Saturday, August 19, 2006 12:09 AM CDT
A family of note
Four generations of Harrisons have played string band
By ROB STROUD, Staff Writer
rstroud@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON -- Illinois’ old-time string band music runs thick through the blood of the Harrison family.
Four generations of the family have played that music, a Midwestern cousin of Kentucky bluegrass and traditional country music from other regions.
Banjo player Steve Harrison said his grandfather, John Mason, and father, Clifford Harrison, were fiddle players. His father was part of the Charleston-based Vagabond Plowboys from the 1940s to early 1950s and played live on radio station WDZ in Tuscola. Clifford Harrison met his future wife, Pauline Mason of Charleston, at the station.
“She was billed as the ‘Singing Cowgirl’ on the radio station although she was not a cowgirl. She was a farm girl actually,” Steve Harrison said.
Clifford Harrison married the ‘Singing Cowgirl” and they started a family that included sons Steve, Garry and Terry. Old-time string band music was always part of their Charleston household.
“I remember seeing dad’s band practice in the house and remember seeing their public performances,” Harrison said.
Although their parents never pushed them into music, Harrison said he and his brothers always figured they would become musicians. He said his brothers played “every stringed instrument in the house.”
Harrison said his father was debilitated by arthritis in the mid-1970s, limiting his ability to play and teach old-time tunes to his sons. Instead, Clifford Harrison sent them out to learn from his musical contemporaries.
“We started to get into some great old tunes, some great old melodies we had never heard before,” Harrison said. “What we were finding here in Illinois eventually became documented as a unique musical style of its own, a prairie style if you will.”
The prairie style emphasizes everyone in a band playing the tune and backing the fiddle, Harrison said. That contrasts with the bluegrass style’s emphasis on break-down solos, he said. He added that prairie style music was made to provide a fast, “steppy,” dance pace.
From the 1970s to the early 1980s, the brothers collected songs from Harvey “Pappy” Taylor of Effingham and other veteran musicians.
The brothers also joined with like-minded musicians to form the Indian Creek Delta Boys, a name inspired by their family camp site where Indian Creek and the Embarras River converge. That band performed at music festivals and recorded albums containing much of the old-time string band music they had recorded.
“The main focus of the band was to play in a public setting rare old tunes we were uncovering,” Harrison said.
Some of the music they collected is now on file at the Library of Congress and has turned up in other artists’ albums.
“We may have helped rescue great old tunes from extinction,” Steve Harrison said.
Now 61, Steve Harrison plays with Indian Creek Delta Boys veteran John Bishop and young musicians Jesse Danner and J.B. Faires in the Airtight Oldtime Stringband. That new band is named after a bridge over the Embarras.
Steve and Lin Harrison’s daughter, Molly Keene, sings; their nephew, Clifford Harrison, plays the guitar and other string instruments; and their niece, Genevieve Harrison, plays the fiddle.
Genevieve Harrison said she has experience on the violin, piano and guitar, but had always tended to be a spectator instead of a performer. Then she picked up the fiddle about three years ago and realized how much she liked that instrument, which her father, Garry, played with the Indian Creek Delta Boys.
In the past year, Genevieve Harrison formed a trio with fellow Chicago area musicians Smith Koester on banjo and Paul Hornik on guitar. They backed her on July 8 when she won first place in the Midwest Fiddle Championship at the Old Town School of Folk Music’s Folk and Roots Festival in Chicago.
“I have decided to keep the tradition going and learn all the old Illinois tunes,” Genevieve Harrison said.
The fiddle player said her mother, Gaye Harrison, has also been a musical inspiration to her. Gaye Harrison, also an Indian Creek Delta Boys veteran, has played fiddle and mandolin with Motherlode for more than 15 years. That trio also includes Althea Pendergast on bass and Wendy Meyer on guitar.
“(Motherlode) had all our kids running in and out of the early sessions. I think by osmosis they picked up some of the music too,” Gaye Harrison said.
Gaye Harrison said her daughter focused on the guitar for a long time, but her “Harrison ear” led her to the fiddle. She said she is proud to see her daughter carrying on the family tradition.
“As you get older, you realize what a great heritage it is and also what a good pastime,” Gaye Harrison said.
Contact Rob Stroud at rstroud@jg-tc.com or 348-5734.
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Genevieve Harrison performs with the band Whistlepigs.
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Fxiccxypxc wrote on May 10, 2007 11:31 AM: