Back home in Nashville!

A while since I wrote and much has happened since then. The 5 week tour of Long Gone Lonesome finished 2 weeks ago. Since then, I've been in Nashville, TN, back in the city that was home to me for three and a half years. My first night in this town was in May of 2005. I travelled with Alison Brown, looking after her little girl Hannah, during her tour round the North East of the US after meeting them at the Shetland Folk Festival. Driving towards the final gig of the tour in Nashville, I tried to picture what it would look like... all I could conjure up was a big stage, with sparkling boots, cowboy hats and country music. Alison was playing a spot on the Grand Ole Opry so we rolled up and checked in backstage. The reality we met wasn't far off the picture in my mind. I was very naive at that time of what the Opry really means within country music (the stage that gave birth to the commerical success of country music). I feel a bit embarrased looking back to that night when I had to ask who that guy in the sparkly suit that I just squeezed past in the corridor was. It was Porter Wagnor. Maybe as well I didn't know the names and faces at that time, it probably would have been a bit overwhelming otherwise. Little did I know that years later I would be lucky enough to be invited to play a few tunes with Mike Snider and to stand on the well known stage in front of 4000 people.

The names & faces might have been unfamiliar but the sound of country certainly wasn't at all, having grown up with hearing Jim Reeves & Hank Williams in the house, and the old songs sung at local concerts in Yell. Country music has a lot of fans in Shetland, not least of which Thomas Fraser! Modern country music is not a sound that interests me so I soon hunted out the places I could hear the good old honky tonk sound of the 50s - Carl Smith, Faron Young, Hank Thompson, Jimmie Rodgers. I found them all in Robert's Western World on Lower Broadway, and instantly loved the place. I've spent many great nights in there since then and it is my honky tonk home from home. It's always one of my first stops when I come back here, and great to see the familiar faces and still feel at home there.

I've spent the last couple of weeks catching up with old friends - scientists I worked with at Vanderbilt, musicians I played, and other friends I met through the worlds of science and music. Enjoying revisiting, 12th South Tap Room, Station Inn, Frothy Monkey, Robert's, Fiddle House... Nashville is a town of kind and friendly people, with round the clock great music and I feel really grateful to have had the chance to get to know this city and make great friends. Although I left over 2 years ago now, I feel as connected to this city as to Shetland and I hope that never goes away.

Right, time to head to Robert's for some honky tonking... 3 more days to squeeze as much as possible in, then back to Shetland.

Still thinking of Texas...

On Monday this week, we flew up to our next venue - Purdue University, 60 miles northwest of Indianapolis, in Indiana. We're here until Monday next week, with 3 shows this weekend - Fri, Sat and Sun. The past couple of days have been time off. With almost freezing temperatures, snow today, and an annoying cold, I've been sticking indoors, fiddling and writing blogs so haven't seen much of the area yet. We're basically in the middle of a uni campus, which is reminding me of the 4 months I spent at University of Rochester, 10 years ago now! Can hardly believe it's been that long. I was invited to work in a lab there as part of the PhD.

The cold is making think long for Texas and of how great an experience we had down there. The chuckwagon breakfast at the Tommy Duncan festival was definitely one of the highlights. I spent 3 and a half years in Nashville and really thought I'd experienced the south but Texas is definitely it's own thing. Meeting the Duncan family, and being welcomed in the way we were was just amazing. I loved seeing the old wooden house too, where Tommy & his siblings grew up. Texas version of an old croft house I suppose. It was a perfect Sunny Texas afternoon and was like standing on the set of an old Western film, everybody standing around in cowboy hats and boots. The afternoon and music and dancing was second to none. The genuine ease that Texans take to the dance floor with has to be seen to be believed, and all in the middle of the afternoon, without a belly full of drink... There's something hypnotic about the Texas two step... The Western Swing Band sound is hypnotic too... and sounds like this: Jody Nix Band. These guys played in Hillsboro that Saturday. Brilliant! Austin was a completely different experience - big bustling city and the capital of Texas. It's unlike any other US city I've been though - really well kept, bursting full of musical life, but laid back too.

South Congress has great shops, bars and bohemian feel. I strolled through there the day before we left and found what might be the best shop I've ever been in - second hand & antiques, all kinds of everything and laid out more like a museum that a shop. It's called Uncommon Objects and well worth a look if you find yourself in Austin. It was about 75 degress so perfect day for sitting out, listening to music and even dancing on the street, as some people were doing outside Jo's Cafe on South Congress. Great way to soak up an Austin Sunday. I'd noticed the view down South Congress towards the Capital building the day before but realised it would involve standing in the middle of the road. With 20 seconds flashing for the green (actually white in the states) man I just had time to get the shot. Mission accomplished. Ah Texas, I miss you already and you've only just gone! Could do with some of the 75 degree heat now!

Texas

In two days time, it'll be two weeks since we landed in Austin for the Long Gone Lonesome tour. The 5 week tour kicked off in Austin on 19th Jan and will finish in Tallahassee Florida, on 14th Feb. Indiana, Chicago and Pennsylvania dates lie between the two. These first two weeks have been hectic! We landed in Austin on Thursday 12th Jan and took full advantage of that first weekend, before reporting for duty on Tuesday 17th. First stop, Whitney, Texas to the Tommy Duncan Memorial Festival. We'd been invited as special guests to the one day festival to commemorate Tommy Duncan, vocalist with Bob Wills (King of Western Swing). Tommy sang many of Bob's hits during 1940s and 50s. So on Friday 13th (unlucky for some but not us it would seem!) we headed north from Austin to meet Pam Townley, the organiser.
We have a band blog up and running for the tour, which I updated today about that trip so will just stick the link in here, rather than writing it all again! Here it is... Long Gone Lonesome Blog. Will make sure I keep the two blogs connected!

From Austin, Texas!

Can hardly believe it's the 21st January and I haven't written anything here since the 8th! It's been a hectic few weeks since flying out of Shetland on 10th January and here to Austin the following day. I'm in the US for seven weeks with 3 Orkney musicians - Duncan McLean, Iain Tait and Dick Levens, touring Long Gone Lonesome, a musical play written by Duncan for the National Theatre of Scotland telling the story of Thomas Fraser of Burra, Shetland. Thomas was a Burra fisherman and crofter that during his lifetime (1927 - 1978) grew an obsession with American country music - the songs of Jimmie Rodgers, Carl Smith, Hank Williams. He learned to sing and play those songs to a standard to rival the originals but too shy to perform them in public, he made recordings on his reel to reel recorder - state of the art at that time. 20 years after his death, his grandson Karl Simpson listened through the tapes and amazed by their quality got to work on preserving them and to date has released 6 CDs to great acclaim. Thomas didn't make it to America so it feels appropriate that we can take him here by telling his story in the home of the music he loved and devoted so much to.

We're two shows in, having opened here in Austin on Thursday night at the Bass Concert Hall. It's amazing to be standing on a stage here in the US telling the story of a Shetlander! Both shows were sold out and we have two more today, then on to Purdue, Indiana on Monday. The audiences have been warm and receptive so far - Texans live up to their friendly reputations. Great too to have six Shetlanders there last night, including May and Karl. Busy day ahead with 2pm and 8pm shows today so better get going. I'll get some photos up here soon... the Austin venue set up, my boots for the show!, raffle being drawn Sat night in Austin, and Austin from South Congress.

Happy 2012

Happy New Year from a peerie house by the sea in Burra, Shetland. Welcome too to my new blog, my first ever blog. After years of traveling around, working abroad and thinking it would be a great way to keep contact with people, I'm only now getting round this after having moved back home to Shetland, albeit that was over 2 years ago now. With 2012 has come new inspiration though, with an invite to travel to the States to do some fiddling in a National Theatre of Scotland production, so I figured it was time to get the blog moving, and build a home for memories of my fiddling travels, or whatever else might be going on in life! I've named the site LyndaFiddle which is an alias I chose for an email address years ago and I've come to think of it as my fiddle-playing self, which has co-existed with my research science and other working self over the years. I like to live by the philosophy that life should never be predictable and you have to grab opportunities when they fly past. I hope to document some of those tales in the blogs ahead... here's to health and happiness in the year ahead. Lx