The first time I heard Tatiana Hargreaves play the fiddle, she could not have been more than ten years old. I was wandering the campground at Portland’s Pickathon festival and I heard the most incongruous voice singing the classic “Drunkard’s Hiccups.” She sounded like a baby. Drawn into the campfire like a moth to the flame, I came closer and saw that this child was playing and singing with the spirit and spunk of Tommy Jarrell or Bruce Molsky. It took me a while to process the sound of this kid singing “I eat when I’m hungry, and drink when I’m dry, and if whiskey don’t kill me I’ll live till I die.” But even then, I could tell she was a monster player and I would be hearing more from her in the future.
Which brings me to the wonderful fiddle-and-banjo recording recently released by Allison de Groot and Tatiana on Free Dirt Records. A native of Canada, Allison has gained fame in the last couple years as the rock-solid banjo player in Bruce Molsky’s Mountain Drifters. Of her style Molsky has said, “She’s transforming the banjo in a beautiful way, both for herself and for others who enter her musical space.” The album’s 13 tracks feature lesser-known American fiddle and banjo songs from African American duo Nathan Frazier and Frank Patterson, centenarian Arkansas fiddler Violet Hensley, bluegrass pioneer Alice Gerrard, contemporary master tunesmith Judy Hyman (of the Horse Flies), and more.
This record is enhanced by the beautiful packaging art of Pharis Romero and by detailed liner notes that fill out the stories behind every fiddle tune and ballad. Yes, they harmonize as well as they play and it’s a joy to hear them sing “I Don’t Want to Get Married,” “Beaufort County Jail,” and “Willie Moore.” Their two-part harmonies shine like a new dime on “Who Wouldn’t Be Lonely” from the Blue Sky Boys. But “Beaufort” is a real standout on this record, with its chilling tale of what it means to be a black woman in a white man’s jail. Alice Gerrard wrote and recorded this song soon after an incident that happened in the 1970s. In Washington, North Carolina, a 20-year-old black woman named Joan Little was assaulted by a 62-year-old white male guard wielding an ice pick. She had to kill the man in self-defense and was immediately charged with first degree murder. Eventually she became the first woman to be exonerated for self-defense against sexual assault, so here we have a satisfactory ending, if not exactly happy.
Another standout track is “The Cuckoo’s Nest,” a well-known fiddle tune from the repertory of famous Kentucky fiddler Ed Haley. The album notes point out that while today’s old-time players often feel pressure to play “just like the source,” Haley was known for embellishing tunes with his own innovative variations, and never played his tunes the same way twice. This push and pull between tradition and innovation is a constant tension underlying modern old-time music, and it’s good to hear an artist even mention it. The danger of course would be that the music might drift too far from the shore and lose sight of its roots. But there is another danger as well: the threat of stagnation from lack of innovation. Why make a record if you’re going to play exactly the same way it was done in the old days? It’s a dilemma that New York dancer Twyla Tharp once addressed by saying, “Before you can think outside the box, you have to start with a box.”
Some might say it’s a fine line between innovation and tradition. I suggest that Allison and Tatiana have transformed that fine line into a two-lane blacktop highway and they are now cruising down the road with the windows wide open, laughing and singing as they go.
neil brand says
Love that album – they play so well together – makes you want to dance -NB