Welcome to Spring Fed Records
SFR-DU-33017
FIDDLE FAVORITES
“Like You Never Heard ‘Em Before”
FEATURING
J.T. PERKINS … FIDDLE
ALGIE SURRATT … GUITAR
CLAUDIE HOLT … GUITAR
GERALD SURRATT … BANJO
JAY JEFFRIES … BASS
Special thanks to Ed Boutwell for the fine sound heard on this album.
1 HIGH COUNTRY
2 TWINKLE LITTLE STAR
3 40 YEARS AGO WALTZ
4 HOME BREW RAG
5 DURANG’S HORNPIPE
6 LEATHER BRITCHES
7 SALLY GOODIN
8 WEDNESDAY NIGHT WALTZ
9 DUSTY MILLER
10 BILL CHEATUM
11 DOC HARRIS HORNPIPE
12 BLACKBERRY BLOSSOM
J.T. PERKINS AND THE DAWNING OF THE PROGRESSIVE ERA IN AMERICAN OLD TIME
FIDDLING
One year at Weiser, Idaho, someone remarked that modern fiddling was very
much like Progressive Jazz. We were listening to Benny Thomasson and Roy
Lee Cowan and they had been jamming non-stop for a half hour. No one remembered
what they were even playing any more. If you didn’t catch the beginning,
you would never know – but it was totally absorbing, high-energy music,
and when the theme finally returned - - “I Don’t Love Nobody” - - it was
like the consumation of a jazz performance. Everyone applauded.
It is a long way from modern jazz to modern fiddling, but it may not be
so far-fetched to imagine the dawning of a ‘progressive’ era in fiddle
music. The old-time fiddlers created a firm foundation for the basic feeling
of the music. But with the influence of Western Swing, Bluegrass, the
competitive ‘flashy’styles of the fiddling contests - - and also the real
demise of fiddling in its original function as dance music - - we are
beginning to see many new directions arising. Already the fiddle has established
itself in modern jazz with such great artists as Stephanie, Jean-Luc-Ponty
and the avant-garde Michael White. We are also seeing an interesting blend
of fiddlers more grounded in the country tradition, but explorers on the
fringe of modern jazz - - fiddlers like Johnny Gimble or Vassar Clements,
for example. In the contest world, the most conservative of all fiddling
worlds - - even there, the influence of decidely modern ideas has been
pronounced for some time. One thinks of Benny Thomasson and Major Franklin
and Howdy Forrester, all solid country fiddlers with their feet in the
ground of tradition, but their ears tuned to the winds of change.
Out of the generation that produced artists like Benny Thomasson, we are
now getting a second, even third generation of ‘modern’ old-time fiddler:
Dick Barrett of Texas, 15 year old Mark O’Connor from Washington State,
and J.T. Perkins from Alabama, to name a few. This new style or approach
is often inaccurately called the Texas Style, but the fact that these
three fiddlers are from widely scattered regions means that this term
really does not serve. Emerging from Texas in the beginning, this style
is often synonymous with contests all over the United States and - - for
better or worse - - it could simply be called the contest style.
There has certainly been a lot of discussion about this contest style
and, at its worst, it often does merit much of its negative criticism.
But, at its best, it is fiddling of a ‘progressive’ order, fiddling that
has vitality, drive, and most important, innovation. It is fiddling that
transforms the over-played old-time tunes, pushes them beyond their rigid
melody and chord structures, introduces new theme, new chords and melodic
varations and still maintains the basic feeling, the phrasing and the
rhythm of the old tunes. It is the controlled tension between the old
and the new that makes it such a fine new art.
FIDDLIN’ FAVORITES: LIKE YOU NEVER HEARD ‘EM BEFORE kind of describes
this musical approach. J.T. Perkins is a fine crafts man on the fiddle
and his credentials are well known in the South-Eastern part of the country.
He has been fiddling for many years in the North Alabama area and in recent
years has begun to make a name for himself in the fiddling contests of
the Tennessee Valley. In 1973, he placed 2nd in the Grand Masters Invitational
Championship in Nashville and took 1st place in the Renfro Valley Contest,
and the Mid-South Championship. In 1974, he won the Middle Tennessee Championship,
Renfro Valley, and The World Championship Bluegrass Fiddling Contest in
Memphic, Tennessee. He also has a previous album out on Davis Unlimited
Records, JUST FINE FIDDLING BY J.T. PERKINS, (DU33007).
J.T. Perkins comes from a musical background and has very clear ideas
about where fiddling comes from. He has learned from both traditional
sources - - his immediate family, to begin with - - and modern sources
like the Texas fiddlers and Howdy Forrester - - even swing fiddlers, like
Emilio Caceres, Joe Venuti and others. In the light of all these influences,
he is constantly re-examining his own musical experience, expanding its
limits, its vocabulary, even its own sense of ‘identity’, if you will.
Tunes “like you never heard em before” is exactly that. It assumes that
you know these tunes - - and if you’ve been around fiddlers for any length
of time, you probably do - - but when J.T. is finished working out his
unique interpretations, you may be wondering if you really do know the
tunes. J.T. often takes the tune as a point of departure, as raw material,
so to speak, from which to recreate and fashion a new personal expression.
And yet he doesn’t lose sight of the tune, either. He often comes back
to it, re-asserts it, before going on to more daring musical pursuits.
And each time he brings back the theme, it’s like coming back to home
base; it’s good to be back, but it’s never the same.
To be sure, this is an ambitious undertaking. And yet, it doesn’t just
stop with the end of a tune. Like many artists, J.T. Perkins keeps working
and re-working these same tunes as an on-going process. In the short time
I have listened to J.T.’s fiddling, I have been able to witness many changes
in his style - - constantly improving, revising, experimenting.
The tunes on this album present a fair sample of this process, this new
style of ‘progressive’ fiddling, if we may call it that J.T. has chosen
tunes that are familiar to most all fiddlers, with the exception of “Doc
Harris Hornpipe,” which is an original tune written for an enthusiastic
supporter of old-time music in the Tennessee Valley (Dr. Perry Harris).
Although these are all ‘fiddlin’ favorites,’ J.T. does a lot more than
simply play the melody over and over again. The real artistic object is
to do more than that - - in some ways to get away from the melody. J.T.
alternates his re-statements of the basic theme with real creative variations
that treat the melody with different tone colorings, phrasing, bowing,
and even rhythmic variations. This style is quite captivating and entertaining,
because - - as a listener - - you don’t know what J.T. is going to do
next, and yet he has complete command of what he is doing.
“Sally Goodin” is an excellent example. Originally a 2-part fiddle tune
fiddlers over the years have expanded it to over a dozen distinct parts.
Eck Robertson, the Texas fiddler, began working out some of these new
parts as far back as the 1920’s. J.T. Perkins refines it a little bit,
combining some parts, and adding a few unforgettable new ones. The new
version is concise and tasteful.
“Dusty Miller” is another old tune that has flowered over the years from
a simple 2-part tune to a complex fiddle composition, with variations
in the higher positions. J.T. improves on these variations and adds some
staccato-like phrases in the lower strings that are refreshing and different.
The contrast between higher and lower positions is always a dramatic one,
for the different resonance it draws from the fiddle. J.T. exploits this
several times, in “Sally Goodin,” “Dusty Miller,” Leather Britches,” “Twinkle
Little Star,” and the unusual tune “Home Brew Rag” - - which is not only
played in high and low positions, but also changes keys (so effectively
it is played 4 different ways).
There is much variety on this album. Even tunes that have suffered as
much Bluegrass overkill as “Bill Cheatum” and “Blackberry Blossom” come
out sounding fresh and original. The waltzes on the album are both very
clean and smooth with imaginative use of chords and double stops. And
the inclusion of the Kenny Baker tune, “High Country,” with its twin-fiddle
parts, makes for a varied and well-balanced collection of tunes.
J.T. Perkins packs a lot of fiddling into 30 or 40 minutes - - as you
will hear and as you can see by studying the accompanying transcriptions.
He is an accomplished artist, and in the future we will undoubtely hear
a lot more from him.
David Garelick
San Francisco, Calif.
March, 1975
(Editor’s Note: David Garelick and his wife, Burney, edit The Sound Post,
the publication of the California State Old-Time Fiddlers’ Assn.)