Erynn Marshall

This is a self produced CD of mostly instrumental old-time tunes played with a brilliance rarely matched by anybody on the North American scene. Erynn Marshall’s old-time fiddle playing is front and centre and superb. And Chris Coole’s banjo playing is, frankly, incomparable. The combination of these two players is absolutely stunning. The occasional vocal track on Meet Me In the Music only compliments the intensity of the instrumental virtuosity. The tune selection seems designed to play with the listeners emotions. New Orleans (Shady Grove) and Winds of Shiloh weave poignant moments of joy and despair, while And The Cat Came Back scratches your dancing itch. The production is clean and in your face without being rude. All in all, this is about the best old-time music album I’ve heard in a long time. Essential.
– By Mitch Podolak
- Penguin Eggs Issue No. 36, Winter 2007

This is a self produced CD of mostly instrumental old-time tunes played with a brilliance rarely matched by anybody on the North American scene. Erynn Marshall’s old-time fiddle playing is front and centre and superb. And Chris Coole’s banjo playing is, frankly, incomparable. The combination of these two players is absolutely stunning. The occasional vocal track on Meet Me In the Music only compliments the intensity of the instrumental virtuosity. The tune selection seems designed to play with the listeners emotions. New Orleans (Shady Grove) and Winds of Shiloh weave poignant moments of joy and despair, while And The Cat Came Back scratches your dancing itch. The production is clean and in your face without being rude. All in all, this is about the best old-time music album I’ve heard in a long time. Essential.
– By Mitch Podolak
- Penguin Eggs Issue No. 36, Winter 2007

Erynn Marshall is not only a fine scholar of old-time fiddle tunes, but she can play them wonderfully. Not only that, but she and her bandmates can adapt a tune from the Berea archives, where it was collected as a solo fiddle tune, and make it work in stringband style. This doesn't happen often enough on this CD - there are only three fiddle/banjo/guitar cuts, but they are all gems: "Feed your Horse Corn and Hay" (from Buddy Thomas), "Maggie Meade," and "The Darker the Night" (from J.P. Fraley and Paul David Smith) and Madison County Waltz," an original tune by Erynn. She knows Appalachian fiddling so well she can write good traditional-sounding tunes, too. She also knows when not to move something into stringbnad style; "Glory in the Meeting House" and "Stacked 'em Up in Piles" are both solo fiddle, and it' hard to imagine a second instrument improving the performance.

It is said that the "Fiddler is King" (or in this case Queen), but there is no way that this CD could be as good as it is without the fine banjo playing of Chris Coole. As friends who have competed against him in Clifftop know, Coole is a fine clawhammer player. Listen, for instance, to "Brighter Day," originally from Rufus Crisp, who taught Pete Seeger how to frail the banjo. The surprise is Chris' skilled , tasteful fingerpicking, shown, for example, in his backup to "Madison County Waltz." "Rub Alcohol Blues" is clsasic Dock Boggs, while "Banjo Clog," also from Boggs, is a great parlor-style classical piece. Chris and Erynn also play excellent backup guitar for each other. For the rare three-instrument cuts, Arnie Naiman is on guitar.

And if this weren't enough, there's some excellent singing. In addition to "Rub Alcohol Blues," Erynn and Chris sing "Tragic Love" (another member of the "Silver Dagger" family), which they learned from the Stanley Brothers. In fact, my own real complaint about this CD is that there's not enough singing; "Tragic Love" barely wets my appetite. Having already praised Erynn's scholarship (not directly relevant to this CD, but Erynn's book Music in the Air Somewhere is a huge contribution to our understanding of the fiddle music and fiddlers of West Virginia), it is not surprising that this CD has excellent liner notes, giving sources, tunings and instrumentationfor each cut. Thanks!
To paraphrase Uncle Dave Macon, "Now, folks, buy this record."

- Pete Peterson - The Old-Time Herald Volume 11, Number 1 October-November 2007

Fiddler Erynn Marshall and banjoist Chris Coole have been musical collaborators for nearly a decade. They have traveled extensively performing old-time music and researching the sound they both dearly love. Chris has recorded a series of CDs with Arnie Naiman who appears as guitarist on three selections on this recording.
Erynn has had the great opportunity to learn tunes from source musicians such as Melvin Wine, Art Stamper and Lester McCumbers. She received a fellowship to study at Kentucky's Berea Cllege where she listened to and played with their extensive collection of field recordings. Meet Me in the [Music] is Erynn and Chris' second collaborative CD.
Buddy Thomas' "Feed Your Horse Corn and Hay" opens the CD. It has a delightfully rhythmic pulse as Erynn's fiddle is driven by Chris' banjo and Arnies's guitar. "Rub Alcohol Blues" from Dock Boggs places the focus on Chris' banjo and vocals. Edden Hamons is the source for two selections on this collection. "Fine Times at Our House " is a banjo showpiece for Chris and "Queen of the Earth, Child of the Skies" is rearranged with guitar accompaniment adding a rhythmic foundation without diminishing the power of the haunting fiddle melody.
My two favorite tunes come from the playing of Melving Wine. "New Orleans" is a variant on "Shady Grove" and Kathy Reid-Naiman's dulcimer is just lovely. "Stacked 'Em Up In Piles" was taught to Melvin by his mother and like many of his tunes was originally a song. Erynn knew Melvin well and spent a good deal of time with him before he passed in 2003. This tune, which concludes the CD, serves as a sweet remembrance to Erynn's mentor.
Meet Me in the Music is a superb recording of old-time fiddle and banjo music. Chris Coole and Erynn Marshall have learned from the very best old-time musicians and each should be very proud - TD
- Sing Out! Vol. 41 #4 Winter 2008

Fiddler Erynn Marshall and banjoist Chris Coole have been musical collaborators for nearly a decade. They have traveled extensively performing old-time music and researching the sound they both dearly love. Chris has recorded a series of CDs with Arnie Naiman who appears as guitarist on three selections on this recording.
Erynn has had the great opportunity to learn tunes from source musicians such as Melvin Wine, Art Stamper and Lester McCumbers. She received a fellowship to study at Kentucky's Berea Cllege where she listened to and played with their extensive collection of field recordings. Meet Me in the [Music] is Erynn and Chris' second collaborative CD.
Buddy Thomas' "Feed Your Horse Corn and Hay" opens the CD. It has a delightfully rhythmic pulse as Erynn's fiddle is driven by Chris' banjo and Arnies's guitar. "Rub Alcohol Blues" from Dock Boggs places the focus on Chris' banjo and vocals. Edden Hamons is the source for two selections on this collection. "Fine Times at Our House " is a banjo showpiece for Chris and "Queen of the Earth, Child of the Skies" is rearranged with guitar accompaniment adding a rhythmic foundation without diminishing the power of the haunting fiddle melody.
My two favorite tunes come from the playing of Melving Wine. "New Orleans" is a variant on "Shady Grove" and Kathy Reid-Naiman's dulcimer is just lovely. "Stacked 'Em Up In Piles" was taught to Melvin by his mother and like many of his tunes was originally a song. Erynn knew Melvin well and spent a good deal of time with him before he passed in 2003. This tune, which concludes the CD, serves as a sweet remembrance to Erynn's mentor.
Meet Me in the Music is a superb recording of old-time fiddle and banjo music. Chris Coole and Erynn Marshall have learned from the very best old-time musicians and each should be very proud - TD
- Sing Out! Vol. 41 #4 Winter 2008

Calico, Erynn Marshall's wonderful debut disc of traditional old-time fiddle music, features techniques passed down through the centuries. While Marshall doesn't pack a rattle from a snake in her instrument, or play it with knitting needles, she learnt from players that did. Roddy Campbell takes notes.
A funny thing happened at the Calgary folk festival this past summer. Jack Schuller, the merchant prince behind the most important folk record distribution company in the country, cornered me on a business matter. The conversation soon turned to bemoaning the mountain of discs that frequently demand our attention. The day before I had tackled the minor equivalent of the Matterhorn. Jack had just done the same.
"You know," says he, still bemused, "there was only one record amongst the lot that I really liked.
"And what was that?" I asked gingerly. Jack and I don't always see eye to eye on such matters.
"Erynn Marshall's Calico."
"That was the only record that stood out on my pile!" I spluttered.
That Jack Schuller's a man of impeccable taste.
Beautifully packaged, this largely instrumental album of traditional old-time, mountain fiddle tunes uncovered in West Virginia and Kentucky is utterly impossible to ignore. Marshall's a musician of consummate skill and one blessed with an exquisite ear for a good tune. The beautiful closing track, Elk River Blues, really is worth the price of Calico alone. It's also a disc bolstered by a small battalion of Toronto's elite acoustic musicians, who perform on such sweet-sounding vintage instruments as a Fairbanks & Cole fretless banjo circa 1880 and a German double bass from 1900.
Details like that matter to Erynn Marshall. Indeed, you can trace her interest in old-time music directly to an 18th century Washburn banjo that turned up in Victoria, BC, at the instrument store where she worked.
"It was an open back, an old-time banjo. I picked that thing up and it had a beautiful sound. I immediately fell in love with it," she says. "I ended up buying it. Some man was getting rid of his grandfather's old banjo. I decided I wanted to learn to play in the style it was supposed to be played, clawhammer.
"I couldn't find anybody in Victoria at the time to show me, so I was travelling back and forth to Vancouver and taking banjo from my friend Kori Miyanishi [of Dyad]."
Marshall, had grown up around music. Her father played guitar in local country bands and her mum sang for fun. Erynn took to the fiddle almost as soon as she could walk and developed an interest in Irish music, particularly Bothy Band fiddlers Tommy Peoples and Kevin Burke. She even made a backpacking pilgrimage to. . .erm. . .Erin's Green Isle.
"The first Irish fiddler I encountered, and this was long before he was famous, was Martin Hayes. I saw him playing with his dad at some little concert on the west of Ireland. I thought, 'Gee, he's pretty good.' I went on to discover he was more than pretty good; he was phenomenal."
Still, that Washburn banjo did change everything. She grew totally infatuated with the old-time tunes she now plays on both banjo and fiddle.
"There's an incredible sincerity to this music. There's a lot of raw emotion and there's a really, old, old sound. When I hear old Kentucky or West Virginia tunes, they touch me deeply and they invoke something that is very powerful. I'm absolutely drawn to them. I can't grasp what that connection is but when I hear something, one of these old beautiful tunes, it drives me crazy."
Marshall left Victoria for Toronto and enrolled in the world music program at York University. There she studied for an MA in Ethnomusicology. Her thesis, Music In The Air: The Shifting Borders of West Virginia's Fiddle and Song Traditions, will soon be published by West Virginia Press. Her research included regular trips to West Virginia and Kentucky, where she learned fiddle tunes first-hand from veterans such as Melvin Wine, Lester McCumbers and Art Stamper.
She would also discover the various regional tunings and bowing techniques initially created by African-American, English, German, Irish, Scottish and Swisspioneers. Their legacy of intricacies she would absorb into her own playing.
"A lot of the ornaments are in the bow instead of the left [fingering] hand," says Marshall. "In (Old-time) music they rock the bow. They do very unusual things that I'd never seen or experienced in any other fiddle traditions. There's lots of drone strings that you hear in Shetland music. In Southern music you can hear the drones of Scottish bagpipe music.
"There's really interesting influences in the music in West Virginia. Some of the old fiddlers have a rattlesnake rattle in their fiddles. When you play with a rattle in your fiddle every now and then it makes a hiss sound. I've often wondered if that was an African-American influence because of all the rattles in African instruments."
"Another interesting fusion, between Canada and the South, is fiddlesticks. People u - Penguin Eggs

Calico, Erynn Marshall's wonderful debut disc of traditional old-time fiddle music, features techniques passed down through the centuries. While Marshall doesn't pack a rattle from a snake in her instrument, or play it with knitting needles, she learnt from players that did. Roddy Campbell takes notes.
A funny thing happened at the Calgary folk festival this past summer. Jack Schuller, the merchant prince behind the most important folk record distribution company in the country, cornered me on a business matter. The conversation soon turned to bemoaning the mountain of discs that frequently demand our attention. The day before I had tackled the minor equivalent of the Matterhorn. Jack had just done the same.
"You know," says he, still bemused, "there was only one record amongst the lot that I really liked.
"And what was that?" I asked gingerly. Jack and I don't always see eye to eye on such matters.
"Erynn Marshall's Calico."
"That was the only record that stood out on my pile!" I spluttered.
That Jack Schuller's a man of impeccable taste.
Beautifully packaged, this largely instrumental album of traditional old-time, mountain fiddle tunes uncovered in West Virginia and Kentucky is utterly impossible to ignore. Marshall's a musician of consummate skill and one blessed with an exquisite ear for a good tune. The beautiful closing track, Elk River Blues, really is worth the price of Calico alone. It's also a disc bolstered by a small battalion of Toronto's elite acoustic musicians, who perform on such sweet-sounding vintage instruments as a Fairbanks & Cole fretless banjo circa 1880 and a German double bass from 1900.
Details like that matter to Erynn Marshall. Indeed, you can trace her interest in old-time music directly to an 18th century Washburn banjo that turned up in Victoria, BC, at the instrument store where she worked.
"It was an open back, an old-time banjo. I picked that thing up and it had a beautiful sound. I immediately fell in love with it," she says. "I ended up buying it. Some man was getting rid of his grandfather's old banjo. I decided I wanted to learn to play in the style it was supposed to be played, clawhammer.
"I couldn't find anybody in Victoria at the time to show me, so I was travelling back and forth to Vancouver and taking banjo from my friend Kori Miyanishi [of Dyad]."
Marshall, had grown up around music. Her father played guitar in local country bands and her mum sang for fun. Erynn took to the fiddle almost as soon as she could walk and developed an interest in Irish music, particularly Bothy Band fiddlers Tommy Peoples and Kevin Burke. She even made a backpacking pilgrimage to. . .erm. . .Erin's Green Isle.
"The first Irish fiddler I encountered, and this was long before he was famous, was Martin Hayes. I saw him playing with his dad at some little concert on the west of Ireland. I thought, 'Gee, he's pretty good.' I went on to discover he was more than pretty good; he was phenomenal."
Still, that Washburn banjo did change everything. She grew totally infatuated with the old-time tunes she now plays on both banjo and fiddle.
"There's an incredible sincerity to this music. There's a lot of raw emotion and there's a really, old, old sound. When I hear old Kentucky or West Virginia tunes, they touch me deeply and they invoke something that is very powerful. I'm absolutely drawn to them. I can't grasp what that connection is but when I hear something, one of these old beautiful tunes, it drives me crazy."
Marshall left Victoria for Toronto and enrolled in the world music program at York University. There she studied for an MA in Ethnomusicology. Her thesis, Music In The Air: The Shifting Borders of West Virginia's Fiddle and Song Traditions, will soon be published by West Virginia Press. Her research included regular trips to West Virginia and Kentucky, where she learned fiddle tunes first-hand from veterans such as Melvin Wine, Lester McCumbers and Art Stamper.
She would also discover the various regional tunings and bowing techniques initially created by African-American, English, German, Irish, Scottish and Swisspioneers. Their legacy of intricacies she would absorb into her own playing.
"A lot of the ornaments are in the bow instead of the left [fingering] hand," says Marshall. "In (Old-time) music they rock the bow. They do very unusual things that I'd never seen or experienced in any other fiddle traditions. There's lots of drone strings that you hear in Shetland music. In Southern music you can hear the drones of Scottish bagpipe music.
"There's really interesting influences in the music in West Virginia. Some of the old fiddlers have a rattlesnake rattle in their fiddles. When you play with a rattle in your fiddle every now and then it makes a hiss sound. I've often wondered if that was an African-American influence because of all the rattles in African instruments."
"Another interesting fusion, between Canada and the South, is fiddlesticks. People u - Penguin Eggs