L'Acadie Inn & RV Park's Fan Box

Thursday, April 06, 2006

"Alaska's Fiddling Poet"


Tonight, Kelly, Matthew, Heidi, Alain, Camille and I enjoyed an evening at LSU-E. We went to see the LSUE Performing Arts series featuring Ken Waldman with Mitch Reed and Hogie Siebert. The event featured Ken on fiddle (one tuned standard "GDAE" and the other cross-tuned "AEAE") and mandolin, Mitch on Fiddle, and Hogie on banjo, rhythm guitar, and a "tie" shaped washboard. The music was wonderful and lively ranging from old time tunes, Celtic, Cajun and bluegrass. The stories told by Ken were entertaining, however I could not get into the format of reading poetry (especially free verse poetry with no rhyme) while playing fiddle tunes. Interesting, but not something I would normally seek out. We all enjoyed Ken's rather "spoken" type of singing, especially in the Chicken song ("cluck, cluck, cluck"). Afterwards, we brought the kids up to meet Mitch and Hogie. I thought it would be a good idea to meet the musicians, since Matthew and Heidi are taking fiddling lessons and Alain just started Wednesday with piano lessons. They got to hear a few variations on Mary had a Little Lamb that sparked their interests to dabble and practice different styles when we got home. All in all, a good evening was had.

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