Ralph Rinzler (1934-1994) was born in Passaic, New Jersey, and was interested in music at an early age. He was given a collection of ethnographic recordings from the Archive of Folk Song of the Library of Congress by his uncle, Harvard University ballad scholar George Lyman Kittredge, and they soon became his favorites. He became actively involved in the Folk Revival while attending Swarthmore College, organizing an annual festival on campus. He received his B.A. in 1956 and did graduate work at Middlebury College and the Sorbonne in French literature and language. Upon his return to the United States, he played mandolin for four years with the Greenbriar Boys, at times touring with singer Joan Baez. During the 1960s, he also studied, recorded, and worked with performers of traditional music, such as Doc Watson and Bill Monroe, both of whom gained international recognition in part through his efforts. In 1964, Rinzler accepted the position of Director of Field Programs at the Newport Folk Foundation, which involved the planning and programming of the Newport Folk Festival. Rinzler came to the Smithsonian in 1967 as co-founder of the Festival of American Folklife (now the Smithsonian Folklife Festival) with James Morris in what was then the Smithsonian's Division of Performing Arts. After the 1976 Bicentennial Festival, Rinzler became the founding director of the Office of Folklife Programs (now the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage) to establish a center for research, publication, and presentation of programs in American culture and tradition. As Director, he initiated Smithsonian Folklife Studies, a publication series, and did research for the Celebration exhibit, which opened at the Renwick Gallery in 1982. Rinzler was appointed Assistant Secretary for Public Service in 1983 and Assistant Secretary Emeritus in 1990. Ralph Rinzler died on July 2, 1994.

Seamus Ennis travelled to America in the early 1960s, making several appearances throughout the country including New York, Chicago and Asti, California. While in New York, he met up with fiddle player Michael Folan (Micheál Ó Cualain), whom Ennis originally met back in Connemara in the early 1940s while collecting songs and music for the Irish Folklore Commission. On my recent visit to Ireland, I met with Sean McKiernan who kindly introduced me to the Folan family in Carna. We spent a wonderful afternoon in the good company of Ciaran (Michael Folan’s nephew), and his wife Sally, who shared photographs and family history. The Folan family were very musical, playing piano, fiddle and accordion and at one stage the children formed a ceili band, performing at local events and house parties in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Michael, along with his brother Ciaran, emigrated from Ireland to New York in 1947.

My sincere thanks to Cecilia Peterson, Digital Projects Archivist at the Smithsonian Institution, for the digitized music and to Scott Krafft, Chief Curator of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Libraries Illinois, for the photographs of Seamus Ennis at the Asti Folk Music Festival in California in 1964. The review of the Bevier Hall, Chicago performance by Ennis, published in the Daily Illini by F. K. Plous Jr., paints a wonderful picture of Ennis in full command of his music, storytelling and his audience that evening.

Before leaving Connemara last week, Sean McKiernan kindly presented me with a recording of three songs and part of a fourth, performed by Patrick (Pat) Clancy (son of Gilbert Clancy and Ellen Killeen* and brother of Willie Clancy). ​

​​In a telephone call I had with Tom Wilsbach to thank him for his kind gift, he mentioned an old-time fiddler from Maine named Mellie Dunham, whose story fascinated me. Tom subsequently sent me a copy of Mellie’s recordings, and I have added the following photographs, biographical information and video link to give you some insight into early old-time fiddling in America which I hope you will enjoy.

Mellie Dunham’s recordings
(Tune notes and digitization by David Sanderson. Private CD courtesy of Tom Wilsbach)

Mellie recorded eight sides for Victor in New York in January and February 1926 and these were his only commercial recordings. He was accompanied on these recordings by his orchestra members Nathan Noble, his son-in-law, and Nathan’s daughter Cherry. Mellie’s wife, Gram, was not a musician but she performed in the vaudeville act and travelled with the orchestra when it played. They recorded a group of contra dances that were standard in Maine from an earlier period, with Nathan calling; “Rippling Waves”, a waltz composed by Mellie and two medleys of Mellie’s standard tunes, both titled on the records “Medley of Reels” although one is a group of jigs.

Fiddle competitions first appeared in the U.S. in November of 1736. According to The Thistle and the Brier: Historical Links and Cultural Parallels Between Scotland & Appalachia, p.73, by Richard Blaustein (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2003) “The first recorded fiddle contest was held as part of a St. Andrew’s Day celebration in Hanover County, Virginia.” The best fiddler was to win an Italian-made Cremona fiddle. The next year only the first twenty fiddlers to sign up were allowed to play. In Texas some contests were running for as long as eight days. The Atlanta Fiddlers’ Convention was begun in 1913 and became an annual contest. As noted earlier, Henry Ford was greatly interested in old-time fiddling. He sponsored fiddle contests at Ford dealerships in hundreds of communities across the country. His promotion of fiddling helped contribute to its growing popularity on the radio.

Finally, I wish to announce the launch of a new podcast in which I will share interviews with musicians, broadcasters, researchers and storytellers who have shaped the traditional Irish music scene in Ireland and beyond. The podcast is entitled Irish Music Memories and will be available from your favourite podcast app.

While researching the musical life of the Philadelphia piper, Thomas Standeven, I discovered he frequently visited the Appalachian Mountain region of Northern Pennsylvania, visiting the musicians who lived there. One of these locals was blind fiddler Kirkhuff, whose ancestors came from Germany in the late 1700s.  
              Here I present two recordings: one from 1964, when Tom Standeven, accompanied by his friends Danny Smith (accordion, Co. Galway) and Pat Harvey (fiddle, Co. Donegal) travelled up to the Appalachian Mountains in N. Pennsylvania to spend an afternoon with Jehile; and the other a compilation of Jehile’s music I have collected from various sources including Lora Staples of Red Desert Violin, Dan Fassett and the recordings of Ed & Geraldine Berbaum...

The photos below are from a recent visit Eileen Neary and I paid to the home of Pauline Henry. Pauline, now in her 92nd year, was in great form all afternoon as we spoke of the wonderful sessions we all experienced in Lanigan's down through the years. I have also included a video clip I took of one of these sessions in Oct. 2017, where their husbands (RIP) were enjoying the craic!
Pauline & Eileen, thank you both for a wonderful afternoon and keep well,
Richie

Un-Published O’Neill Letter:
The family of Patrick O’Leary recently presented me with another letter originally sent by Francis O’Neill to his friend Patrick O’Leary in Adelaide, Australia.

The letter is dated Nov. 8th, 1904, following the publication of O’Neill’s first book Music of Ireland in 1903. Unlike those previously received from the O’Leary family, this letter was typed by O’Neill or one of his staff at the City of Chicago Department of Police, when he was General Superintendent. The letter was accompanied by a limited-edition copy of the Music of Ireland (“morocco bound, only 100 volumes were thus bound”), which is my first ever indication Francis O’Neill published a Limited Edition (100 copies) of Music of Ireland.
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My sincere thanks to the great grandchildren of Patrick O’Leary for sharing this correspondence and book details which again will be of great interest to O’Neill scholars.

Recording of two Sligo Fiddle Masters
On 4th April 1987 John Frank Vesey, the great Sligo fiddle player, took the journey north from his home in Philadelphia to visit his good friend and fellow Sligo musician, Martin Wynne, who lived in New York. Vesey was accompanied on that journey by his friend Robin Hiteshew of Philadelphia, as he wanted Robin to record the meeting between the two musicians. Robin has the recording for almost 40 years and, to my great surprise and delight, he has now donated the master tapes to me for inclusion in my Archive. Robin also kindly allowed me to interview him, to include as part of the introduction to the recording, and he sent me one of the photos of the two musicians he took that day, to supplement the introduction to this historic recording.

A wonderful collection of Irish music Acetates
 
I recently received a gift, from a donor who wishes to remain anonymous, of a wonderful collection of Irish music acetates. They date from roughly mid-1940s to mid-1950s and are primarily fiddle music. The donor, who received these acetates over 50 years ago from John Frank Vesey, the great Sligo fiddle player, wanted me to add them to my Archive as he “admires what I am doing to share the old music.”  Vesey, who was based in Philadelphia, came to Chicago on a number of occasions to act as judge at the IMA Fleadhs in the mid – 1960s. While in Chicago, he stayed with his former neighbor and student back in Co. Sligo, Phil Durkin.  The musicians playing on these acetates are:
Eddie Cahill (flute), Patsy Cawley (fiddle), Daniel Costigan (song), Paddy Cronin (fiddle), James “Lad” O’Beirne (fiddle), Paddy O’Brien (accordion), Tom Potts (fiddle), Ed Reavy (fiddle), John Frank Vesey (fiddle) and Martin Wynne (fiddle). Where we are almost certain, but cannot say definitively, the name of the musician playing a specific track we have “maybe” after the name. There are a few unknown musicians (Anon Violin) with at least one unknown tune (Gan Ainm) and I would love to hear from anyone who may recognize and name the Anon Violin or “Gan Ainm”. 

Sincere thanks to my anonymous donor for the gift of this great music, to Alan Morrisroe for digitizing the acetates (the final 6 tracks were digitized by the donor) and to those who helped identify names of musicians & tunes, including Seamus Connolly, Sean Quinn, Eileen O’Brien*, Nicki McAuliffe, Don Meade, Brian Conway and Emmett Gill.