Initially a 1971 private-press LP released in an edition of 750, Fiddle is the solitary record by Smoke Dawson, and its fresh reissue by the vital enterprise known as Tompkins Square illuminates how there is still plenty of unexplored nooks in the vastness of 20th Century Music. On 17 tracks steeped in tradition but infused with a restless, youthful, and sporadically unusual manner, Dawson wields his titular instrument with skill and panache.
Minus the legwork attached to Live at Caffè Lena: Music from America’s Legendary Coffeehouse, 1967-2013, a terrific 3CD set issued by Tompkins Square that documents the Saratoga Springs, NY folky hotspot run by its namesake Lena Spencer, George “Smoke” Dawson’s main artistic achievement would be little more than a footnote.
Specifically, he was the banjoist in MacGrundy’s Old-Timey Wool Thumpers with guitarist Rob Hunter (not the Grateful Dead lyricist) and fiddler-mandolinist Peter Stampfel, the soon to be Holy Modal Rounder and leader of the Bottlecaps proving such a fine picker of the banjo that Dawson felt encouraged to take up the bow. According to Stampfel, “George took a fuck-ton of speed and came back in a couple weeks playing fiddle better than I did.”
He also ran off with Stampfel’s wife. Dawson began performing at Caffè Lena in the autumn of 1960, the java hut as cultural hub additionally serving as his occasional digs for the ensuing eight years. “Devil’s Dream,” his crowd-rousing examination of a fiddle standard, is included on the opening discof Caffè Lena.
Dawson moved around the country, living in North Carolina and Virginia and spending time with Doc Watson and Wade Ward as he traveled, playing the bars and streets of Florida and eventually landing in California, where he stayed after ’68. Once there, he hooked up with Golden Toad, a hippie collective led by Robert Donovan Thomas, a name known to many as the designer of the Grateful Dead’s skull and lightning bolt logo.
Oliver Seeler recorded Dawson at Annapolis Sound in Sea Ranch, CA in ’71, near an airport, making the process difficult. The tapes were made at least partially under the influence of hashish, the drug helping to loosen Dawson up, Seeler remembering him as uncomfortable in the studio. The result is Fiddle, a discovery as pleasurable as it is unexpected.
“John Brown’s Dream” bursts forth with assurance of craft, Dawson’s delivery fleet yet rich in tone, his keening high notes stressing the Celtic roots of a traditional Appalachian tune familiar from various sources including the great North Carolinian fiddle and banjo man Tommy Jarrell (learning it from his father Ben, who cut it in ‘27 as part of Da Costa Woltz’s Southern Broadcasters), Hobart Smith of Virginia (the version on his outstanding collection Blue Ridge Legacy interestingly titled “Devil’s Dream”), and the New Lost City Ramblers of NYC.
Fiddle offers an immediate atmosphere of discovery, though a brief conversational interjection during the opener strengthens an absence of commerciality and adds a touch of the informal to the proceedings. Dawson’s style, landing soundly on the rugged side of the old-timey spectrum as it integrates sharp resonances produced by bowing fast and heavy, is further enhanced by the audible (and powerful) plucking of the strings, cyclical patterns of such occurring as the tune advances to the finish.
Having been recorded by Texans Eck Robertson and Lewis Thomasson, Kentuckian Manon Campbell, Virginian Emmett Lundy, and West Virginian Clark Kessinger (and others, surely), “Wild Goose Chase” has made the rounds in wide-ranging versions, though Dawson’s reading is distinctive for its energy and instrumental flash.
The dexterity of showmanship combines with the specificity of the comment heard in John Brown’s Dream”; Dawson mentions that he and somebody named Don (I’m inferring photographer Don Alper, whose work was a central aspect in Caffè Lena’s goodness and is featured on the back cover of this LP) went looking for another fiddler, but he’d died.
The musicianship across this album is inarguably reflective of a quest for and rumination upon history. “Wild Goose Chase” is followed by warhorse chestnut “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” the fiddler momentarily sliding into its associated number “Yankee Doodle”; it can easily get misplaced that Dawson is of a different generation than Jarrell, Smith, Lundy, and Kessinger.
Josh Rosenthal’s notes for Fiddle quickly penetrate the heart of the situation, Tompkins Square’s chief describing that introductory photo as capturing a figure looking like “a sixth member of The Band,” the wax-mustachioed goatee-sporting gent having “a traditional air to him, a seriousness, but there was also something wild there.”
The extent of that traditional nature perhaps runs deepest in a medley offering a truncated but fiery take of “Devil’s Dream” sandwiched betwixt the trad-Irish staple “Connaughtman’s Rambles” and a tune relating to fox hunts “Marche Venerie” performed by Dawson on his other axe, the bagpipes (notably, Golden Toader Thomas is a fellow piper and Seeler not only plays, he also builds them and has run a world bagpipe website).
The vibrant string-gnaw that defines both “Drowsy Maggie” and “Pretty Polly” continues to illustrate the fiddler’s acumen with Irish source material, and as the latter nears its conclusion an increased edginess is detectable in his playing. It lingers in “Turkey in the Straw,” a staple of the old-time repertoire, which Dawson lays into with an even heavier bow and executes almost as a sprint, completing his run-through in just under a minute.
The catgut gets an equally strong workout as the pace slows for “The Black Hussars,” the bulk of which finds Dawson focusing upon the attractiveness of the melody. Along the way a few sweet moments of dexterous rawness are in evidence. “Fisher’s Hornpipe,” again of British origin and also quite popular in Appalachia, has been ranked as amongst the most widespread of all fiddle tunes; in contrast to “Turkey in the Straw” Dawson approaches this version, one of the longest entries on the album, with a patient diligence. Tempo and assertiveness do rise as the track progresses, however.
It leads nicely into a trio of old-time breakdowns. First, “Apple Tune,” a spirited treatment of a song credited to Ben Jarrell (as “June Apple”) and recorded by his son, that’s trailed by an even more vigorous “Forked Deer”; rounding out the trifecta is “Cacklin’ Hen.” After taking a snort of the hard stuff (at least seemingly; what certainly resonates like a bottle emphatically hitting a table can be heard), Dawson scorches through it, aggressively searching the upper register during its succinct running-time while never forgetting the sounds of barnyard fowl.
The jaunty reel “Flowers of Edinburgh” reengages with a Brit foundation (it should be mentioned that Dawson’s father was an Irish immigrant blacksmith), and then a return to home territory distinguishes the two; the breakdown “Cherokee Shuffle” derives from earthier soil, the verve of the playing subtly but recognizably American. And so a move into a gutsy version of old-time fiddle cornerstone “Flop Eared Mule” makes total sense, Dawson assured enough in technique to bring elements of his own personality into the song.
After which “Lark in the Morn” brings Fiddle one last fragmentary taste of Ireland before “The Minotaur” closes it with intrigue, Dawson engaging in an extended bout of adept idiosyncrasy that Rosenthal aptly tags as sounding “like a swarm of bees violently shaken out of their hive.” Distinct but complimentary to the 16 selections that lead to it, “The Minotaur” ends the LP with a mystical touch straight out of Harry Smith and directly in line with the early adapters (New Lost City Ramblers, Holy Modal Rounders, Dylan, The Band) of what Greil Marcus later tagged as the Old, Weird America.
And in terms of Americana, it seldom gets much better, or unburdened by cliché, than this. Had Fiddle managed a larger pressing back in ’71 on a respected label such as Vanguard, Rounder, or Takoma, it would brandish status long legendary. That it’s reappearing now, having found its way into Tompkins Square’s impressive roster of artists, is a splendid turn of events.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
