Michigan Fiddle . Com is intended as a community-driven repository of knowledge regarding Michigan fiddling and folk music. Many resources on this website are derived from varied authors and sources, and applicable copyrights may reside with a wide range of individuals. If you have any concerns, can provide attributions, wish to make any additions, or simply want to discuss Michigan fiddle music and history, please use the contact form to reach out.
A. Trae McMaken
Trae McMaken is the founder, webmaster, and primary contributor to Michigan Fiddle. Com. Trae is a long-time Michigan fiddle history enthusiast and a fiddler himself since childhood. When he began trying to find more information about fiddling throughout the state of Michigan, there was precious little to be found online. He began travelling and collecting, interviewing and researching. This website is an attempt to make it easier on those who want to learn more about this vibrant folk tradition. He is in great debt to all the wonderful collectors who preserved that which had gone before his time. For more information about Trae, see http://www.traemcmaken.com
Other Major Contributors
Eliot Singer
Eliot Singer is an East Lansing folklorist, who trained at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been living and researching in Michigan since 1980 and for many years taught in the College of Education at Michigan StateUniversity. He primarily studies traditional stories and storytelling. During the mid-1980s, although out of his comfort zone, he interviewed and recorded several Michigan fiddlers, as part of a collaborative effort to documentand educate about Michigan traditional music. He has not continued with this research, but is excited about the possibilities of using new technologies to better accomplish the goal of educating about Michigan fiddle traditions than was possible at that time.
Jim Leary
Bio from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Website: I'm a folklorist who was born and raised in Rice Lake in northwestern Wisconsin. Since the early 1970s my research has focused on the traditional songs, stories, customary practices, and handwork of indigenous and immigrant peoples and their mostly rural and working class descendants in America's Upper Midwest, resulting in numerous museum exhibits, folklife festivals, public radio programs, documentary sound recordings, films, essays, and such books as From Hardanger to Harleys: A Survey of Wisconsin Folk Art (1987), Yodeling in Dairyland: A History of Swiss Music in Wisconsin (1991), Wisconsin Folklore (1998), So Ole Says to Lena: Folk Humor of the Upper Midwest (2001), the "Folklore" section of The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia (2006), Polkabilly: How the Goose Island Ramblers Redefined American Folk Music (2006), and a critical 3rd edition of Richard M. Dorson's Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers: Folk Traditions of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Dave Langdon
Photo by Patricia "Pooh" Stevenson.
Dave Langdon spent his formative years in Owosso, MI. He was introduced to old time music in the mid 1970s at the Ten Pound Fiddle Coffeehouse in East Lansing. In 2012, he met Karl Byarski, who lived in Kinde, MI. Karl had a very large collection of recordings many of which he had recorded. He recorded many musical events in Huron County and the Thumb area of Michigan and also made many recordings in the basement of his home. Many of these recordings were of local musicians and fiddlers. Dave spent about 3 years traveling to Kinde to work with Karl to document and catalog his collection of recordings and to learn about Huron County and the various musicians featured on Karl’s recordings. Prior to Karl’s death in December, 2016, he acquired Karl’s collection of recordings, records, photos and various papers. He subsequently donated about 230 of the recorded tapes to the Genesee Historical Collections Center at University of Michigan-Flint. Dave continues his fiddle fieldwork and preservation efforts as the President of the Michigan Folklore Society.
Glenn Hendrix
Glenn Hendrix is an active collector and historian of Michigan fiddling and a long-time member of the Original Michigan Fiddlers Association. He currently produces the OMFA newsletter. Glenn has transcribed numerous Michigan tunes and his books can be purchased online at the Elderly Instruments website. One book, An Island of Fiddlers, is a collection of transcriptions of Beaver Island fiddler Patrick Bonner's tunes, including historical information. The other which he co-authored, Michigan Jamboree, is a more wide-scale tune collection with history. They are valuable resources for tunes and tune histories. Glenn has been recording and preserving Michigan fiddle music for years. He is a skilled fiddler, having learned from many musicians around Michigan, including Finnish music in the U.P.
Jim McKinney
Jim McKinney has been playing guitar since 1978 and fiddle since 1987. He co-authored Come Dance With Me: Original Fiddle Compositions and Favorite Tunes of Les Raber and currently plays for dances in the Great Lakes region with The Golden Griffon Stringtet. Visit their website to see schedule and recordings. Jim also heads up the Michigan Old-Time Fiddle Championship at the Huron Applefest. This contest supports traditional Michigan style through its requirements for performance.