OldPappy - Posted - 06/01/2022:  04:49:56

Dwight playing banjo and fiddle, singing songs and telling stories. His playing in this is better than I have heard in recent years.

 

youtube.com/watch?v=XmjnKE2MYGE

JollyRogers - Posted - 06/01/2022:  06:29:15

Is that for real a recent recording? He is playing shows? I had not seen or heard anything from him that is recent.

sold1ode - Posted - 06/01/2022:  08:55:10

Agree with Andy. Dwight's playing (esp. his fiddle playing) sounds good and it's great to see him playing publically again. Studied with him during 3 of his WV camps and good to see/hear him again.

srrobertsiii - Posted - 06/01/2022:  09:05:18

The clip Andy shared was recorded on 5/28/22, as indicated, at The Vandalia Gathering (in Charleston, WV). It was a joy to hear Dwight again. Glad too for the post and the chance to revisit his performance. Thank you, Andy!

Edited by - srrobertsiii on 06/01/2022 09:15:32

banjo bill-e - Posted - 06/01/2022:  09:41:02

Enjoyed that, thanks. I like to see Dwight's hands when playing banjo as it shows his "dancing on the strings" concept very clearly.

OldPappy - Posted - 06/01/2022:  12:43:24

He has played at several of the Vandalia Gatherings in recent years.

There are 14 Youtube videos out there which Matt Evans recorded of him playing one of my banjos in a concert on the outdoor stage at Vandalia in 2017. He used to play at the Old Time Fiddlers Reunion in Elkins every year until he pissed someone off.

He started going to the Clifftop festivals a few years ago and attended the last one before the pandemic struck. He would play all day in a booth where they sell music CDs at the top of the hill, and then we would sit around at Ralph and Charlie Roberts camp and play with Ralph until late in the evening.

So, he still gets out into the world and plays, but he was playing in top form Saturday. I wasn't there, but wish I had went. Dwight sent me the link to the video this morning.

Don Borchelt - Posted - 06/01/2022:  14:04:38

quote:

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Originally posted by OldPappy

...He started going to the Clifftop festivals a few years ago and attended the last one before the pandemic struck. He would play all day in a booth where they sell music CDs at the top of the hill, and then we would sit around at Ralph and Charlie Roberts camp and play with Ralph until late in the evening...

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There was nothing better than listening to Dwight and Ralph's sweet music from my camp next door. 

OldPappy - Posted - 06/01/2022:  14:20:11

Ralph isn't doing too well lately. He fell and broke his femur in several places a few months ago. Me, Dwight, and Matt Evans visited with them the first week of March and Ralph and Dwight played a few tunes but Ralph is pretty much confined to a hospital bed they have set up in the living room and Charlie has a lot on her plate taking care of it all. She can't easily get out to a store with the current situation, and some of us have ordered groceries and supplies on-line for delivery to their house. Dwight stopped by their house on his way to Vandalia and dropped off some groceries. He said their situation is just shy of terrible.

Edited by - OldPappy on 06/01/2022 14:21:08

Don Borchelt - Posted - 06/02/2022:  03:07:27

quote:

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Originally posted by OldPappy

Ralph isn't doing too well lately. He fell and broke his femur in several places a few months ago. Me, Dwight, and Matt Evans visited with them the first week of March and Ralph and Dwight played a few tunes but Ralph is pretty much confined to a hospital bed they have set up in the living room and Charlie has a lot on her plate taking care of it all. She can't easily get out to a store with the current situation, and some of us have ordered groceries and supplies on-line for delivery to their house. Dwight stopped by their house on his way to Vandalia and dropped off some groceries. He said their situation is just shy of terrible.

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I talked to them by phone about three or four weeks ago, not long after his fall.  I wish i lived closer. 

OldPappy - Posted - 06/02/2022:  07:21:34

Here is a link to Dwight and Ralph playing a tune when we were there in March.

youtu.be/SSYvpdndqZo

 

OldPappy - Posted - 06/02/2022:  19:15:10

First time I visited Ralph and Charlie Ralph wanted me to play something with him. Diller had went out on the back porch and fell asleep, so me and Ralph went out on the front porch and we played Sourwood Mountain, Ralph on his fiddle me on banjo. That is the tune he wanted to play when we were up there in March, so it must be one of his favorites.



Almost every time I have visited them Ralph asks if anyone knows "Ragged Shirt". He was the only one I ever heard play that tune, so it is pretty obscure and none of us knew it, but Matt Evans and my wife Marena learned to play it on fiddle. When we were there in March Matt played it for him and Ralph's face lit up with a smile and a sparkle in his eyes. Wish we had got that on video but Matt is the cameraman. I don't know where that tune came from, but since it is also one of Ralph's favorites I felt it important that someone learn it from him and pass it on.

Edited by - OldPappy on 06/02/2022 19:16:03

Don Borchelt - Posted - 06/03/2022:  08:49:51

quote:

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Originally posted by OldPappy

Almost every time I have visited them Ralph asks if anyone knows "Ragged Shirt". He was the only one I ever heard play that tune, so it is pretty obscure and none of us knew it, but Matt Evans and my wife Marena learned to play it on fiddle. When we were there in March Matt played it for him and Ralph's face lit up with a smile and a sparkle in his eyes. Wish we had got that on video but Matt is the cameraman. I don't know where that tune came from, but since it is also one of Ralph's favorites I felt it important that someone learn it from him and pass it on.

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I first heard Ralph play Ragged Shirt at an evening session at Clifftop 2012, with him and I playing fiddle and banjo, and Don Couchie on guitar.  I made a recording of it, it's a beautiful tune:

Ralph playing Ragged Shirt at Clifftop 2012

You can hear me pecking around trying to find it.  I finally worked it out later to my satisfaction, and made a video of it in 2018.  When you first hear Ralph play it, it sounds really simple, but that's the thing about Ralph's playing, he puts a lot of subtle little twists and turns in unexpected places that are what makes his playing so lyrical and uplifiting.  You have to listen close to get an idea of what's really going on.

Me playing Ragged Shirt on banjo

I did do my best to make a transcription of Ralph's fiddling on this, which is attached below in PDF format.  He is not the only fiddler who plays it.  Bobby Taylor plays a version that is not too far away from Ralph's.  I have attached a YouTube link to the track from his 2009 Vigortone record, Bobby Taylor Plays "Ragged Shirt" and Other Favorite Fiddle Tunes From West Virginia.  In an introduction to another short video from the 2012 Midwest Banjo Camp, Bobby says that he learned it from an old Charleston, West Virginia fiddler named Daryl Iman.  It's basically the same tune as the one Ralph plays, but there is quite a bit of melodic variation, especially in the B part.

Bobby Taylor plays Ragged Shirt

I play regularly with a couple of fiddlers here around Boston, and our jam list now has a bunch of Ralph's tunes, including Ragged Shirt.  I hope Ralph heals up fast, and lives to 100!



- Don B.

Ragged Shirt as played by Ralph Roberts

 

JanetB - Posted - 06/04/2022:  07:13:41

Thanks for sharing the latest performance of Dwight. He has long been an inspiration. The old-time venues are starting to open up again, aren’t they. I sure admit to being rusty, but Dwight indeed sounded wonderful. Sorry to hear about the health situation of your mutual friend, Andy and Don.

OldPappy - Posted - 06/04/2022:  11:21:02

Ralph grew up around the Hammons including Edin and his clan. He is a cousin to Sherman, Burl, Maggie, James and Ruie (not sure of spelling). So, he is pretty much the last living link to that family, and I feel the closest I ever came to their legacy of music. His fiddle bowing technique is certainly "old time" and has a raw edge to it not common with younger fiddlers. Dwight's fiddling has took a huge leap in the last few years and he attributes a lot of this to what he has picked up from Ralph.



I first met Ralph when he was in his mid 80s, he had played fiddle all his life and at that age decided to learn banjo. The banjo he was playing was a junker, and Charlie had told Dwight she wished she could afford to buy him a better on.



Dwight loaned him a little A scale I had made, and the next time we went over there I took along another banjo that was standard scale and asked him which he liked better. He liked the standard so I told him it was his and his face lit up like a kid at Christmas. He still has that banjo but as he aged a few more years Dwight gave him another short scale which was the first or second banjo I ever made, and that is the one he is playing in the video. Several of us who are suffering from the effects of age have found a short scale a lot more comfortable to play.

The picture is Ralph playing that first banjo I gave him.

Edited by - OldPappy on 06/04/2022 11:21:47