Nebraska fiddler Bob Walters is little-known outside Missouri Valley fiddle circles, but that’s about to change with the new release of eighty of Bob’s best tunes on “Bob Walters, The Champion: Classic Missouri Valley Fiddling from Dwight Lamb’s Collection.”

Long before the days of the iPod or even the portable tape recorder, Dwight Lamb was collecting recordings from Bob Walters on wire recorders, reel-to-reels, or whatever the latest technology might be. Now we’re lucky to have his amazing collection of Bob Walters recordings cherry-picked into this giant two-CD set which demonstrates both Mr. Walters’ mastery of the instrument and his breadth of repetoire. The set includes reels, waltzes, polkas and quadrilles, and even a few more rare birds, and tunes are sourced all the way from Kentucky to Canada and beyond.

Standouts include some familiar tunes like Bill Cheatum and Dusty Miller, along with contest favorites like The Inimitable Reel and Friendship Waltz, as well as less commonly known gems like the masterful Silver Lake Quadrille and The Prodigal Son. Instrumentation includes plenty of solo fiddle and guitar/fiddle, as well as Goldie Walters’ stellar pump organ playing and a few featuring Dwight playing along on his accordion.

Dwight Lamb and Bill Peterson worked with Mark Wilson of Rounder Records to produce this new CD. The CD set costs $20, including postage and is available by writing to Missouri Valley Music, 511 South Pleasant, Canton, South Dakota 57013, or e-mail missourivalleymusic [at] sio [dot] midco [dot] net and be invoiced through PayPal. Check out a couple of sample tunes below.

Due to popular demand (that’s right), in September 2009, after a year’s hiatus, the Little Dixie Old-Time Fiddle Club will return to the Boone-Walters Historical Museum in southeast Columbia, Missouri. Our emphasis is on traditional fiddle music. All levels of experience are welcome, but we ask that everyone observe “jam session etiquette.”

For more information, contact the Boone County Historical Society by calling 573-443-8936 or Howard Marshall 573-642-6226.

Though Elvin was a fiddler himself, he preferred the role of guitarist and found his niche as Dwight Lamb’s preferred guitarist throughout his contest days in the 60s and 70s. He supported Dwight and Cyril Stinnett on their trips to the National Fiddler’s Contest in Weiser, Idaho in the mid 1960s. Elvin supplemented Dwight’s playing with a spare and elegant style of his own. Playing in the Missouri Valley repetoire requires a flexible, well-rounded guitarist who can play comfortably in many keys, change keys smoothly, and generally make it all sound easy, and Elvin qualifies on all counts.

Be sure to visit Elvin’s page to hear some of his top-notch guitar playing.

On Saturday, the lineup of fiddlers included Paul Grace of Columbia; John White and The Nine Mile Band of Hallsville and Columbia, with David Cavins, guitar, and Amber Gaddy, banjo (check out John White’s new fiddle CD on Voyager Records); Howard Marshall of Fulton with Ron Ray, guitar, and Kathy Gordon, bass; Joel Chrisman of Ashland with Heinrich Leonhard, guitar; Jim Thaxter, banjo; Kathy Gordon; and Elizabeth Fedorchalk of Holts Summit and Quintin Huck of Ste. Genevieve with Judi Hirti, autoharp.

On Sunday, the performers included Sadie Currey of Columbia, with David Currey, guitar and Dobro, and Howard Marshall, mandolin, guitar, and second fiddle; Bryan Biswell of Fayette, with his brother, James Biswell, guitar; Dierik Leonhard of Columbia, with Jane Accurso, guitar; and The Nine One One Band of Columbia (so-named because the original members all had open-heart surgery), whose three fiddlers are Bob Caldwell, Dale Pauley, and Bud Wyatt, with Harold Barnes, mandolin, Brady Roby, guitar, and Kathy Gordon, bass.

A good time was had by all! For more information on any of these fiddlers, e-mail Howard Marshall.

I wish to inform everyone of the death on March 21 of north Missouri fiddler Nile Wilson of Bucklin at the age of 95. A great loss of one of the legendary elders, and a good friend.

Nile was among those who played in the WOS radio fiddle contests and live broadcasts in the late 1920s (Jefferson City). Nile played a number of “tie hacker tunes,” many of which he learned from his fiddling grandfather Isaac Wilson, who walked to north Missouri from Indiana after the Civil War as a young Union Army veteran. Isaac Wilson worked in the tie hacker camps, hewing white oak railroad ties for the railroad being built across north Missouri. These camps included a number of itinerant Irish and Scotch-Irish fiddle players (Civil War veterans), in the same part of Missouri where Francis O’Neill taught school for a year and collected several fiddle tunes at local dances (before going to Chicago and becoming famous; see article in Missouri Historical Review, October 2005).

Nile’s recordings include several cuts on “Now That’s a Good Tune:” Masters of Missouri Fiddling (1989) as well as a CD produced by Charlie Walden and Bill Shull, Nile Wilson: Tie Hacker Hoedown (1995). He was profiled in The Old-Time Herald (winter 1994-1995) and other places.

In later years Nile was featured at festivals such as the Frontier Folklife Festival (St. Louis), the University of Chicago Folk Festival, and the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes. His visitation March 25 was attended by numerous family members and fellow musicians.

- Howard Marshall