We encourage you to join us for a weekend of amazing music and artists from all over the world!

Friday, July 8 – 5:30 p.m.
Early Evening Show

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT DOOR ONE HOUR BEFORE SHOWTIME

Kevin and Daniel Carr and friends – from Spain to Quebec
Dale Russ – Irish Master
Danny Levin and Dick Gimble – swing from Texas
Bruce Daigrepont, Gina Forsyth, and David Doucet – Cajun dance music from Louisiana

Saturday, July 9 – 1:30 p.m.
Fiddle Finale

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT DOOR ONE HOUR BEFORE SHOWTIME

John Haywood – banjo from Kentucky
Hank Bradley, Bill Meyer, and Candy Goldman – eclectic transplanted Californians
Bayou Seco Big Band – Music from the Southwest

ABOUT OUR ARTISTS

Kevin Carr, Oregon
For many decades dynamic fiddler-piper-storyteller Kevin Carr has honed his craft in smoky Irish pubs, remote cabins in Quebec, at Fort Worden in 204 and McCurdy Pavilion, and in dance halls across America. Kevin has been an integral part of Fiddle Tunes since very beginning, spearheading the Celtic Thug movement. He’s played banjo in Latvia, the fiddle in Russia, and along the way became a collector of bagpipes – up to 31 and counting. Uilleann pipes were his first love, with Galician Gaita and Scottish Highland pipes coming later, along with various French, Italian, Eastern European, Scandinavian, and other smaller pipes. He is also fascinated with diatonic button accordion. But Kevin will teach fiddle at Fiddle Tunes, dance music from around the world – expect tunes from Quebec, Galicia, the Basque country, Ireland, and ….? “I continue to play today because traditional music connects me to culture and emotion in a profound way. It is challenging, energizing and deeply satisfying to spend time in the vast pool of music which has nourished, and been nourished, by so many grand souls through the centuries.”

Dale Russ, Washington
Dale Russ is a friendly, unassuming man who plays Irish Traditional music with distinctive clarity, articulation, and soul. Born in the U.S., he picked up the fiddle as a young adult in Washington State, far from the urban Irish enclaves. Yet, in 1993, Martin Hayes told Folk World magazine, Dale Russ is one of the greatest fiddlers Irish I know in Irish traditional music. Recognized by such luminaries as Kevin Burke, Liz Carroll and James Kelly, Dale plays music for dancing, listening, and for pleasure. He has played with several bands over the years, as well as for dance competitions and solo concerts. Dale also tours Japan regularly, where he helped spark the interest in Irish music in the mid-1990s. He has taught advanced fiddle at the Lark in the Morning music camp for many years, and has an instructional video produced by Lark. More recently he recorded a series of video lessons available at pegheadnation.com. Subtle, inventive, and steeped in the tradition, his intense work ethic and concentration are matched only by the sheer joyfulness of his music.

Danny Levin, Texas
Danny was raised serious classical by a violist dad and a pianist (and dancer) mom. Starting at age 10, he studied cello with Philadelphia Orchestra cellist Francis dePasquale. Frequent string quartet jamming with dad and others started a couple years later. He started writing string music when he was 15. Danny’s first paying gig was at the Brooklyn Museum. He was 19 years old and the gig paid $19. A piece he composed was on the program. He joined Asleep at the Wheel shortly after its start in West Virginia in 1970. He was their first piano player and, eventually, their first fiddler. He was there for two of their many Grammy’s. He quit in 1980 and became a busy (if not wealthy) freelancer based in Austin TX. Danny has performed or recorded with many legendary country greats, including Willie Nelson, Charlie Pride, Tom T. Hall, Dolly Parton, and many more. He’s written and recorded string arrangements for Jimmy Day, Tish Hinojosa, Shinyribs, Bob Schneider, Eliza Gilkyson, and many others. He taught at Johnny Gimble’s Taos NM fiddle camp from 2001-2006 and at Randy Elmore’s camp for a couple years after that. Danny is equally uncomfortable on piano and fiddle. He leans jazzward, but the fiddle camps exposed him to contest fiddlin’, and he enjoys some of the better known breakdowns (in the privacy of his home). Recent activities: 2021 – music supervisor on PBS film Citizens at Last; rejoined the Wheel for their 51st anniversary reunion tour and recording; finally got to play the Grand Ole Opry. Some current gigs in Austin: he plays every Monday night with Bob Schneider’s Lonelyland at the Saxon Pub, and enjoys occasional Friday evenings with Emily Gimble at the Continental Gallery.

Danny will be accompanied at Fiddle Tunes by Dick Gimble, the son of the late Johnny Gimble, the legendary Western swing fiddle player who was inducted into both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and as an individual performer in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Dick was eight when his father tried to teach him the fiddle, but Dick couldn’t make it sound right. “I hated the fiddle,” he said. “It sounded terrible when I played it.” He found his calling six years later, when his father brought home a stand-up bass to use on some songwriting demos. “I started thumping on it, and Daddy heard me and said, ‘Do you want to play bass?’ ”

His father taught him the essentials, and soon the two were sitting in Dick’s room, jamming on songs like “Stay All Night” or “Milk Cow Blues.” Dick was such a quick study that six months later, his father asked him to play in his band. On Thursday afternoons, Johnny took Dick out of school for weekend tours in East Texas and Louisiana as part of the Aunt Jemima Bandwagon, where they’d perform on a flatbed truck parked in front of grocery stores, just as Johnny and his brothers had done in the thirties. For the younger Gimble, it was a crash course in Texas swing and music theory. Then Johnny moved to Nashville, and Dick began playing in other bands in Central Texas. By the time Johnny returned, Dick had become one of the most well-known bassists in Austin, backing up numerous country musicians onstage and in the studio. Eventually he started his own band. He ended up as a session player in Nashville, then moved back to Austin, playing gigs around town before accepting a teaching job at McLennan Community College, where he taught guitar for nearly 40 years.

Gina Forsyth, fiddle – Louisiana
Born in Florida and raised in Alabama, Gina grew up on hymns, country songs, and old time fiddle tunes. In the mid-1980s, she moved to New Orleans to study classical and jazz violin at Loyola University and quickly developed an irrevocable passion for Cajun music. She’s an award-winning singer/songwriter, who is known for her wizardry on fiddle and guitar. With an alto as unique as it is soulful, unpretentious songs that cut straight to the heart, and a wicked sense of humor, her live performances are legend. Considered one of the finest Cajun fiddlers in Louisiana (no small feat), Gina is in demand from other great Louisiana musicians to play club gigs and festivals, some of the same talent that backs her up when she plays as Gina Forsyth and Friends. She has toured and recorded with some of Louisiana’s greatest Cajun bands, including the legendary, Bruce Daigrepont. Her fiddling appears on three of his recordings, Couer des Cajuns (Rounder, 1989), Paradis (Rounder, 1999), and Bienvenue dans le Sud de la Louisiane (self-released, 2016).

Bruce Daigrepont, accordion – Louisiana
Bruce was born in New Orleans on July 11, 1958. His parents were part of a post-World War II migration of Cajuns to New Orleans from the rural farming communities of Avoyelles Parish, the forgotten part of Cajun country. Nevertheless, the language and customs of the Cajun people are as deeply rooted here as anywhere in the state. And whenever you walk through the door of Bruce’s family home, you return to Avoyelles Parish. The same, instinctive pride of culture and heritage that has guided his parents’ lives, and his grandparents’ lives, is now invested in Bruce’s music. Music came to Bruce at an early age, and in the most traditional manner–handed down from father to son. When he was growing up, no family gathering was complete without a little playing and singing. Bruce is one of New Orleans’ and Louisiana’s great musical institutions; and he has emerged as one of Cajun music’s finest cultural ambassadors. In North America he has performed at such prestigious venues as New York’s Lincoln Center, Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts, the Winnipeg Folk Festival and the National Folk Festival. Over the past ten years he has taken his music to France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, El Salvador and Venezuela. Most rewarding, though, are his annual “”homecoming”” pilgrimages to the French-speaking Canadian maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where the history of the Louisiana Cajuns had its harsh beginnings.

David Doucet, guitar – Louisiana
Doucet first played the guitar after recuperating from a broken arm sustained while practicing with his high school football team. Although he initially taught himself to play by using Bob Dylan and Paul Simon songbooks, Doucet became fascinated with flatpicking after listening to an album by Doc Watson. Together with his brother and banjo player Raoul Breaux, Doucet played Cajun music in Louisiana clubs in 1975. When the project proved commercially unsuccessful, the band broke up with Doucet enrolling in college and his brother going on to form the Cajun rock band Coteau and the original lineup of Beausoleil. A turning point in Doucet’s evolution as a guitarist came when he heard the playing of the late Clarence White on an album, The Kentucky Colonels 1965-1967, in 1980. Inspired by White’s use of unusual chords and imaginative melodies, Doucet began to develop his own unique style. In addition to his solo album and recordings with Beausoleil, Doucet was featured on albums by Chuck Guillory (Grand Texas), Octa Clark & Hector Duhon (Ensemble Encore) and Michael Doucet (Dit BeauSoleil).

John Haywood, banjo – Kentucky
John Haywood is a banjo-playing tattoo and folk artist in Whitesburg, Kentucky. He owns and operates the Parlor Room Tattoo and Art Gallery – a tattoo shop that draws visitors from all over the world to Letcher County into the far southeastern corner of Kentucky. “Many come for a tattoo, and some to experience a little bit of our culture,” Haywood says of his shop. John attended the Old Regular Baptist Church with his papaw, where he heard him sing the old unaccompanied songs of Zion. He has studied with banjo master and historian George Gibson, played solo, and joined multiple bands. A curious musician, he’s spent the past two decades moving from project to project, ranging from Traditional Kentucky music to garage metal to pop punk. At the workshop, John will offer a closer look at old-time banjo techniques such as up-picking, drop-thumb and two-finger style while focusing on the repertoires of such legendary Kentucky banjo players as George Gibson, Lee Sexton, Morgan Sexton and Roscoe Holcomb, among others. “There is a common bond that holds us all here, a voice, a heritage, and a connection to the landscape,” Haywood says of fellow eastern Kentuckians. “If I’m sittin’ with someone we might not have a thing to talk about, but if you’ve got a fiddle and I’ve got a banjo we could spend 3 hours together and just become best friends.”

Hank Bradley – Washington
Hank Bradley was Washington fiddle champion for 1974, thanks to his draft board who sent him to Fort Bragg NC in 1963. Hank’s Southern style fiddling began with time spent with Otis Burris and the Mountain Ramblers of Galax, VA. He also plays Croatian tamburitza and violin with Bonaca of Seattle, violin and bouzouki in the Greek communities of the US and Canada with Yiannis Novakis and with Seattle bands El Fin del Mundo and Roscoe’s Gone. He composes new tunes in the traditional musical dialects he finds, and prefers an aggressive Southern fiddle style based on continuous, though not extreme, improvisation. He has taught Southern fiddle at Lark in the Morning in Mendocino, at Pinewoods Camp in Massachusetts, at the Augusta Heritage Festival in Elkins, WV, and was a regular member of the Port Townsend Festival of American Fiddle Tunes staff for its first decade.

2022 marks Bayou Seco’s 42nd year of music with more than 100 band members across the globe. They started out with Paul Rangell and Emily Abbink and established that Chilegumbo groove. Scott Mathis and Linda Askew joined when Paul and Emily relocated to Santa Cruz and Bayou Seco morphed through many versions of the band from full on electric and back to eclectic/acoustic and more recently a duo, always focusing on lots of good old traditional tunes they learned from their many mentors from Louisiana over to Arizona.

Jeanie McLerie, fiddle – New Mexico
A native Californian who performed extensively in Europe during the 1970s and 1980s, Jeanie is currently based in New Mexico. With her sweetheart Ken Keppeler they are known the world over as Bayou Seco. They have made significant contributions to New Mexico by preserving the cultural heritage of Hispanic and Cowboy folk music and bringing it to life for future generations through their performances and teaching. Jeanie has been a professional musician since 1962, performing in the United States, Canada and Europe with the groups Sandy & Jeanie, The Harmony Sisters and the Delta Sisters. For more than 30 years, she has taught fiddle instruction to children through “The Fiddling Friends,” which focuses on an international repertoire of fiddle styles and music, with an emphasis on the sources of the music.

Linda Askew, guitar – New Mexico
Linda grew up listening and dancing to the music of West Texas. She got her first guitar in high school and learned to play rhythm guitar backing up Appalachian fiddle style music. She expanded her horizons learning regional traditional tunes and dances from old time fiddlers and musicians playing the music from northern New Mexico. She’s become a master at playing rhythm guitar for a variety of musical forms including Cajun dance melodies, the irregular rhythms of Gu-achi fiddle styles and several styles of Mexican music. Linda has recorded and toured with Bayou Seco, the Soda Rock Ramblers, the Southwest Musicians, La Rondalla de Albuquerque and the Sandia Hots and performed with numerous others.

Scott Mathis, mandolin – New Mexico
A veteran of 1960’s rock and roll, Scott has become a crusader for traditional music and dance. Playing the full range of the mandolin family of instruments and the guitarron, Scott’s focus has been on music from the great Southwestern USA, Mexico, France, and Italy. Scott is a member of such bands as Bayou Seco, Sandia Hots, Soda Rock Ramblers, the Southwest musicians, La Rondalla de Albuquerque, the Love Buzzards, Virginia Creepers and Lost Woody. Recently he is enjoying playing with younger musicians and seeing traditional music grow and prosper.