News
and Reviews
News August 2016 Clifftop, West Virginia, Appalachian String Band Music Festival Sandy and Howard set up their usual site at Clifftop. See the photo with Howard, Joe, Lisa Roberts, and friends. We played music for what seems like 6 days straight, with time out only for meals, sleep, and to secure the site from occasional thunderstorms. Joe set up a perfect corner location right at the entrance to the upper section of the campsite in the woods behind the large camper section facing the stage. We visited and played music with folks who come every year from Australia and our favorite musicians from France who have been living in Georgia (USA) for several decades. We were fortunate to hear Scott Prouty, son of a long-time jam friend of ours and who started fiddling through our jams, fiddle his heart out and take third place in the fiddle competition. Way to go, Scott! Events this Fall If you have not visited to Dairy Mooseum in Germantown, we invite you to do so. The Mooseum is a renovated dairy barn with wonderful exhibits on early dairy farming in Montgomery County. It is located on the original farm, most of which has been converted into a soccer and recreation complex for county children. In the barn you can see several full-size replicas of cows and bulls. No cowtipping of course! Join us for The King Barn Dairy Mooseum's Annual benefit and silent auction in Germantown, MD on September 24, 5-8 pm. There is an admission fee for this one. www.mooseum.org/(301) 229-4385. Food is fabulous. Deer Creek Fiddler's Convention Summer 2010 Welcome to the New Southern Cowtippers Web Site for Summer 2010. July 2009 Featured on the New York Times web site in an audio slide show from Fiddler’s Grove
Old Time Band Competition The New Southern Cowtippers won second in Old-Time Band at the 2007 Carroll County Farm Museum Fiddlers’ Convention on June 10. Sandy also placed second in the Bluegrass fiddle competition. Review
from the Old Time Herald Well, folks, we were finally reviewed in the Old Time Herald, THE journal for old time music. Howard was afraid that the reviewer would tell him to go back and get banjo lessons or take up the harmonica, so he let out a sigh of relief. And Jim’s feet have still not returned to the ground. Sandy is a perennial student of fine fiddling and resigned to always playing second fiddle, so is happy with any kind words. Of course we don’t know how many reviewers returned the CD to the editor and said, no thanks! But, as the review states: “The New Southern Cowtippers from Columbia Maryland have a great time playing old-time music.” “I like the way these folks approach a tune. In addition to a drop thumbed banjo, Howard Zane sometimes employs to good effect what he calls the ‘ancient thumb lead’ style . . . that made me perk up my ears. Sandy Hofferth has a nice touch on her bowing and has learned tunes from some of our finest current fiddlers. Jim Jones is a marvelous guitarist. His playing propels the tunes just right. . . And naturally, I really like the numbers that have a cow theme . . . ‘Old Cow Crossing the Road,’ conjures images for the band of cows dancing the polka. Me too!” Joe Newberry, The Old Time Herald, June-July 2007 The Cowtippers think that you will have a good time listening to us
too! “What a magnificent, mouth-wateringly fine project it (“Old
Bell Cow”) is! Your playing is full of drive, bounce and good
times. Can’t wait to play ‘Who Shit in Grandpa’s
Hat’.” “Driving home at 12:30AM
listening to WAMU, Washington DC, I hear this wonderful version
of Walk Along John to Kansas by the Cowtippers . . . Great Old
Time Music, again, and at its best!!!” Update on our 2006 Clifftop adventure The Cowtippers are back from a great adventure at the Appalachian
String Band Music Festival in Clifftop West Virginia. Arrived on
Friday, a week before the festival and had a great jam that evening
with friends from southern Virginia. It was hot, just as it was everywhere
else, but we were happy to get away from the Baltimore-Washington
area. On Thursday Sandy entered the fiddle contest, with Al on guitar and Howard on banjo. She played the Hilltop Hornpipe, a tune known as the Hornpipe in A or the Free State Hornpipe, that she collected some years ago in Fauquier County, Virginia. After the contest was done, went to the dining hall for a meal. On the way out, our friend Marty grabs us and tells us the great and very surprising news: Sandy placed second in the Senior Fiddle Competition!! What a thrill and great honor. (And probably the only advantage of being over 60). We had to go and actually see the board with the names written on it. I was in shock. Everyone came over to congratulate us. Got a beautiful red ribbon, a certificate, and some money. The weather improved on Saturday, and after 8 days we couldn’t play any more, so we sat and enjoyed the traditional band competition. Of the 49 bands, every band was great and we enjoyed the finals, with Jake Krack and his band winning the contest as well as the fiddle contest. Bobby Taylor’s protégées were everywhere this year. Besides Jake, Jared Nutter played a concert with Adam Hurt on banjo, Beth Hartness on guitar, and Jared’s dad on bass. These talented young people capped a wonderful 2006 festival. For more about the festival, see Bob Buckingham’s article in the fall 2006 Old-Time Herald. Miscellaneous Musings The Cowtippers are starting to get letters and orders from around the world. We had a recent CD request from an old-time muisc collector from Belgium. The hats were also very popular at Clifftop. Livestock love us. Clifftop,
WV. If you like old-timey music, you’ll probably
be at Clifftop this summer…early August. Come over and visit ….
We have plenty of chairs. Play and share some tunes, and have a cold
diet Coke. We are easy to find: straight back from the stage in the
far woods. Look for the Cowtippers’ blue and white sign and
the banner saying “Chicken-Tune-Free Area.” We doubt
if we will be entering the string band contest as we really don’t
care if we play better than others or others play better than us.
That is not what the music is about — at least for us. Chicken tunes? This is a Howard thing. Howard, growing up in a semi-orthodox Jewish environment, learned to dislike anything modal or in minor keys. Jewish music is written in only three keys…D minor, D very minor, and D extremely minor. Most Chicken tunes are in A modal, like “Cluck Old Hen, or just sound “chickeny.” Tunes like Crow Black Chicken are in major keys and are happy and wonderful. Then of course there is “The Chicken Reel,” which is indeed in a major key, but when someone suggests playing it will usually bring a look from Howard, like, who stepped in the moose turd? In Howard’s words: “Learning old time music from real old timers, like folks born in the late 19th century, I found that minor notes, modal, or minor keys, were rarely used, as this was mainly lively and happy dance music. During a jam in the late 40’s, my mentor, Uncle Bob, and his Winchester 12-gauge once chased a mandolin player off his porch as he insisted on playing modal tunes. Even though I was only eleven at the time, I fully concurred. Aunt Ida on the event: “Aw shucks, Bob, you might have hurt the sumbitch’s feelings!” Then there are Diane Jones and the Reed Island Rounders who have specialized in modal tunes and have taken them to an advanced art form. They even wear ‘T’ shirts saying “Modal Rules.” What Diane does to a modal tune with her banjo is sheer excellence. Howard
says: ”I do have a respect for modal tunes and I admit
that some are rather beautiful (see Icy Chicken on ‘Old Bell
Cow’), but I prefer not to play (most of) them.” Now,
Sandy and Jim???? |