File: westprincefiddlers-oh-foundinggroup_M.mp3
Speakers:
JA: Jack Arbing
GO: George O'Connor, Kildare Capes [fid]
ER: Elmer Robinson,
DR: Dorothy Dalton Rogers
LT: Lee Thompson
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
JA George O'Cponnor he used to play for dances there on his mother's knee [laughter]
GO: That was after I started to shave!
JA He started at age 9
GO Whenever dad was away I took the fiddle. I had it back before he got home.
JA Frank's probably been playing for 70 years. Elmer how long have you been playing?
ER For all I'm older than you fellas but I didn't play that long. I used to play the organ and piano a little bit and I started, oh 50 years ago.
JA But they've all been playing long before the group was formed.
KP I knew that. [to LT] How long have you been playing?
LT Twelve, thirteen years, I guess.
KP So all of you fellows, and gal have been playing all this time and yet about 12 years ago you decided to create this group of fiddlers, why?
DR Oh, someplace to go and and if you miss music, if you're musical, if you have music in you at all, you miss it just like bread and molasses (laughter).
JA Cyrus had a good place there, he had a piano and lots of room
KP Was it that there weren't so many places to play then?
GO Most of us played alone in the old – going back 20 years, maybe 50 years, but we all played separately for dances. I never played with a group until they started; well maybe once or twice. That was when you sat there and played all night till your arm was falling off.
LT That was for square dances.
KP If all of you used to play alone,why did you now want to play in a group?
ER We all got older, and we…
DR It's no fun playing alone! (laughter)
