennessee by river barge. It’s a beautiful old upright with walnut, and cherry woods and features a fourth pedal said to be a banjo/honky-tonk tone. I wanted to play but it wasn’t cool for boys to take piano lessons…only the girls and a few sissy boys took the lessons.

I got the bug for a guitar and my dad gave me the proceeds from selling one of our hogs which I fed before and after school. Loaded with $35 to spend, we ordered a Montgomery Ward Airline from the catalog and awaited its arrival. It took a month and came by rail freight from Chicago to our county seat, Lexington, TN. It was a lot of money to spend but far less than the $100 for a new Gibson J45 at Wright’s furniture store in Lexington. We were ecstatic to get the Monkey Ward special. It was like fretting a fence to quote “Doc Watson”, so my ever-handy Dad improved the action with some adjustments on the bridge and nut. My dad acquired an old Kalamazoo mandolin from one of my uncles who had quit playing. The mandolin had supposedly made a few trips to the Opry stage with the John D. Springer quartet back in the day. My dad was a good rhythm guitarist and had seconded many fiddlers at square dances as well as his brother who was a really good mandolin player. The high school years passed with my brother and I learned to play rhythm behind my dad’s mandolin playing. Sally Goodin, Ragtime Annie, Milk Cow Blues, Chicken Reel, Wednesday Night Waltz all still ring in my head (with my dad questioning why we couldn’t hear the chord changes). Finally, we learned to hum the tunes which opened the door to hearing the changes.

On to fiddling, our little town of 300 had a 1 through grade 12 school that I attended and graduated from with my fellow 22 classmates. An annual event and fundraiser for the school was the West Tennessee Fiddlers Contest. It ran for 50 years before ending in around 1999. In 1968, I attended my first contest and heard live fiddling for the first time. It lit a fire in my soul that has never died.     The judges required a playoff to determine the winner. Wayne Jerrolds, who eventually had a short stint with Bill Monroe, played Listen to the Mockingbird while his opponent a young man from Corinth, Mississippi played Blue Moon of Kentucky. I can still hear the soulful crying notes from Blue Moon of Kentucky and the shuffles from Listen to the Mockingbird. I was forever hooked to those sounds.

Our neighbor, Henry Bivens, a retired blacksmith, owned a fiddle and was a poor to fair player according to my Dad. I never heard him play. Henry routinely enjoyed adult beverages and dipped snuff with a sweet gum toothbrush. He and his wife Hattie sat on the front porch of their home dipping snuff and sometimes with their feet in a pan of water for cooling in the summer. They both passed away around 1969. My dad bought Henry’s fiddle for me when their possessions were auctioned.

Armed with mandolin tunes, we all attempted to play the fiddle with little success.    Lessons or money for lessons didn’t exist. The fiddle stayed in the dilapidated case but I counted it in my prized possessions. Soon it was off to college. The day before leaving home for college I got my most memorable lessons for life words from Dad. I had gotten loans and scholarships to pay the way but he told me the day before I left as we stood in the side yard looking at the fields, “don’t go off and act a fool or your ass will be back here in that g**dammed cotton patch”. Properly motivated, I graduated with honors holding a chemical engineering degree. After graduating I packed my fiddle, guitar, and two suitcases with the rest of my junk to begin work with Dow Chemical. Music for the most part was on hold except for a beer-loving band that I played in while with Dow. I soon began job-hopping and relocating to enhance my career.

In two of my 13 relocations, I got the opportunity for fiddle lessons but they were short-lived. The first in Huntington, West Virginia in 1977. The instructor quit after two lessons and the second came in Columbia TN circa 1982. He quit commuting from Nashville after four lessons. I did learn from the second teacher that the old fiddle was really not very playable…..Back in the case!

I continued guitar noodling off and on through the1970 to 2013 period. No serious pursuit with the guitar as chemical plant management and children took all my time. Upon retiring and acquiring an iPad I discovered YouTube. We had moved from Nashville and were living in our weekend getaway planning to build a home. I ran across Bryan Sutton playing Beaumont Rag and immediately discovered all of the music tutorials and aids on the internet. I bought a ton of books from Steve Kaufman’s parking lot picker series and practiced all my fingers would allow. I got to a reasonable intermediate level in two years and decided to attend the Kaufman flatpick camp. I got some great guitar tips and a few tunes but the highlight came when I attended a class offered to any and all attendees hosted by Barbara Lamb, who played a short stint with Asleep at the Wheel. The class was titled, “So You Always Wanted to Play the Fiddle”. I left the class knowing I wasn’t too old and that the better my instrument for learning, the easier it would be to get a good sound. I bought a violin and bow a few weeks later in July 2018.

After four torturous months of trying to play by ear and internet tutelage, I bought Brian Wicklund’s American Fiddle Method Book and started at the beginning. I couldn’t stand more than 30 minutes a day but I finally made progress and got comfortable holding the instrument and making recognizable tune noise. I acquired an online teacher and learned a good bit but she didn’t play the way tunes are in my head. She made beautiful music but her real forte was classical.

Along the way, I discovered Fiddle School and Katie Glassman playing the Eighth of January and must have watched that free video 200 times. There was the sound I wanted. I joined fiddle school and haven’t looked back. I try to practice 3 hours a day but seem to lose focus if I go too long and I’m scared of learning bad habits. I’ve set a goal to play pretty well by age 70 or quit. I don’t know if I would really quit but I’m presently loving the journey. It is such good medicine.

I enjoyed penning most of this but I got a little weepy thinking about my dad, sister, and brother, who all met the Cancer foe. The best of my memories with them were around music. The piano my sister played is still at home with my mother, Henry’s fiddle and the old mandolin are resting in my living room. My old Montgomery Ward guitar is sitting in an outbuilding on the farm…..maybe I’ll bring it home to rest too…..

–Paul Pruett