Playing music in public is both intensely social and intensely personal. The listener has a relationship both with the music and the musician. Musicians interact with each other as they perform, often with visible joy that carries through to the listener and returns to the artist. Artists have a physical relationship with their instruments too; they cradle their instruments, and in turn the instruments support them. They feel the sounds. I hope these photos portray all these aspects.
Three of the artists in these photos, Ralph Lewis (mandolin), Arvil Freeman (fiddle), and Bobby Hicks (fiddle), were important elders in Western North Carolina’s musical world who have passed on. (Bobby also appears in the green room picture, with a mandolin.) Their music is still carried forward by younger artists.At 88 years old, Ralph Lewis still occasionally played with his sons at spots around the Asheville area. This must have been one of his last times on stage. Arvil Freeman taught many young musicians in and around Madison County, and Bobby Hicks was a fiddler of national reputation who made his home in Madison County, taught young musicians, and hosted a weekly jam at a local coffeehouse. All of them played that night at the annual Fiddlers of Madison County gathering, where they shared the stage with a host of youth and other established local artists. It was a warm, loving and joyous evening.
Carol Rifkin is another product of the Western North Carolina traditional musical tradition. Another talented fiddler, she is shown here clogging with banjo player Tony Trischka. These artists shared a musical dialog that represents a through line from the oldest English ballad traditions of Western North Carolina to the most modern versions of bluegrass. Tony also conducted an intense exchange with a young and rising banjo player named Trey Wellington. They shared the intimacy of a single mic. Celia Whitehouse and Vicky Vaughn of Della Mae brought women’s energy to the stage. Emmy Lou Harris was the event headliner. I saw the excitement and energy she sent to and got back from the crowd, and the intensity of her focus in performing. The gospel singers from the Tried Stone Gospel Choir represented a very diNerent intensity and tradition in a performance at the Western North Carolina Mountain Heritage Days. Kristin Scott Bensen sits on the edge of a small stage cradling her banjo and watching performers at a small venue in Brevard NC. Marshall Wilborn stands with his bass in the corner of another small stage in a small venue in Asheville. Darren Nicholson and Celia Millington-WyckoN get ready to jam another night on that stage. An unnamed bass player concentrates on a bass line at a venue that doesn’t even have a stage. And Joelle Tambe-Ebot carries her bass to a stage in the desert Southwest. -Peggy Baker
Bio:
I grew up in Los Angeles, lived in Chicago for a long time and then Asheville NC for 15 years before coming to Tucson (probably the last stop). I have worked in secondary schools, as locomotive mechanic, a union organizer and many other things to get here. I take pictures of wildlife, and people, and their impacts on the planet. I have a special feeling for musicians as they experience their music and have been privileged to photograph some of the best in the area, both in intimate and large settings. Now I’m learning how this music, which evolved out of Scotch-Irish ballads, Black string-band fiddle tunes, and southern blues, is migrating to the southwest.
peggy.baker@gmail.com
madangelphotos.com
773.414.0292
Featured Image: Kristin Scott Benson waiting to go ©Peggy Baker
