In 1996, shortly after I started playing the mandolin our family started going to the Danebod family camp in Tyler, Mn. Folk dancing is an important part of the Danebod tradition and the June camp had a strong 'live' band tradition. Although guitar is my main instrument, I started playing mostly mandolin with the Danebod Folk Band. Around the same time, Tommy was taking fiddle lessons from Brian Wicklund. Lynn and I alternated driving duties and also took a fiddle(Lynn) or mandolin (me) lesson from Brian as well. So I started learning 'fiddle' tunes on the mandolin.
Twin City musicians in the Danebod band would play live dance events under the name of 'Wild Rhubarb' and eventually even held formal rehearsals as part of the Twin Cities Urban Folk School.
Ken Steffenson, another musician who attends Danebod, has played fiddle for contra dances for over twenty years. About 4 or 5 years ago, Lynn played a dance or two with Ken as the rhythm pianist and I started tagging along (mostly to haul her keyboard, but I'd try to keep up on mandolin). In 2004 or so, Ken formed Danebodium, which added Daniel Leussler on bass to Ken, Lynn and me. I think it was Sept 2004 that we played our first dance at the Tapestry Folk Dance Center. I practiced for weeks trying to learn about 30-40 tunes. I also discovered that 'dance speed' was at a much faster tempo than I was used to playing. However, as Danebodium continued, my proficiency on mandolin improved and playing for these dances become 'easier' and actually a lot of fun. As a group we also started playing at a higher level and have been called one of the most 'mature' contra dance bands that play at Tapestry.
Ken works out the booking with Tapestry: we played a dance in September and in October he booked us to play on December 13th (last Saturday). A couple of weeks ago Lynn had a recurrence of a back problem which took a turn for the worse last Tuesday. At that point she wasn't sure if she could play piano for the dance; however, I didn't worry too much since with Ken on Fiddle, I could play more rhythm guitar and we could make it as a trio. However, on Thursday Ken called saying he had a conflict and would need to get a substitute for himself. At this point it was clear that Lynn would probably not be playing so we were really short 2 musicians. Ken called Pat O'Loughlin who has played in various bands over the years and he was available (Pat plays concertina and banjo). Thursday night I was headed for Bill Cagley's Roots Showcase at the Coffee Grounds - Ken joined me with the idea of seeing if Bill could cover rhythm guitar for the contra-dance. Bill was late and it wasn't until my 'set' (with Bill and Ken accompanying) that we asked him if he was available - he wasn't, but afterwards Stew Leleivre, one of the other guitar players at the Coffee Grounds said he could play, but didn't have any experience playing contra-dances. Ken was still trying to contact a couple of experienced rhythm players he knew so I told Stew I'd let him know as soon as the scoop.
Friday around supper time, Lynn talked to Ken - he had not found anyone, but hadn't been able to get a hold of Jim Parker who plays with Pigs Eye Landing. Ken had a phone number for Jim, but when Lynn tried it she found it was wrong or out-of-date. Since she had once played piano with Pig-eye (as Jim's substitute), she had the phone number of their fiddler, Tim Reese. She called Tim and found that Jim was just walking through the door - Jim was available so we were set for Saturday. Pat, Jim, Daniel and me - 2 melody players and 2 on rhythm. (I emailed Stew that he was 'off the hook', but that he was now 'on our list of players'!).
Friday night, Pat and Daniel came over and we found the sets of reels and jigs from the Danebodium repertoire that we had in common. Since Pat had played for years with Ken, he knew most of the tunes. We had a couple sets with some tunes I wrote and after playing through them a few times, Pat picked them up, we ended up with a set list of 8 reels, 4 jigs and 2 waltzes (at the break and at the end of the contradance, the band plays a waltz for couples to dance to). We played through most of these and by the end of this rehearsal I was feeling a lot better about Saturday night.
Then on Saturday, a little after 6:30 just before I was getting ready to go, I got a call from Jim Parker: his mother had a health emergency and he was going to have to deal with it since other family members were not available. I said we'd be pretty thin without him , but that we'd set up a mike just in case he could make it. After Jim hung up, I remembered Stew's offer so I gave him a call - he was home and willing to play, but his wife had the car. Stew lives in St. Paul so I said I'd pick him up. By this time it was 6:45 - the contradance starts at 7:30 but the 1st 1/2 hour is teaching so I figured we'd get there in time to do a sound check before the 'real' dancing starts at 8:00. Lynn said she'd try to get in touch with Daniel and/or Pat to let them know what was going on.
Fortunately, traffic was light and I got to Stew's a bit after 7:00 (I overshot his house, but by that time he had seen me and was outside waiting). We used the Ford bridge to get over to Minneapolis and after a few wrong turns finally pulled in to the Tapestry parking lot at 7:30. During the ride, Lynn called me to say that she'd heard back from Daniel that Jim was at Tapestry. (Jim's brother, who was supposed to be 'on duty' had finally appeared). So we ended up with a 'big' band: bass, 2 (or 3 guitars) with mando, banjo or concertina. We added a chair & on extra mike for Stew and were ready to go by 8:00.
Fortunately, I had made copies of the music for a '3rd' book (Lynn and my Danebodium books were the 1st and 2nd). Lynn had also made a clear and big type version of the set list with medleys numbered according to their position in the master Danebodium book. We had a copy for David Kirchner so he would sometimes pick a specific medley rather than just a reel or jig set. We ended up using 11 out of the 12 medleys so we had 'just enough' music with one jig set left over.
We had a blast - Pat, with decades of experience, always set the initial tempo and warned us when we going too fast. The new thing for me was that I was 'The Leader of the Band' - for Contra dances I had never played with anyone but Ken and I was used to him taking the lead and indeed 'leaning' on him at times. I was in the middle and was the person calling the changes and 'setting the tone'. Of course, having Daniel on bass was another life-saver - he worked with Jim to set a steady rocking rhythm. We had a number of musical high points. I brought a guitar, even though I wasn't expecting to use it much, if at all. However, for a couple of sets I switched to flatpicking the guitar and on one piece, Over the Waterfall, all three of the guitar players were flatpicking the melody. Jim had a blast and even said I did a great job on mandolin and as 'leader'.
A final note: Stew told us about a party at a musician friend (who I knew slightly) in St. Paul close to his house. He gave Pat directions and on the drive back to St. Paul, Stew pointed out the party house to me (we saw Pat arriving). At the party, I immediately saw a number of the usual suspects (musicians I knew). Stew and I ended up in a jam with some folks we knew and played until 2:30 - I got home about 3 AM. Exhilarated but exhausted.
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