2010 Rocky Mountain Old-Time Music Festival
(1st Annual | August 27-28, 2010)
2010 Lineup
The Prairie Acre (Lawrence, KS)
The Prairie Acre is working to bring old-time music to a new generation. Every time they start making their distinctively twangy sound, they’re doing their part to keep alive the pre-MP3, pre-CD, pre-LP era when the best way to enjoy good music was to play it with your friends and neighbors.
This veteran quartet from Lawrence, Kansas has shared the bill with the likes of the Foghorn Stringband and the Freight Hoppers and performed at prestigious venues such as the Indiana Fiddlers’ Gathering. They have delved deep into old-time music territory to expand their knowledge of the genre, including performing at the Mount Airy band contest and playing at contra dances throughout the Midwest.
Fred Coon (Phoenix, AZ)
Fred Coon plays a two finger style of banjo he learned from his father who learned it from his,uncle, Otis Green, in Boone County, West Virginia in the 1930’s. Later in life, he modified this style and now mostly play with one finger.
Fred is a West Virginian who, after a long journey, arrived in Phoenix about 15 years ago. Around 45 years ago, in his teens and throughout his 20’s, Fred went around Appalachia collecting fiddle tunes, stories and songs from a variety of fabulous people who, in their own way, were America’s undiscovered treasures. The Field Recorder’s Collective has turned a few of his collections into CD’s that you can listen to.
Dan Levenson (Yuma, AZ)
Dan is a modern day troubadour in the truest sense of the word. A full time musician, Dan travels the country with banjo and fiddle singing songs and telling stories of the road. He has been touring internationally some 16 years now. In that time he has become a well known artist of the Appalachian style fiddle and old time clawhammer banjo.
He is an accomplished and dynamic fiddler who has taught himself to fiddle and clog at the same time—a real treat to see! Dan Levenson has also been voted one of the country’s top ten clawhammer banjo players by Banjo Newsletter readers. He is well known as the banjo player for the Boiled Buzzard Stringband and now, the fiddler for The Hippie-billies – Dan and Miss Jennifer’s new band.
Hard Pressed (Paonia, CO)
Hard Pressed is a marriage of two lives- of a fiddle and a banjo- of rich, honest and pure harmonies, both in life and in song. Their material, both original and traditional, is transcended by the delivery of their rich, heartfelt vocals which pull the listener into their music. Raised on opposite sides of the country, this musical union merged in the mountains of Colorado to create a new blend of old-time music.
Caleb Klauder Country Band (Portland, OR)
The Caleb Klauder Country Band will be kicking the fest off on Friday night with a foot-stompin,’ honky-tonk dancin’ celebration.
Portland based songwriter, vocalist and instrumentalist Caleb Klauder has been performing professionally for over fifteen years, and has contributed to a number of successful musical groups including the Foghorn Stringband, Pig Iron, and Calobo.
The Caleb Klauder Country Band features Caleb on vocals, guitar and mandolin; Ned Folkerth (Pinetop Seven, Lewi Longmire) plays drums; Paul Brainard (Richmond Fontaine) plays dobro, six string electric and steel guitar; Betse Ellis (The Wilders) plays fiddle and sings; Stephen “Sammy” Lind (Foghorn Stringband) plays fiddle and guitar and sings; Jesse Emerson (Amelia, Flatirons) plays the bass fiddle.
Caleb Klauder Country Band – Website
The Barn Cats (Colorado)
Big South Stringband (Fort Collins, CO)
Big South Stringband plays old-time fiddle tunes/songs, as well as some original music. Beth Mosko (fiddle, guitar, vocals) and Marke Foxworthy (guitar, banjo, vocals) have been playing music together since 2003, and both have placed in various competitions. Beth and Marke have been featured on a number of radio shows; at festivals; have opened for acts including Ricky Scaggs, Ralph Stanley, James King, Continental Divide; and have also performed together with Fred Coon, Adam Hurt, and others. BSS, which also features Dennis Griffing on bass, was formed in 2009, not long after Beth and Marke moved to Fort Collins, CO.
Big South Stringband on Myspace
The Boulder Bogtrotters (Boulder, CO)
An eclectic dance band consisting of two fiddlers (Vicky Bunsen and Charlie Martin) and three utility infielders (Pierce Martin, Duffy Keith and Doug Rippey) playing a sometimes mystifying variety of instruments. We indulge in a mix of southern Appalachian, New England, Celtic, Ragtime and other tunes with energy and abandon! The Boulder Bogtrotters never stumble into the swamp of taking ourselves too seriously.
Cottonwood Grove (Fort Collins, CO)
From across the divides of traditional music, the members of Cottonwood Grove have come together to share their love of old-time stringband music. Their sound not only embodies the tradition of the music, but each group member weaves personal background and experience into the music that gives the band’s sound its own unique quality. Cottonwood Grove is comprised of Bob Zuellig, Lori Nitzel, Darrin Goodman, Chip Belcher, and John Stewart.
Knockin’ Boots (Boulder, CO)
Rachael Ramsey arrived in the Front Range with as many instruments as she could stuff into a two-door coupe. Fresh out of the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains and hopelessly biased by her father, an old-time fiddler and open-back banjo builder, she was fired up and ready to hit the scene. By far the tallest member of the band, Vergil Weatherford plays the fiddle-with-frets and the tin sandwich. Growing up surrounded by old-time fiddlers on a small farm outside of Asheville, NC, Vergil was dragged around to contra dances until he realized that it was much easier to just start dragging himself to them. Jessica Johnson may be at the top of her category of “smallest people to play the upright bass.” She has been known to thump along with many contradance bands in the Asheville, NC region, has sung in duets with many clawhammer banjo hermits, and will generally provide a good solid guitar rythym for anyone willing to make her homemade peach, apple, or mulberry jam. Jeff Haemer has been playing square dances since 1976, in stringbands that include Slight of Hand, The Grange Hall Flyers, Uncle Bounce, The Grouchy Geezers, and Knockin’ Boots. It was at one of Jeff’s old-time music jams that Vergil and Rachael cooked up the idea for Knockin’ Boots, though neither of them will take the blame for it.
Nine Dollar Shawl (Lyons, CO)
Nine Dollar Shawl is a Colorado old-time band that plays from Salida to Fort Collins. The all-gal group frequents dance halls and farmers’ markets, mountain lodges and music festivals. Led by Andrea Earley-Coen’s accomplished fiddling, Nine Dollar Shawl also features Ellen Rosenberg’s hard-driving rhythm guitar and Lori Nitzel’s sprightly banjo playing. Andrea toured nationally and internationally while playing and clogging with the Minneapolis-based Wild Goose Chase Cloggers and Pig’s Eye Landing. She currently resides in Salida, where she’s in-demand as a dance caller and fiddle/dance teacher. Ellen has been backing up fiddlers along the Front Range since old-time rocked her world in the early 90’s, and fell in love with the banjo-uke in 2008. She plays in dance bands Poultry in Motion and the Prairie Chickens, and started the Lyons Old-time Dance in 1999. Lori began her banjo journey in 2007, the day after seeing clawhammer-style up close for the first time. She plays in Fort Collins with Cottonwood Grove and with Front Range-based Furry Mountain String Band, a group that donates music to animal rescues and shelters.
Nine Dollar Shawl’s stage show includes fiddle tunes, old-time songs full of harmonies, clogging, and if you’re lucky, a limbergoose or spontaneous square dance!
The Prairie Chickens (Denver, CO)
The Prairie Chickens have been delighting dancers and old-time music lovers on Colorado’s Front Range and further afield for a decade. An offshoot of Poultry in Motion, these three musicians have been musical co-conspirators for nearly twenty years, playing fiddle tunes primarily from Appalachia and the Midwest. Fiddler and dance caller Larry Edelman has been playing traditional music and teaching traditional American dance for more than 30 years. He has played and taught at numerous music and dance camps throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. He is also an avid researcher of traditional American square, contra and circle dances. Larry delights both novice and veteran dancers with his humor, enthusiasm, skillful teaching, knowledge of dance history, and colorful calling.
Thom Curdts was born in Virginia at an early age and discovered old-time banjo in the late 1970’s as a teenager in Florida. He has been claw-hammering ever since in kitchens, dance halls, farmers’ markets and opera houses in such far flung places as Alaska, Guatemala, New Zealand, Antarctica and Leadville. For the past two decades he has been a regular at Front Range dances. Ellen Rosenberg, a rhythm guitar junkie, discovered community dancing 30 years ago in New England’s grange halls. In the early 90’s, a Colorado old-time band’s Appalachian fiddle tunes rocked her world and compelled her to play guitar. Countless dances, farmers’ markets and festival jams later, backing up fiddlers remains one of her life’s greatest joys. In 2008, seeking a smaller instrument to tote, Ellen stalked her favorite banjo-uke players at Weiser and fell in love with a new rhythm machine. She also organizes the Lyons old-time dance, begun in 1999.
Two Thin Dimes (Denver, CO)
The core of the Denver based Two Thin Dimes is the husband and wife duo of Chad Yost (fiddle) and Carrie Jackson (banjo) who met in northern Minnesota in 2000, and have been playing together ever since. Chad has been on a musical journey most of his life, starting out playing guitar in punk rock bands, then discovering traditional Irish music and a stint playing mandolin in a bluegrass band. In 1997, Chad saw the Freight Hoppers in Winfield, Kansas, deciding then and there to learn old-time fiddle. Chad and Carrie are joined by talented rootsy singer-songwriter Chris McGarry (guitar, uke) and Tory Heinrich (bass), creating a hard-driving old-time stringband sound.Chris McGarry’s website
Two Thin Dimes on Myspace
Chris McGarry’s website
Workshop Instructors and Dance Callers
Saja Butler – guitar (Fort Collins, CO)
Saja Butler is the owner of Urban Monk Studios, a music studio in Fort Collins Colorado, since 2007. She has been playing music for 27 years. She plays and teaches acoustic and electric guitar, Clawhammer banjo, and voice. She also teaches guitar and kids music classes for the City of Fort Collins, Respite Care, Jeny’s Daycare in Loveland and is proud to be a part of the Summer Camp series at the Canyon Concert Ballet Company teaching the ACT!SING!DANCE! camp this year.
A part-time actress, and full-time performer, she is also a proud member of Storm Mountain, a “Soulgrass” band here in Fort Collins.
Storm Mountain on Myspace
Urban Monk Studio’s website
Fred Coon – banjo (Phoenix, AZ)
Fred Coon plays a two finger style of banjo he learned from his father who learned it from his,uncle, Otis Green, in Boone County, West Virginia in the 1930’s. Later in life, he modified this style and now mostly play with one finger.
Fred is a West Virginian who, after a long journey, arrived in Phoenix about 15 years ago. Around 45 years ago, in his teens and throughout his 20’s, Fred went around Appalachia collecting fiddle tunes, stories and songs from a variety of fabulous people who, in their own way, were America’s undiscovered treasures. The Field Recorder’s Collective has turned a few of his collections into CD’s that you can listen to.
Steve Eulberg – mountain and hammered dulcimer (Fort Collins, CO)
Steve Eulberg,
Owl Mountain Music
Fort Collins, Colorado
Coordinator of the Colorado Dulcimer Festival, Steve Eulberg is a busy touring and teaching musician. Based in Fort Collins, Colorado, his warm sense of humor and supportive teaching style keep him in demand at festivals across the country, as well as busy in his private studio and teaching guitar for www.JamPlay.com. He has won 5 prizes in the national mountain dulcimer championship and 3 times been a finalist in the national hammered dulcimer contest. He loves Old-Time music on both kinds of dulcimers and has taught and been a featured performer at the Ozark Folk Center (AR), Augusta (WV), Swannanoa Gathering (NC), John C. Campbell School (NC), Western Carolina Dulcimer Week (NC), Evart Funfest (MI), and Kentucky Music Week (KY) among others. Upcoming bookings include: Palestine Old-Time and Dulcimer Festival (TX) and North Georgia Foothills Dulcimer Association (UNICOI, GA).
Jeffrey Haemer – old-time music primer (Boulder, CO)
Jeff Haemer has been playing square dances since 1976, in stringbands that include Slight of Hand, The Grange Hall Flyers, Uncle Bounce, The Grouchy Geezers, and Knockin’ Boots.
He’s hosted a weekly, old-time music jam, here in the Front Range, for almost as long. Fiddlers and clawhammer banjo players have left beer stains in his rugs that are older than some of the musicians who now show up.
He’s given well over fifty old-timey workshops at Colorado music-and-dance festivals. With this festival, it will be “well over fifty-one.”
You’d think he’d have learned how to play by now. Sadly, you’d be wrong. Maybe this year.
Chris Kermiet – dance caller (Arvada, CO)
Chris Kermiet has been dancing since he could walk. His father was a square dance caller, and some of his earliest memories are of the dances in the old Grange Hall on Lookout Mountain (outside of Golden, CO). Having called now for over 35 years, Chris calls squares, contras, Appalachian big circle dances, English Country Dances, and celtic ceilidhs. He was recently celebrated as a “Living Legend of Dance in Colorado” by the Carson-Brierly Dance Library at the University of Denver.
Beth Mosko – fiddle (Fort Collins, CO)
Beth Mosko (Big South Stringband) is a classically trained violinist and has performed with several orchestras, quartets, and assorted bands since the mid-nineties. In 2002, while living in Iowa City, IA, she studied old-time fiddle with acclaimed musician and folk music historian Al Murphy and was hooked on old-time from that point on. Her biggest influences include J.P. Fraley, Buddy Thomas, and other Northeastern Kentucky/West Virginia fiddlers. Beth loves to teach students of all ages, whether privately or in workshop format.
Pat Tognoni – dance caller (Arvada, CO)
Pat Tognoni’s contagious smile, and energetic and whimsical calling spread the passion of dance wherever she goes. Her clear and concise teaching and welcoming smile will engage both new and experienced dancers and keep them dancing all night long! Pat’s repertoire includes contras, squares, circles, and traditional reels. She has called dances across Colorado, and in Missouri, Kansas, Utah, Wyoming, Pennsylvania and Maine.
In addition to calling, Pat plays double bass and guitar, and performed with a clogging troupe for 12 years and can often be seen clogging while calling a dance.