Skip Gorman & the Waddie Pals

Saturday, Feb. 5, 2000, 8pm
First Parish of Watertown
35 Church Street, Watertown
(See map and calculate directions on MapQuest)
$11.00 general admission, $8.00 FSSGB members
Members' children 15 and under - Free
Non-Members' children: up to 6 - Free,
age 7 to 15 - half non-member price

The western in country and western music came from cowboys. It's easy to forget that; the hats and boots you see on most album covers in the country section of your local record store haven't seen much sun or sand. Skip Gorman has made it his business to remember: he plays fiddle and mandolin and guitar and sings songs that recall real cattle drives and wagon trains. The songs he sings are old-timey world music - a blend of Celtic, African, and Native American traditions fused together by hard days and lonely nights.

Gorman does his homework. He learns songs from old recordings like those made by folklorists John and Alan Lomax as well as picking up hints from Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. The songwriting credits on his most recent album, A Greener Prairie, are dominated by "Trad." (He also has four originals which fit perfectly with the classics and a song written by Jimmie Davis, onetime governor of Louisiana.) What's more, he works on a ranch in Wyoming and describes singing as a means to calm down cattle in the liner notes to A Greener Prairie.

Skip Gorman takes the music from one of the most romanticized periods of American history -- the days of the cattle drives and the westward expansion -- and strips away the Hollywood glitz and Nashville affections, and shows the audience the beauty of the music of the working cowboys along the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails. He is a fluent yodeler, and a masterful mandolin and fiddle player.

Skip began his recording career with the Deseret String Band in the 1970's, but has drawn recent acclaim with his 1994 release, A Greener Prairie (see discography below). He also performs the fiddle tune, Cowboy Waltz, in the recent Ken Burns TV documentary, Baseball. This recent attention has given him a very busy touring schedule, which includes the British Isles and North America. And he is also known as a teacher of fiddle and mandolin styles, as well as conducting workshops and programs that teach people about the history of the true American West.

Discography for Skip Gorman:

• Lonesome Prairie Love [ 1996 Rounder Records ]
• A Greener Prairie [ 1994 Rounder Records ]
• Late Last Night - with Rick Starkey as Rabbit in a Log [ 1991 Marimac Records ]
• The Old Style Mandolin [ 1991 Marimac Records ]
• Music of John Taggart - with Randy Miller, Rodney Miller & Gordon Peery, as the New Hampshire Fiddlers Union [ 1989 ]
• Feast Here Tonight - with Rick Starkey as Rabbit in a Log [ 1988 Marimac Records ]
• Trail to Mexico [ 1985 Folk Legacy ]
• New Englander's Choice [ 1983 Folk Legacy ]
• Powder River - with Ron Kane [ 1978 Folk Legacy ]
• Land of Milk & Honey - with Deseret String Band [ 1974 Okehdokee ]
• Old Time Fiddling - recording of Northeast Regional contest 1972

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