Catskills Folk Connection

presents 

A New CD from Hilt Kelly

Catskills Folk Connection is proud to present a new CD of fiddle tunes from the late Hilt Kelly, accompanied by his wife Stella on the piano.   In 2010 Hilt and Stella recorded these tunes at Dry Hill Studios in Oneonta, accompanied by CFC folklorist, Karyl Eaglefeathers.  The CD from that session will have its official release at Roxbury Arts Group's Fiddlers!23 next weekend, on Sunday, October 9.    Tonight's Catskills Folk radio program at 7 p.m. on WIOX 91.3 FM will preview the ten recordings on the album. which will be on sale for the first time at Fiddlers!

Jim Kimball, long-time emcee for past Fiddlers! concerts and an ethnomusicologist at SUNY Geneseo, reviewed the mostly nameless album tracks.  He was able to name a few more than were already known, and to explain why the rest had no names.  

"Quadrilles, a common older term for square dances, were published in great numbers especially in the mid to late 19th century, usually in sets of three to five tunes, the whole set haviang one title.  The first and second tune were most often in 6/8 time and had two or three sections which changed keys (e.g., the A part in D, the B part in A, sometimes a C part in G or D).  The last tune in a set was generally in 2/4 and in the style of a reel or quick hornpipe.  In folk practice musicians would replace the published last tune with some familiar reel or breakdown-like tune.  The first and second figures were someitmes termed first or second "change" and the last figure was often called a "jig" - as in a lively dance, but not usually a 6/8 tune.  Since individual tunes within the published quadrille sets had no specific titles, they have often survived as namel;ess tunes."

Toward the end of a square dance Hilt would say, "Here's a tune I learned from my Dad, Carson Kelly.  I don't know the name of it and I don't think he did either."  Sometimes there was an unnamed dance that went with the tune; together they harked back to the house dances here in the Catskill Mountains where people gathered to entertain themselves with family, friends and neighbors.

Here are the tunes on the CD.  You will hear them tonight on WIOX at 7 p.m. 

1. Quadrille in D & A (No.1)

2. The Girl I Left Behind Me

3. Off She Goes

4. Quadrille in D & A (No. 2)

5. Quadrille in D & B Minor

6. Chassez By Your Partner (also Delaware County Reel)

7. Quadrille in G & D

8. Apple Brewer's Reel

9. Reel in D

10. Fred Wilson's Clog (also Harvest Home)

The publication of "Tunes I Learned From My Dad" is the first in a new initiative by Catskills Folk Connection.  With support from the Manhattan Country School, Roxbury Arts Group and the New York State Council on the Arts, CFC will publish or re-publish recordings and/or texts of Catskills traditional music and dance.  Sales from the first CDs will create a rolling fund to support the next publication project.  These projects may include  HIlt Kelly and the Sidekick's square dance cassette, a recording of Hilt Kelly playing samples of tunes at the New York Old Tyme Fiddlers Association in Osceola, a 1980s recording plus booket of Hilt Kelly and other 20th century square dance callers called "The Hardwood Floor" from Peter Blue and Tom Buckner, and possibly Dances from Woodland: Music and Calls by Norman Cazden, a compendium of tunes and calls collected by campers and staff at Camp Woodland in the mid-20th century.

Catskills Folk Connection is sponsored by Roxbury Arts Group and is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Council for the Humanities, Governor Cuomo and the NYS Legislature, and the A. Lindsay and Olive B. O'Connor Foundation.