Tater tater tater tater tate- Your post was about ethnic groups and then there was a sentence about Chicago. I drank a cup of coffee and read a big chunk of a book (Making the second ghetto - race and housing in chicago 1940-1960) that I really should have already finished yesterday before working on music. The chapter I left half finished was on white ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago. Then the coffee actually started working and I picked up my mandolin and was playing and listening to stuff on my computer whence I should have been doing homwork. That lead to reading this mailing list and thus your post, reminding me about white ethnic groups and Chicago and that I should be reading that book. I guess I should have just left the response in my head! Sorry for leading us off track.
On another note, I was once told that NJ was a hotbed of classical banjo activity. I also just read an account of a North Pole expedition that mentioned banjos AND accordions playing home sweet home while in the arctic. I think banjos were everywhere. Fred Van Eps and Vess Ossman both lived here and played extensively in Asbury Park, but certainly not old-time music. My dad always calls our local area banjo land because he gets frustrated at the inability to think liberally at school board meetings and such. I always get mad and remind him that it takes a large mind to play a banjo. The banjo gets pigeonholed as a rural, southern thing. Even a lot of the minstrel stuff was written in NYC, and it certainly romanticized the south. There is something about fantasizing about the South for us Northerners. Even Dixie was written up North. Maybe that is why old-time music is so popular up North in New England, MN, and Wisconsin specifically. It's cold and in the south it is so warm. I get jealous when I listen to Charlie McCoy sing, "in the wintertime I'm doing mighty well, but in the summertime its a burning hell" because in the wintertime here it is cold! On a side note, I am watching Dora the Explorer with my niece right now and a flower is lost in the snow and they are trying to find their way back to warmer climates. Perhaps that is the same as us Northern flowers listening mournfully to southbound trains. Also, in the background I could swear they keep playing little brown jug. need to organize my thoughts better Mike H --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Taterbugmando" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/taterbugmando?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
