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A
Somewhat Succinct and Entirely True
History...
These boys Jay and
Leo met in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in the
spring of 1977. They'd been playin'
mountain dulcimers about two years, and
taken to 'em like grasshoppers to a field,
yes sir. Jay got wind of folks in Michigan
wantin' to make a mountain dulcimer album,
kindly called up Leo, and next thing they
knew they were drivin' up there. That was
a Friday. They practiced all day Saturday
and recorded all day Sunday, and the
result was "Dulcimer Fair," which
was soon taken on by those good folks Jean
and Lee Schilling of Traditional
Records.
Well, spring turned
to summer in Yellow Springs - and
everywhere else, too - with many a good
fiddle tune learned from many a fine
fiddler, picker, plucker, and strummer.
Yes sir. In the spring of '78 Leo and Jay
got together again with a passel of
musician friends to make another record
with lots of Irish and Old-Time
string-band tunes. They headed for Ann
Arbor, practicing and recording for many
days this time, and a couple of nights,
too. And our boys were happy as clams that
the Green Linnet record label took 'em and
made a fine album by the name of
"Pigtown Fling - Dulcimer
Sessions." Now these were the old
vinyl albums, mind you.
And the rest is
history, folks &endash; lost history! All
we know for sure is that our boys traveled
around and played a whole lot, learning
and teaching bunches more tunes. The
fiddlers fiddled, the strummers strummed,
and the pickers grinned, while the
dulcimists dulcimized, dulcified,
dulcimazed and even dulcimated. Yes sir,
there was fratrimony and matrimony,
sickness and health, flats and sharps,
gigs good and bad, countless friends, and
way more songs than that. Then one day,
someone said,
"Hey, what ever
happened to that old Dulci-something
album?" And in that moment there was a
Great Silence, because Leo and Jay
realized that just about no one could
listen to those fine old tunes any more.
So they hunted down the old tapes and
vinyl albums and got 'em what you call
"remastered" and changed over to CD and
all - and don't you just know that you're
holdin' the result of all that right in
your hot little hands! Why, it's a regular
Dulcimer Fling! Yes sir!
Yours in hominy and
harmony,
Fred "Flyboy" Furbish
Spurious, West
Virginia
November 31, 2005
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