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The voice of the emcee is clear on the videotape of the 1992 Florida Folk Festival that Richard has recorded and sent to me.1 She is off-camera, but the video frame shows the amphitheater’s stage setup. Shading a brick ®oor, this wooden pavilion is the main stage at the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park. Since its inception in 1953, the festival has been held on the banks of the Suwannee River, and it is coordinated each year during Memorial Day weekend in the small north-central town of White Springs. As Richard steps up to the microphone, which is being adjusted by a member of the sound crew, the emcee’s expression becomes upbeat as she shifts from announcing that there is a lost child at the festival to introducing Richard Seaman’s band. She exclaims, “You’re in for a treat now. This tall fellow in the black hat here is Richard Seaman, and I understand he’s been known to tell a story or two from time to time. This could be one of those times.”She laughs and continues, “And he’s accompanied by Jack Piccalo—he plays ¤ne guitar—and also by Frank Farley on bass at this moment.” Carrying his Martin D-28 guitar, Jack steps into the video frame. He walks out with Frank, who positions his string bass to the left of Richard, who is talking with the soundman who is adjusting their microphones and setting up the plug-in for Frank’s upright bass. The announcer continues her introduction to key the performance. “Now 182 10 The Voice of a Fiddler  I keep talking wild theory, but it keeps somehow coming out stuff everybody knows, folklore. This Quality, this feeling for the work is something known in every shop. —Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 256 I understand that Richard learned his stuff in Kissimmee. He used to play home square dances, and he was taught by a lot of ¤ddle players when he was a younger fellow about how to do what he does. So there’s really a history and romance that goes back a hundred years with Richard.” She pauses, waiting to see if the sound crew is ready, and then makes a reference to Richard’s band. “Most of these folks are from Jacksonville, and we’ll see if he’s got few stories to tell us too. “You about ready, Jack?” Jack nods to her, and she continues. “Okay, Frank, Jack, and Richard. How about a nice, warm welcome for them to our stage.” The sun shines brightly on the audience seated on folding chairs under the live oaks draped with Spanish moss. Looking down the hillside to the stage, the viewer’s eye goes right to Richard as he steps up to the microphone. “Well, it’s mighty nice to be back here. We wasn’t here last year. I guess it was because we was too lazy to get out here. I don’t know. I never will make excuses, but that’s the best I could think of. In other words, we just forgot to put our name in the pot, so we didn’t get no peas. But we’re here today. “We’re going to try to play a few old-time ¤ddle tunes that was popular way back in the ¤rst of the century. Maybe some of you’ve heard them and some of them you haven’t. But the old ¤ddle tunes was played many years ago in our part of the country, where we would go to a square dance and get out there and dance all night long. And some of us didn’t know but one or two tunes to play, but that’s what they had to dance by. If they’d get tired of one tune, we’d play the other one.” There is laughter from the crowd, and a woman who is seated next to her partner looks to him and smiles. She turns her head back to watch as Richard continues his introduction. “When I ¤rst started learning to play the ¤ddle, I didn’t know much about it. It was one that was in the house where I was born and raised. So when I ¤rst started playing, my mother said, ‘Look here son, I can’t stand that.’ She said, ‘I can’t stand that. That’s too much.’ “So she wouldn...

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