Indiana Fiddlers Gathering
Performers - 2010

Le Vent Du Nord

Since its inception in August 2002, Le Vent du Nord have been enjoying rocketing success. They have received several prestigious awards, including a Juno. The band is now one of the most-loved Quebec folk outfits throughout the world. The group’s current line-up consists of singers / multi-instrumentalists Nicolas Boulerice, Simon Beaudry, Olivier Demers, and Réjean Brunet. Some of their songs come from traditional folk repertoire, while others are original compositions. On stage, these four friends achieve peaks of happiness they eagerly share with any and all audiences. Le Vend du Nord know how to deliver music that will move any crowd – to their feet and in their hearts! This is undoubtedly music of the here and now.

The Special Consensus

The Special Consesus is a four person acoustic bluegrass band that began touring in the Midwest in the spring of 1975. The first band album was released in 1979 when the band began touring on a national basis. In 1984, The Special Consensus initiated the Traditional American Music (TAM) Program in schools across the country and began appearing on cable television and National Public Radio shows. The band has since appeared on The Nashville Network “Fire On The Mountain” show, toured for three seasons as 4/5 of the cast in the musical Cotton Patch Gospel (music and lyrics by Harry Chapin), and released thirteen additional recordings. Songs from all of the band recordings since 1998 have appeared on the National Bluegrass Survey chart in Bluegrass Unlimited and on the charts in Bluegrass Now. A video production of the TAM Program, sponsored by the Northern Indiana Bluegrass Association, has been sent by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) to hundreds of schools around the world. In 2000, Pinecastle Records released the first band performance video, filmed for Iowa Public Television’s “Old Time Country Music” show, and The Special Consensus 25^th Anniversary recording to mark this milestone year for the band. Several band recordings have received a Highlight Review in Bluegrass Unlimited, and Route 10 was included in the Top 10 Recordings of 2003 in both Bluegrass Now and the Chicago Tribune. In November 2003, The Special Consensus received a standing ovation after the first band performance on the Grand Ole Opry at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium. The 2005 Everything’s Alright release was included in the Top 10 Recordings of 2005 in Bluegrass Now and Greg was featured in the September 2006 cover story of that periodical. The band was featured in the August 2005 cover story of Bluegrass Unlimited  and the 2007 release Trail of Aching Hearts and the 2009 release Signs climbed both the top songs and the top album charts in Bluegrass Unlimited and Bluegrass Music Profiles.  International tours have brought The Special Consensus to the United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, Ireland and South America. In 1993, the band performed the first of many concerts with a symphony orchestra, complete with orchestral arrangements of songs from the band repertoire. The Special Consensus is included on the touring rosters of the Illinois Arts Council (Artstour) and the Heartland Arts Fund and continues to participate in the Arts Midwest Performing Arts Touring Program.

The Special Consensus repertoire features original compositions by band members and professional songwriters (such as "Dusk 'Til Dawn" and "Margarita Breakdown"). The repertoire also includes traditional bluegrass standards (songs by Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, etc.) and songs by artists from other musical genres (such as "Blue Skies" by Irving Berlin). As a result of this musical diversity, The Special Consensus has performed at the most traditional bluegrass festivals and has also been the band to bridge the gap between traditional and progressive bands at more diverse festivals and fairs.

The Hot Club of Detriot

More than seven decades after the innovations of the Quintette du Hot Club de France, featuring guitar virtuoso Django Reinhardt, combos called Hot Clubs carry on the gypsy jazz sound around the globe—in Tokyo, San Francisco, Seattle, Sweden, Norway, Austria, and many other locales. None, however, offers a fresher take on the tradition than does the Hot Club of Detroit, led by fast-fingered Reinhardt disciple Evan Perri.

Unlike the instrumentation of original Paris-based quintet, comprising Reinhardt, violinist Stephane Grappelli, two rhythm guitarists, and a bassist, the current Hot Club of Detroit is made of guitarist Perri, accordionist Julien Labro, soprano and tenor saxophonist Carl Cafagna, rhythm guitarist Paul Brady and bassist Shannon Wade. The fibrous accordion tones of Labro, a native of Marseilles, France, links the Detroit quintet to the French musette style from which gypsy jazz partially sprung, while Cafagna’s robust saxophone work introduces bop and post-bop elements to gypsy jazz. 

“We kinda use the gypsy jazz thing as a springboard for all these wonderful ideas we have in our heads that we’ve grown up with here in Detroit,” Perri explains. “In the future, I’d even like to incorporate some Motown stuff into this type of music.”

Although Night Town, the follow-up to the group’s widely acclaimed 2006 debut CD, Hot Club of Detroit, does not include any Motown tunes, it nevertheless finds Perri and company giving a New Orleans boogaloo twist to “Django’s Monkey,” a number inspired by the Reinhardt composition “Django’s Tiger,” which utilized “Tiger Rag” chord changes. “Blues Up and Down,” the hit 1950 tenor saxophone battle by Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, is transformed into a tenor/accordion battle between Cafagna and Labro. And “Seven Steps to Heaven,” the classic 1963 Victor Feldman/Miles Davis composition, enters the gypsy jazz realm through the Hot Club of Detroit’s swinging rendition. 

The disc also includes the Detroit combo’s distinctive takes on the Reinhardt tunes “Speevy” and “Melodie au Crepuscule;” the venerable French songs “J’Attendrai” and “Valse a Rosenthal;” Maurice Ravel’s “Tzigane;” contemporary French guitarist Romane’s “Pour Parler;” Vincent Youmans’ “I Want to Be Happy;” John Green and Carmen Lombardo’s “Coquette” and Jelly Roll Morton’s “Sweet Substitute;” plus the Evan Perri compositions “Night Town, ” “Swing 05” and “Two Weeks” (co-written with Julien Labro).

The son of a professional jazz guitarist, Perri was born in Detroit on June 12, 1979, and raised in nearby Grosse Pointe, Michigan. He began studying piano at age four and was giving classical recitals by the time he was five, but he says he gave up piano “around the time I started discovering skateboarding and girls.” He next took up bass in the school orchestra and, as a teenager, played electric bass in local punk bands. When he was 17, his dad gave him a guitar. "My father always told me never to become a guitar player ‘cause you’ll make more money playing bass,” Perri recalls, “but one morning I woke up and he had bought me a Fender Strat. It kinda changed my world.”

Perri had been exposed to his father’s straight-ahead jazz guitar playing, as well as to records by Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, and Jim Hall, while growing up and, after taking up guitar himself, developed a fondness for Pat Martino, yet he had never heard Django Reinhardt until he enrolled at the McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, Minnesota, to study with Mike Elliott, a former student of jazz guitar great Johnny Smith. “He totally turned me around and changed my world, the way I approach music, how to function as a musician,” Perri says of the now-deceased Elliott. “We studied all styles of guitar playing. We had been studying rhythm guitar, especially Eddie Lang and Charlie Christian, and how to play swing rhythm guitar. It was only a matter of time before Django’s name came up. He asked, ‘Have you ever heard of this three-fingered gypsy, who was one of the best players of all time?’ I had never heard the name before. Several months later, I bought a Hot Club of France CD. I got in my car and put it on. I think the first track was ‘Honeysuckle Rose.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, this whole new approach to jazz that was so old, no drums, violin, and just swinging-ass rhythm playing.”

Perri, who now plays a small oval-hole Del Arte acoustic guitar, formed the Hot Club of Detroit in 2003 while attending Wayne State University in Detroit. The group took first place in the 2004 Detroit International Jazz Festival competition and won the 2006 Detroit Music Awards as Outstanding Traditional Jazz Group. In 2007, the band swept the Detroit Music Awards, winning in the Outstanding Traditional Jazz Artist, Best Independent Label Recording, Outstanding National Small Independent Label Recording, and Outstanding Video on a Limited Budget categories; Perri himself was named Best Jazz Instrumentalist. And, for the past five years, the quintet has hosted the annual Djangofest Detroit at various venues, including the Masonic Temple, where Reinhardt himself had appeared with Duke Ellington in 1946.

The Hogwire Stringband

The Hogwire Stringband has everything you’d want in an old-time band--spectacular fiddling, dynamite vocals, impossibly tight rhythm and, beyond that, an ineffable connection to the past often described as the “real thing.” Long-considered a virtuoso and master of authentic traditional style, Brad Leftwich anchors this new band on fiddle and vocals, with wife Linda Higginbotham providing hallmark driving support on banjo uke and five-string. Hogwire also includes fresh faces on the old-time circuit, Joel Lensch and Marielle Abell. Joel cut his old-time teeth in the Portland music scene, where he developed his powerful backup guitar style and all-out vocal delivery. Marielle emerged in the old-time world as a dancer with the highly acclaimed troupe Rhythm ’n Shoes and has since funneled her considerable talent into old-time bass and singing. All four live, work, and play in the semi-Edenic paradise known as Bloomington, Indiana. For further information, visit www.bradleftwich.net. A few quotes on Brad and Linda: “His music will be appreciated by legions of aspiring fiddlers for generations to come.” (The Old-Time Herald) “Brads fiddle playing—legendary!” (Banjo Newsletter) “A master teacher as well as a master musician.” (Bluegrass Unlimited) “Brad Leftwich is proof that true old-time music is thriving” (Strings) “Four-Star rating . . . Fiddle player Brad Leftwich and banjo player Linda Higginbotham render the traditional fiddle music of the rural South with obvious love and tremendous spirit” (Billboard Magazine) “The explosion of females in the bluegrass and old-time fields created an extraordinary number of male-female duet teams in roots music circles. Indiana’s singing, fiddling and banjo playing Brad Leftwich & Linda Higginbotham are the most charmingly rustic of all these duos. (Finding Her Voice: Women in Country Music, Bufwack & Oermann) “If you are alive, Linda will make you want to get up and dance.” (All Music Guide) “I admire your talent and commend you on your presentation . . .and may I say that Miss Linda is a very valuable asset and adds a lot to the aura of your videos.” (Buck Owens, unsolicited personal letter)

The Wazo County Warblers and the Fly Boy

Who are we? We’re the WAZO County Warblers and the Fly Boys. We play and sing early country and old-time music of the 1920s and 30s, when the country was crazy for cowboys, and families gathered around the radio to hear great fiddling, picking and singing. Jazz was new and cowboy bands rushed to learn new swing numbers for their fans.

The Warblers are three songbirds who sing, play and swing their hearts out! Step back in time to hear yesteryear’s top heart songs, tender cowboy ballads, and early swing numbers. Hold your breath in amazement as we swoop through the sidesplitting cackling yodels of WLS Barn Dance stars The Cackle Sisters. Joining the Wazos are the Fly Boys, four guys whose fingers fly along the strings of fiddles, ukes, mandolins, and guitars, dobros, bass and any other nearby instrument that can’t defend itself. Together we present music from the Golden Age of Country Music. If you liked Roy Rogers and Patsy Montana, you’ll find plenty to tap your toes to with us.

The Bum Ditty Barn Dance Band

Based in Lafayette, Indiana, the Bum Ditty Barn Dance Band is Jesse Danner on guitar, Robert Freeman on banjo and Megan Greene on fiddle. The old time fiddle tunes they play harken back to the hoedowns and Saturday night dances that took place in town halls, country stores, living rooms and barns before the days of radio and television. Megan and Robert spent many years in St. Louis, Missouri, playing for dances. Jesse is from Charleston, Illinois, a hotbed of old time music. They will be making their Battle Ground debut.