ScottK - Posted - 11/01/2012:  20:48:59

Hi All,

I'm going to be out of town tomorrow, so I'm posting this week's TOTW a day early.

A couple weeks ago I got to play Portland's Every Sunday Square Dance with my friends Lisa Ornstein, Joe Moore, and Robin Wilcox.  This was just a pick-up band and we had our one and only practice the Friday night before the dance.  Lisa thought it would be fun to introduce some new tunes to the local scene via the dance, so she laid a half dozen new tunes on us in the practice session.  (With our assent, of course.  Half the fun of playing a dance with Lisa is picking up some new tunes.  The other half is hanging onto your hat while she totally shreds them.  And the third half is that she's just a lot of fun to hang out  and play tunes with.)  I grabbed recordings of the new tunes in the practice session and spent the weekend woodshedding to learn them before the dance.  And the dance came off great.  We had a lot of fun!

One of the new tunes was Melvin Wine's "All Young".  After RG had that great TOTW last week highlighting Clyde Davenport, I thought it would be a nice follow-up to have this week's TOTW highlight Melvin Wine. 

As near as I can tell, Melvin Wine is the main source for All Young.  It's on his Hannah at the Springhouse CD (which I don't know how you get anymore) where the liner notes say it's one of a group of modal tunes he learned from his father.  There are a couple of recordings of him playing it on the Digital Library of Appalachia.  This one features some good banjo playing, but I don't know who is playing the banjo. 

I posted a recording of me playing All Young on my BHO music page.  Even thought it's a modal tune, I'm playing it in aEAC#E since for the square dance it was going to be in the middle of an "A" set and I didn't want to bother with changing tuning between A and A modal. 

Turns out my Seattle friend Maya Whitmont (who produces the great Mossy Roof website) wrote out a tab for All Young.   There's a YouTube video of that version being played here.  FukudaBanjo also has a great video of All Young on banjo here.   BHO member Chris Dean has a recording of All Young here.

There's a good DVD on the life and music of Melvin Wine called "One More Time" that you can get from the Augusta Heritage Center or Smakula Fretted Instruments.

And if you want to hear some Lisa Ornstein old time fiddling, check out Ship in the Clouds!

Scott

p.s.  In case you're curious about the other tunes Lisa taught us for that square dance, they were:  Sisters of the Road (a fiddle tune Rayna Gellert wrote for Sisters of the Road in Portland), Salt River, Henry Reed's Breakdown, Laughing Boy, Banjo Tramp, Lazy Kate, and Hell Up Coal Holler.

RG - Posted - 11/01/2012:  22:55:06

Awesome choice Scott, love Melvin Wine!  Very nicely played & personally (like a lot of folks) I like to play most of my modal tunes out of A (Greasy String, Cluck Old Hen, Paddy On the Turnpike, Fall of Richmond, Cookhouse Joe, Sally in the Garden etc.), just like the resulting sound when you have the major available, and like you pointed out you don't have to re-tune when you're jamming...I've always been a big Melvin Wine fan, and I got lucky a couple of months ago when a friend hooked me up with over 200+ Melvin Wine field recordings...yeah buddy!  I play a lot of Mr. Wine's tunes on fiddle, he is a fantastic player and a great source for cool West Virginia tunes..

JanetB - Posted - 11/02/2012:  05:53:17

 Thrilling to see Melvin Wine featured this week.  This biography is well worth reading about his life, complete with transcriptions and analysis of some of his tunes.  The Slippery Hill website has several of his other recording:  slippery-hill.com/M-K/

Edited by - JanetB on 11/02/2012 06:08:50

ScottK - Posted - 11/02/2012:  09:02:38

Thanks for the replies!  I'm going to have to get that biography!

I forgot to mention in my post that otfiddler has six videos on his YouTube channel of Melvin Wine playing at the  1992 Mt Airy Fiddlers Convention.  Here's a sample:

Scott

J-Walk - Posted - 11/02/2012:  09:12:01

Outstanding tune choice, Scott.

The Possum Whackers (from Denmark) have a great version of "All Young," on an album with the same name:

cdbaby.com/cd/possumwhackers

janolov - Posted - 11/02/2012:  09:46:58

All Young resembles Betty Likens a lot. When I tried to play it (Melvin Wine's version) I found that I easily jumped over and played Betty Likens.

ScottK - Posted - 11/02/2012:  11:56:06

Good observation, janolov!  I didn't notice it and haven't seen it discussed before, but when I listen to them back-to-back the family resemblance seems unmistakable.  There's a good recording of blanham playing Betsy Likens here.

Scott

JanetB - Posted - 11/02/2012:  20:23:42

Here are some highlights of Fiddling Way out Yonder, The Life and Music of Melvin Wine by Drew Beisswenger:  

 A lot of his tunes came from his great-grandfather, David S. "Smithy" Wine (1829-1909), who died the same year Melvin was born.  Melvin learned the tunes from his father, Bob Wine, who learned them via the whistling, humming, and singing of his father, John Nelson "Nels" Wine, who learned them listening to his father, Smithy Wine.  Melvin states that two of his great-grandfather Smithy's favorites were "The Rainy Day" and "All Young." 

Once Melvin revealed his talent as a child to his father (after sneaking and taking out the forbidden fiddle), Bob encouraged his son.  It sounds like he was strict in his approach to playing the tunes correctly and warned him not to "shortcut' the notes (leave them out).

When Melvin was in his teens he played with his brother, Clarence, who played banjo.  They performed for dances, competitions, and tried radio.

The reason the book has its title is because of something Melvin told the author:  "I always had a hope of way out yonder."  That was his way of stating his desire to have a successful fiddling career.

Edited by - JanetB on 11/02/2012 20:28:10

R Buck - Posted - 11/03/2012:  08:20:47

Melvin learned to wrtie his name very late in life.  He signed my copy of his book months before he died.  This is one of my favorite tunes that he did.  Good choice.

JanetB - Posted - 11/04/2012:  09:05:57

After listening to Melvin Wine's fiddling with accompanying banjo, here's my take on it.  In the biography I learned that Clarence Wine, his younger brother by two years, played banjo with him (in picture on back cover).  Later his banjo player oftentimes was Ron Mullennex, as well as Carl Baron and Kate Brett.

All Young

Melvin Wine biography back cover

ScottK - Posted - 11/06/2012:  15:49:31

Hey Janet,

Really sweet picking! And thanks for that additional info from the Melvin Wine biography. I went ahead and ordered a copy and am really looking forward to reading it.

Cheers, Scott

Adam Kiesling - Posted - 11/08/2012:  04:27:50

I really like Melvin's fiddling, and I should really spend some more time on his tunes.

Anyways, I just wanted to mention that County Sales appears to have a copy (or copies?) of Hannah at the Springhouse.

carlb - Posted - 11/08/2012:  05:25:20

quote:

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Originally posted by Adam Kiesling

Anyways, I just wanted to mention that County Sales appears to have a copy (or copies?) of Hannah at the Springhouse

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 with some of the best fiddle-banjo duets ever recorded (in my opinion), Melvin and Ron Mullennex.

ScottK - Posted - 11/08/2012:  08:07:57

quote:

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Originally posted by Adam Kiesling

Anyways, I just wanted to mention that County Sales appears to have a copy (or copies?) of Hannah at the Springhouse.

---

Good news!  It's a great album.  One of the tunes I learned on fiddle this summer was "Sally Will You Marry Me" from that album.  Melvin's Cold Frosty Morning is right near the top of my "to learn" pile as well.

Scott

blockader - Posted - 11/08/2012:  08:36:28

great pick and write up, Scott. Melvin Wine is my second favorite fiddler after Tommy Jarrell and it was a pleasure to find this today after missing it last week!

SCclawman - Posted - 11/09/2012:  06:35:51

I had never heard of Melvin Wine until this TOTW which shows my ignorance I'm sure, but I'm still pretty new to the Old Time music scene. That's why I love these TOTW - you can learn so much.

Janet, your playing of this song is just awesome and inspiring. One of those where you want to pick up a banjo as soon as you finish listening to it to try to figure it out.