File: wedgeclifford-oh-jigging_M.mp3
Speakers:
CW – Clifford Wedge
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
CW: When we were younger, we used to do a lot of jigging; just as kids, fooling around. not at the dances.
KP: When? Was it a game?
CW: Maybe going along the road (laughs), might be walking along the road.
KP: A bunch of you?
CW: A bunch of us, yeah.
KP: And sombody'd start
CW: Yeah, started jigging.
KP: ANd what would the other kids do?
CW: Oh everybody would cut in.
KP: So everyone knew the tunes?
CW: Oh, yes.
KP: None of them played the fiddle?
CW: Yeah, there was a. – You remember a while ago I mentioned Gilles Proveau, well his sister, Bella she used to be the greatest one for tuning. She didn't play the violin, but she'd jig, you know. We was just little kids, they'd have a dance, they didn't even need the violin. She'd jig for the dances.
KP: Oh, really?
CW: Oh, yes.
KP: And that was here at peoples' houses?
CW: Oh yeah. People' would be having an evening ya know.
KP: And she'd come in and jig for a set?
CW: Oh yeah, I remember that quite well. We'd be little kids, sitting around. Of course, where there was a violin concerned, I was always there. I loved the fiddle, but I never learned it. We used to make a fiddle out of a shingle.
KP: I've heard tell of that.
CW: Oh yes. My God, I picked all of the balsam I could off of the trees and boiled it down for rosin. I'd be about 7 or 8 years old
KP: And did you play tunes on that?
CW: Oh yeah. We plucked the hair out of the old horse's tail and make a bow.(laughs) Yep. Oh no, we couldn't play tunes,we just...
KP: So you would play make-believe you were playing fiddle?
CW: Yeah.
KP: And you would jig.
CW: That's right, yeah.
