Got a Little Home to Go To by Cliff Bryan, and: Traditional Music of Texas. Volume 1: Fiddle Recordings from the Texas Folklife Archives by Dan Margolies and Charlie Lockwood (review)

In a 1969 review in this journal (82:290), Alan Jabbour lamented “the paucity of good field recordings” of North American fiddle music. Happily, in the decades since then, these pages have noted, inspected, and discussed a plethora of phonograph discs, cassette tapes, and CDs devoted to fiddling, a nearly ubiquitous tool of folk expression among the American people. Though many of these albums were published by commercial concerns, a good portion were produced by public folklore programs or by independent or amateur folklorists, and most have focused on field recordings made in a single state or region, or were devoted to the repertoire and artistry of a single fiddler. The current review extends scrutiny to two recent CDs that exemplify both of these cases. Fiddle Recordings from the Texas Folklife Archives is notable for its scope, in that it includes other ethnic fiddling traditions beyond the British-American material that has dominated in the past. Got a Little Home to Go To presents a close look at the tune repertoire, performance style, and life story of a solitary fiddler, Cliff Bryan, from the Missouri Ozarks.

It must be said that the Texas Folklife CD is not drawn from field recordings in the classic sense, as most of the 14 tracks are derived from sound system feeds from staged performances at public programs organized by Texas Folklife Resources of Austin. The opening section of the CD comprises six tunes, including three duets played by four fiddlers, ranging from Ricky Turpin (born in 1964) to Johnny Gimble (1926–2015). At least some of these performances are from a 1994 fiddle workshop. These six tracks feature swing and modern contest-style fiddling, stylistic innovations often credited to Texan fiddlers who worked in the broad realm of country music. Four of the first half-dozen numbers are fiddle standards with strong ties to Texas: “Sally Johnson,” “Tom and Jerry,” “Beaumont Rag,” and “Cotton Patch Rag.” The other two tunes in this section are originals by Johnny Gimble, whose long and legendary career was launched by a nearly 10-year stint with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

The final tracks on the CD return to this stream of fiddling tradition, and present two breakdowns played by Bill Gilbert (1935–2012) of Millsap, Texas, and are recordings made during a Texas Folklife Resources apprenticeship program in 1990. Breakdowns are a wide class of tunes in duple meter, usually played at the fast tempos desired by square dancers. The performances on this CD, however, by two generations of Anglo-Texans, are played a bit slower, with turns and ornamentation that hearken more to the contest stage than to the dance floor.

The middle section of the Texas Folklife CD features musicians from two ethnic fiddle traditions: the unusual use of the fiddle, by José Moreno, for son norteña, a sound usually dominated by accordions, and the tradition of Texas-Polish fiddling as revitalized by Brian Marshall. Jose Moreno (b. 1930), from San Benito in the Rio Grande Valley, is represented by two huapangos, an instrumental ranchero, and the ubiquitous polka, “Jesusita en Chihuahua,” all apparently recorded at the 1995 Texas Fiddle Fete. From the same event comes “Kuba’s Wedding Waltz” as performed by Brian Marshall with his band, the Tex-Slavic Playboys. Marshall, is a younger third-generation Texas-Pole who learned the repertoire and style of the older fiddlers who played for weddings and other community events around Washington and Robertson Counties in East Texas. One of the highlight tracks on the CD is from a cassette recording made at a jam session at a Texas Folklife community residency program. Here, Marshall’s fiddling...