ED BRICE
Date Monday,
August 14, 2000 Source SPECIAL TO
THE STAR-TELEGRAM Section LIFE &
ARTS Edition FINAL
The froggie song has been recorded many times
Q: Over 50 years ago, my dad used to sing a song to me that included the lyrics, "Froggie went a-courtin' and he did ride,/With a sword and pistol by his side./He rode right up to Miss Mousie's door,/Where he had been many times before." What's the rest? - B.F.C., Arlington
A: Those lines begin Froggie Went a-Courtin', a folk song that has been recorded by Burl Ives, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and many others.
A version of the song by Acoustic Mayhem, an Iowa folk group, has become one of the most popular children's songs on the music Web site MP3.Com.
Most performers tinker heavily with the lyrics, adding their own verses. "There are written versions of this song that are over 500 years old," according to the Acoustic Mayhem Web site at zeus.ia.net/~mayhem. "This is our sound effects spectacular: bees, fleas, cows, cats, and even a mosquito all join up at Frog and Mouse's wedding dance."
To order
a CD from the group that includes Froggie and other traditional folk
songs, send $16 by check or money order to Acoustic
Mayhem, 109 N. Van Buren St., Iowa City, IA 52245.
Q: Is it true that Bing Crosby recorded Hey Jude? - D.A.G.,
Montgomery, Ala.
A: Crosby covered that Beatles song on his 1969 album Hey Jude Hey Bing!
Crosby's Hey Jude was the only Beatles song he recorded, according to Steven Lewis of the Bing Crosby Internet Museum. "It has been the object of much scorn, even by Crosby himself."
The museum, which includes song listings for all of Crosby's albums, is published on the Web at www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/pennvalley/biology/lewis.
Q: Where can I write to Angie Harmon of Law & Order? - E.W., via the Internet
A: You can write to any cast member of Law & Order in care of Wolf Films, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, CA 91608.
Harmon, 27, is a Dallas nativeand an avid Dallas Cowboys fan. She became engaged to New York Giants player Jason Sehorn in March when he proposed to her on the Tonight Show.
Ed Brice appears on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. To ask a question: EDB-RICE (332-7423) Ed Brice, Star-Telegram, Box 1870, Fort Worth, TX 76101. edbrice@star-telegram.com
Down a dusty county road south of Kalona, Iowa, banjo pickers and fiddlers from across the country braved last weekend's heat to share their love of warm friends, old tales and most importantly -- bluegrass music.
More than 100 people gathered for the 14th annual Kalona Bluegrass Festival, taking part in what was new for some and a lifestyle for others. Nestled behind a farmhouse among the hardwood trees of Windmill Ridge Campground, 20 miles south of Iowa City, the festival was home to an estimated 40 campers, many of whom are spending their summers attending festivals across the country. "This was our seventh or eighth (festival) this year," said Ron Tonneson, who traveled to Kalona with his wife from Fairfax, Iowa.
Many of the faces at Kalona were familiar for the Tonnesons, they said, explaining that bluegrass crowds can sometimes form a traveling city. For Kalona resident Clark Oswald, 20, bluegrass music is still a growing interest. He was attending his second bluegrass festival, his previous experience having taken place in Kansas. "I came here to listen," he said. "It's relaxing to get out here and enjoy nature. It's a change of pace."
The Iowa City groups Acoustic Mayhem and the McPunk Brothers joined area and national performers in entertaining, and sometimes dazzling, an audience seated in lawn chairs and on blankets.
"This is bluegrass music," said De Wayne Price, 48, as he picked out a tune on his banjo between performances with his band, the Silver Cloud Tradition, which hails from Jefferson City, Mo. "A lot of people think that if you've got a mandolin, bass fiddle and a banjo, you're a bluegrass band. It's a lot more than that."
Bill Monroe is usually given credit for developing bluegrass music in the hills of Kentucky during the late 1930s. His style is recognizable by "high and lonesome" vocals combined with rolling banjos in strict time. Price began playing the banjo at age 5 and has been playing professionally nearly his whole life, he said. At 14, he recorded an album with Merle Haggard and has since played with such artists as B.B. King and Monroe. For Price's band, Kalona is only a stopover among a summer of festivals across the country, he said. "I learned a long time ago that a banjo fit my hand a lot better than a shovel or a hoe," Price said, chuckling.
For some festival-goers, playing music is as much a part of the lifestyle as hearing the scheduled performers. Makeshift bands could be heard throughout the campground as people met and shared their favorite songs. "It's great to meet all of the people," said Cathy Gingerich, the campground's manager. "We've got campers here from New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Missouri, Illinois, South Dakota -- it's great. Last night, you could hear some of them up playing until 3 in the morning."
The festival was advertised in nationally published bluegrass magazines, which helped draw the crowd, Gingerich said. The Gingeriches took over operation of the campground last September, so this year's festival was a new experience, she said. "It's been fun, but I was exhausted by the time it started," Gingerich said. "One thing we're going to do next year is hire more help."
DI reporter
Andrew T. Dawson can be reached at: adaws77 @hotmail.com
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 ABOVE: Acoustic Mayhem members, from left, Mike Kanellis, Mike Haverkamp, and Rick Dehn perform for Riverside Theatre supporters Sunday at the Izaak Walton League Lodge. Riverside Theatre has set a $400,000 goal for their Shakespearean Stage in City Park. |
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Here's a story from the Iowa City Community News Advertiser:
Coffee Shop Offers customers, musicians an alternative night out
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By Linda Schreiber COMMUNITY NEWS Editor The resurgence of Friday Night Concerts at Wild Bill's Coffee Shop appeals to musicians and music fans alike. Located at 321 North Hall on the University of Iowa campus, the shop is rich in history, and richer still by the people who enter and the lives of those they touch. Musician Mike Haverkamp will perform at Wild Bill's Friday, Feb.19. The free concerts are open to the public from 8 to 10 p.m. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m. and non-alcoholic beverages and baked goods will be sold. Haverkamp, a guitarist, who also plays banjo, mandolin and sometimes the autoharp, likes to perform at Wild Bill's. "It's a very comfortable and relaxed setting to play in as a performer," says the soft-spoken folk singer. "It's a small room, but a very warm room. You don't have to worry about the sound." He was first recruited to play at Wild Bill's over a decade ago by Bob Finch who, at the time, was a student attending the University of Iowa School of Social Work. The two met at Shimek Elementary School where Haverkamp was teaching in the district's Extending Learning Program and Finch was the playground supervisor. Finch, 52, is officially the music coordinator for Wild Bill's, but Haverkamp, 38, refers to him as a "Svengali, the man behind the stage who makes everything work." "Music," Finch readily admits. 'is my passion." Throughout his teens and 20's Finch played in rock and roll bands. After he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), an auto-immune disease, Finch, a high school dropout, came to Iowa City to attend the University of Iowa in 1985. A self-described "old hippie who wanted to save the world," Finch is confined to a wheelchair. While his movement is restricted, Finch is not idle. Though he was not the first to organize Friday Night Concerts at Wild Bill's Coffee Shop, Finch has scheduled the performances since he arrived on campus. At first concerts were held every week. As Finch's disease has progressively worsened, the performances have been limited to once a month. Finch's aggressive form of MS has claimed the use of his limbs and torso and now he must have daily assistance (MS destroys the protective nerve coverings requiring more time for signals from the brain to reach extremities). Two computers direct Finch's wheelchair, which he is able to control using a "sip and puff' attachment. Although, he says cold weather doesn't bother him, Finch isn't able to leave his apartment in Ecumenical Towers when temperatures dip below freezing because the tubing connecting the chair's controls freeze up leaving him stranded. So when he does go out in the winter, Finch says he goes "really fast." Finch is also the coordinator of Iowa City's celebration of Ability Awareness Day. Those fall activities naturally include music. Steven Kanner, day manager for Wild Bill's, who helps promote ability awareness activities and performances at the coffee shop with flyers and press releases, aids Finch. Without Kanner's help the music and the coffee shop would have died, Finch says. "He does everything that I can't." Kanner says Finch is essentially a volunteer who schedules musicians "out of his goodness. It's good for him and it's good for everyone else," he says. "One of the things that. Bob likes to promote is the idea of this being a smoke-free, alcohol-free place that concentrates on music," Kanner says. "This is a pretty neat place, right |
behind Burge. People don't know we are here. It's a nice place to sit and study, or hang out and meet people working here." The concerts at Wild Bill's Coffee Shop are supported in part by The Stepping Up Project, on the U of I campus, a program that seeks to curtail binge drinking among college students. Wild Bill's Coffee Shop was created and named for Bill Sackter. It continues to provide a safe work environment for people who have mental or physical disabilities. Bill, who had been institutionalized as a child for his intellectual limitations, came to Iowa as an adult to live with his guardian Barry Morrow. Thomas Walz, then director of the school of social work, gave Bill a variety of jobs at the school Bill's fame was built on his job as sole proprietor of the coffee shop. Morrow went on to become an Oscar-winning screenwriter in Hollywood ("Rain Man"), Sackter died in 1983, and Walz, who wrote a book, "The Unlikely Celebrity: Bill Sackter's Triumph Over Disability" (Southern Illinois University Press. 1998), is nearing retirement. What will become of this model work environment remains up in the air, according to Finch. He will meet with Walz and Solome Raheim, interim director of the School of Social Work, and others March 19 to discuss the coffee shops future. Kanner says Wild Bill's Coffee Shop is a "win-win situation." "The model that's set up here is that people have different abilities. We should share them and if done right, we are all going to benefit - if it is done in a positive way." Many of the musicians who were recruited by Finch to perform at Wild Bill's are now big names, Kanner says, listing - Too Much Yang. Susan Shore, along with Mike Haverkamp who is also one of four Acoustic Mayhem band members. The musicians enjoy talking to Finch as much as he enjoys listening to them perform. Haverkamp, who is by day a computer technology trainer for the Iowa City Community School District and on the roster of the Iowa Arts Council's Artist In Residence program, says, "Bob was a very successful musician and played in a number of bands. Physically he just can't play anymore, but he's maintained that love for music and still manages to be a force in the local music scene by virtue of the fact that he's able to find new venues and keep people coming though. He's incredibility supportive to local musicians. Like butterflies to flowers, musicians have always been attracted to Iowa City. In the summer, Finch attends the Iowa Arts Festival and Jazz Festival where he sees and meets musicians. I think what ends up happening is that he has made such strong friendships with so many people that when we meet new musicians or people who move to town we refer them to Bob," says Haverkamp. Coordinating music for Wild Bill's has been a good experience, Finch says. "Music is deep in my soul, I can't get it out. Sometimes it's my social life and musicians have become my friends. (Scheduling) enables me to keep music at least a small part of my life," he adds. The next Friday Night Concert will feature Davey & Friends on March 26. Susan Shore will also perform at Wild Bill's in the spring. Haverkamp will perform with Acoustic Mayhem at The Mill the following night, Saturday, Feb. 20.
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