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

Joellen Lapidus: Dulcimer Royalty

One Woman's Journey

By Art Podell

WALL SCRAWLS / Art Podell

My initial curiosity about this remarkable woman first peaked when I heard her play and sing her song about her grandfather’s chicken market in Brooklyn. She sang the song at an open mic I visit weekly. It’s hosted by Peter and Deborah Cutler of ‘Fiddlers Crossing’, a wonderful folk and contemporary acoustic music venue in Tehachapi California. Me? I’m from Brooklyn originally, and the song painted a picture of a familiar neighborhood, familiar people, and I  knew immediately that I wanted to meet and get to know this talented person. Previously, I had read some of her columns in FolkWorks when they were current but I thought I’d look into her personal journey to augment what I already knew. What I found exceeded my expectations. For those of you who know of her and especially for those of you who are meeting her for the first time here, the following is a refreshing visit with an extraordinary artist. Here’s the song that first awakened my interest.

Naturally, the next step was obvious to me, and I invited this talented musician, doctor, and instrument-building artist as a guest on my radio show ‘Roots Music and Beyond’ on KPFK FM radio in Los Angeles. On air, we chatted about her musical history growing up, her evolution into the world of dulcimer, and some of the unique experiences she’s had along the way. From Brooklyn, New York, to Woodstock, to Esalen in Big Sur, California, and beyond. Quite a journey. The radio interview was short, and Joellen played a few tunes on a magnificent dulcimer that she brought with her to the studio. She had built the dulcimer herself as she has built many. Today, Joellen is considered a dulcimer virtuoso and a master craftsman (craftswoman?). Photos of her work can be found easily at https://lapidusmusic.com/instruments.

The first series of events that piqued my curiosity about Joellen’s dulcimer craftsmanship had occurred a few weeks earlier while I listened to one of my co-hosts at KPFK, Patrick Milligan, play a track from a Joni Mitchell album in which Joni announces from the stage that the instrument in her lap was a dulcimer that she had gotten from “a [lady] named Joellen”. The fact that Joellen not only plays but builds dulcimers led me to find out more about her. What I discovered was a multi-faceted, multi-talented modern lady who functions as a licensed psychotherapist, instrument builder, and musician.  Joellen and I connected recently on a Zoom call and what was supposed to be a concise interview went on for close to an hour, too long to transcribe here, so I thought that the following brief excerpts might interest my readers enough to dig deeper on their own.  Perhaps a follow-up article at a later date might include more of the interview.

Joellen Lapidus’s current activities can easily be found on her website. She plays with several bands that she created. From Appalachia to Klezmer, very little is beyond her scope.

Following are excerpts from our conversation on Zoom. The interview lasted one hour, too long to post here. Perhaps on another platform, but the excerpts below may provide a glimpse of a musician and creator’s journey through the decades that formed so much of our musical culture.

The Early Years

https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/The-early-years.mp3

Newport Folk Festival

https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Newport-Folk-Festival.mp3

Big Sur – Joni Mitchell

https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Big-Sur-Joni-Mitchell.mp3

The Art of Building Dulcimers

https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Building-Dulcimers.mp3
Jelly Dulcimer Soundholes
Dancing Fuscias
Butterfly Dulcimer Peghead
Buddha Dulcimer Peghead

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