• Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Mail
Contributor Login
  • 0Shopping Cart
FolkWorks
  • Home
  • Events
  • Features
  • Resources
  • About Us
  • Archives
  • Contact
  • DONATE
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

Gu-Achi Fiddlers

Fiddle Tunes from the American Southwest

By Roland Sturm

JIGS AND JAMS / Roland Sturm

Traditional Southwest Fiddle styles (e.g. Arizona, New Mexico) sound a lot more Mexican (or Central European) than the better known Old-Time Southeast style (e.g. Virginia, Carolinas, Kentucky). Clearly, the influences and original sources were different even if in both cases European sources filtered through time and local sensibilities to result in new and unique styles of music.

The string band music of the Tohona O’odham people of Southern Arizona was one of local styles of the Southwest. The fiddle-driven bands created their unique sound of polkas, two-steps, and mazurkas utilizing violins, guitar, and drums. String bands provided the music for religious festivals, community celebrations and social dancing probably until the 1950s. One great CD is by the Gu-Achi Fiddlers, entitled “Old Time O’odham Fiddle Music.”

The cover photo makes the recording look older than it really is. While no date is provided, the leader of the Gu-Achi Fiddlers on that recording, Elliot Johnson, died about 30 years ago. However, it is the first and also only commercial recording. Unlike the better documented rural styles from the East (where record labels started field recordings in the 1920s) there were no early field recordings of Southwest styles until that style has already become archaic. By the time Canyon Records (a label specializing in Native American music) discovered the Gu-Achi fiddlers, it was an outdated style that had been superseded by bands with saxophones, electric guitars, and (due to the influence of norteño music from Northern Mexico) accordion. This newer style, interchangeably known as Waila or Chicken Scratch, remains the current social dance music of this border area. The Tohono O’Oodham reservation covers most of the area between Tucson and the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument to the West. The Gu-Achi District is in the center of the reservation, roughly halfway between Tucson and Organ Pipe Monument, and has about 1400 residents.

The Gu-Achi fiddle music remains alive because it is fun to play, although now mostly far beyond its homeland in Arizona. Very suitable for jamming because it is easy to learn and yet fun to play. The Festival of Fiddle Tunes in Washington has a session devoted to this style every year. Ten years ago, I taught some of those tunes in an afterschool fiddle class at a local school and they became popular in neighborhood jams. I had largely forgotten about it, but then the Covid lockdowns brought the kids back for a while and we pulled out some of those tunes.

One of my all-time favorite is Libby Bird Song Mazurka (I believe named after a relative of one of the Gu-Achi Fiddlers), track 7 of the original recording,  and I finally did a transcription of it. We play it on mandolins for a change, it is a sweet tune that way, too.

Roland Sturm is Professor of Policy Analysis at the RAND Graduate School and usually writes on health policy, not music. He was the talent coordinator of the Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest. These days he mainly plays upright bass and mandolin.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share by Mail
https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Guachi-Fiddlers-Cover.jpg 401 399 Roland Sturm https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FolkWorks-logo-large.png Roland Sturm2021-02-16 21:08:422021-12-13 17:09:43

Gu-Achi Fiddlers

Fiddle Tunes from the American Southwest

By Roland Sturm

All Columns

Featured Columnists

  • Art Podell
  • Chris Wilson
  • David Bragger
  • Lindsey Terrell
  • Roland Sturm
  • Ross Altman

FolkWorks Partners

Join our E-mail Community

As a valued member of our e-mail community, you will receive updates on events, stories, performances and more in our monthly newsletter, along with the occasional special announcement to give you the latest news in folk/roots. We promise your e-mail is safe with us.  We don’t sell or share our database with any third-party vendors.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

  • LIKE US ON FACEBOOK
  • JOIN THE FOLKWORKS FACEBOOK GROUP
  • BECOME A FOLKWORKS DONOR
  • ADVERTISE WITH US
YOU TUBE INSTAGRAM TWITTER EMAIL PRIVACY POLICY

All Material Copyright © 2001- 2021 FolkWorks. All rights reserved. Website by: Integritive

Scroll to top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website, analyze site traffic, and show event times in your timezone. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Accept

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy