Patty on the Turnpike

Well, I promised my friend Doursean that I’d post some “Angeline the Baker” action on my blog tonight, but when I sat down to the dulcimer, all it wanted to play was “Patty on the Turnpike,” a tune I learned this past weekend in Shepherdstown, WV. And by “learned” I also mean “taught”– I was co-teaching a class with Ken Kolodner on old time fiddle tunes, and this was one that he picked out for the class. Usually when tunes are played extra slow for teaching purposes, there’s a little voice inside my head that says, “C’mon! Hurry it up!” But with this tune, we played it all slow like this for three straight days, and that little voice in my head just said, “Ahhhh.”
I loved it most when I played it on my parents’ Yamaha piano in Cinnaminson… but didn’t have any kind of recording device with me to capture the moment. Still, it’s nice on the dulcimer, although it sounds awfully lonely without my whole big bunch of students playing along. Thanks, everyone, for a wonderful weekend at the Upper Potomac Dulcimer Fest! And especially to Ken, thanks for the tune!

Patty on the Turnpike, Sarah Armstrong’s version (from Hill Country Tunes), recorded on 18th St., March 2009:

The day the Flat Iron Stringband came to town…

….was a fantastic day.  Magical, I might even say, as it brought a reunion of sorts.  Let me try to explain.  When I moved to Chattanooga and met Joseph Decosimo, he had to correct me, and remind me that we had actually met once before–in Cork.  Well, that’s no surprise, I guess, since I had gotten into playing some old time music there, and he showed up at a session I was at.  Ok, so around the same time, I had taken a trip to England for the big old time music festival in Gainsborough, put on by the Friends of American Old Time Music and Dance.  There I met Nick Stillman, an incredible fiddle and banjo player, an American guy in his 20s out in the UK and Ireland doing the same thing I was doing… living for/with/through music entirely.  Nice move, Nick.  Ok, so here’s the fun part.  I can remember the details of this part (since I wasn’t there), but Joseph and Nick also met each other, in Galway where Nick was busking.  So the three of us all had this kind of pre-introduction to one another—and we all got to spend an evening together earlier this month, now six years since we all first met each other.

Nick is back in the U.S. now, (now just to get him to move to Chattanooga… hmmm.) and he was on tour with the Flat Iron Stringband.  So was my good friend, Amanda Kowalski, until she got called out on assignment in China.  So although the band showed up without my Amanda, I was still majorly glad to have them around.  If I had some way of making time stop, I’d've done it that night after their gig.  There was music happening in the house like I’d never quite heard there before.  Fiddlers, banjoists, guitarists, and a bassist at the absolute top of their game.  All this makes me feel like I’m alive in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.  Not a single generation too soon or too late.  Just right.