Hi all, I just spent two weeks in the Maine Woods at Maine Fiddle Camp and am still recovering. Camp was “in-person” after two years of Covid hiatus and was a lot of work and a lot of fun. I’m still collecting material for a big article and that will be coming soon to this blog. Read about MFC HERE. In the meantime here are a few short stories that I have wanted to tell for a while:

 

 

 

I wrote this piece around 2001. Ted died in 1995 

Remembering Ted Sannella

I didn’t know Ted Sannella REAL well. World renowned caller and dance choreographer, Ted moved to Maine about 12 years ago and a couple years after that, Jim Spicer and others started the North Whitefield contra dance on fourth Fridays. This was “Ted’s” dance and was an immediate success. Actually it false-started a few times at various halls but ended up in North Whitefield because that’s where my friends John Pranio and Toki Oshima, who were going to be part of the “house band”, lived, and that was close to Ted’s home in Wiscasset. I started doing the sound for the dance and sitting in with the band on Bass or percussion occasionally. So I got to see Ted in action from “behind the scenes” once a month. At first we all thought he was a little stiff and demanding, well let’s say I did. Who was this guy coming in here from away, telling US what to do!!?? I mean he seemed very fussy about how the band sounded and everything had to be just so, and he had these lists of dances and tunes to go with them printed up to pass out to the band before each dance, I mean really!! Of course the dancers all seemed like they were having a good time and the dance grew very quickly. And Ted and I became friendly and he always had helpful suggestions about the dances. If I asked about a dance sequence, he’d give me the card to copy it down and point out the important stuff – often he’d do this while calling the dance at the same time. I mean this guy was GOOD. Ted used to like to play his wooden spoons along with the music sometimes. He’d beat them between his hand and chest, all the time with this big grin. I used to play bottlecap rattle with the band sometimes, too. One time we took a percussion break together on wooden spoons and bottlecap rattle, me and Ted both with these big shit eating grins. Wished I had had a camera. Anyway, everyone warmed up to Ted and realized he really KNEW how to get the most out of any situation. He had a gentle way with beginners that kept them coming back and a way of making ANY dance seem fun for the experienced dancers. I think the Maine experience loosened Ted up a bit, too. It was wicked fun working with him. So now he’s gone and we all miss him and there’s so much more I would like to ask him. But I think about him when I’m passing out my sheets printed out with the dances and tunes before each dance…. See ya Ted.

 

Here’s another “Ted Story”. KGB, (Julie King, Claude Ginsberg, and Dave Bartley) is an “avant-contra” (Dave’s words) dance band from the Seattle Area. Around the year 2000 they were on tour in New England and played the North Whitefield dance on Friday night. Not sure who was calling, maybe me? Anyway the dance was held at the regular place, the parish hall of St. Dennis’ Roman Catholic Church and the church graveyard was just down the hill and certainly within earshot, so we always left the window on that side of the hall, behind the stage, open so Ted could “hear the music”. Ted was not Catholic but had asked to be buried there and was. After the dance Claude asked if we could go down to Ted’s graveside and play a tune. I wasn’t sure the West-coasters even knew who Ted was, let alone where he was buried, but we found some flashlights and made the walk. It was a chilly fall night after midnight but we finally found the gravestone and proceeded to play “Lady of the Lake”. I guess there were 8 or 10 of us there. A magic moment for sure!

 

Berryville, VA Bicentennial Bluegrass Festival 1976 and the Buffalo Gals

After college in the late sixties and early seventies I worked as a mechanic in several motorcycle shops in the Philly area and started riding to Bluegrass festivals in the “mid-south”. My favorite was Berryville, in Virginia. Watermelon Park was right on the banks of the Shenandoah River, a gorgeous site set in a natural crook in the river. I remember attending the 1976 “Bicentennial” Festival. I remember arriving on my 1972 BMW R75/5, turning the corner by the bandstand to hear the Country Gentlemen in full harmony. That was quite a change after a long ride in holiday traffic. Other bands were Boone Creek with Ricky Scaggs and Jerry Douglas; JD Crowe and the New South with Jimmy Goodreau; and I seem to remember the Seldom Scene with John Duffey BUT the band that made the biggest impression was the Buffalo Gals, an all-woman band from New York state (They were: guitar – Martha Trachtenberg; banjo – Susie Monick; mandolin – Carol Siegel; fiddle – Sue Raines; and bass – Nancy Josephson. All sang as I remember. There weren’t many “all-girl” bluegrass bands in those days in fact I had never seen or heard of one. Anyway, there they were. For the (Saturday?) evening concert they came out on stage dressed in red-white-and-blue sequined mini-dresses and turned a lot of heads (and I don’t mean just with how they dressed!) (This is how I remember it at any rate, band leader Martha Trachtenberg remembers the outfits differently but regardless they made a hit!) They talk about having been hired as a “novelty band” when they first broke out in 1974, but these kids could play. I fell in love with all of them after that and even followed them to concerts and workshops when they were playing in the Philadelphia area. Not sure where I got the idea or even the resources to do it at that time, but I baked the band a chocolate chip carrot cake and delivered it to them in the green room when they were playing at the Main Point in Bryn Mawr. It didn’t get me anywhere with any of the members of the band but the recipe has somehow survived!!!

 

So there’s a couple short ones. See y’all next month  – bill