Old-Time Fiddle Music

Friar the Fiddler Battle of San Pasqual re-enactment

Larry Edwards, with Emma's Gut Bucket Band Balboa Park

Friar the Pirate Fiddler Koehler Kraft Wooden Boat Festival

I've been fiddling since 1974, getting my start with the Washington Old Time Fiddlers Association and later joining the California Old Time Fiddlers Association, San Diego Chapter.

I made the annual pilgrimage to Weiser, Idaho, for the National Old Time Fiddlers' Contest for 16 years. Influential fiddlers: Benny Thomasson, Clark Kessinger, Dick Barrett, Tommy Jarrell, Cyrill Stinnett, Charlie Walden, Mark O'Connor, (Uncle) Gary Lee Moore, John Francis, Bob Shields, Kenneth Brank, Dan Levenson and many others, including a couple of fiddlers who don't receive enough recognition, Marc Rennard and Mark Tamsula.

I play an old fiddle (c. 1820, originally Baroque-style violin). It's something of an ugly duckling and violin appraisers, once they stop laughing, tell me it's a worthless piece of junk. But I like the way it sounds and that's all that matters to me.

I compose fiddle tunes when the muse awakens. The most popular of my tunes is "Manitoulin Thunder," which struck me during a vengeful thunder storm while my wife, Janis, and I were visiting our friend Ivan Harwood at his summer home on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, Canada.

I also pluck the doghouse bass and can manage basic chords on a guitar. Playing the bass, I recorded with Roger and Janice Maddy and the Curly Creek String Band as well as Loretta Brank and Mark O'Connor.

    Copyright © 1994-, Larry M Edwards