Since Jeremy moved to the North Country from Winnipeg in 2019, we’ve found ourselves playing more and more with Don Woodcock. A couple of years ago, he invited us to join him for a set at the North American Fiddlers Hall of Fame picnic in Osceola. We started rehearsing for that show at our house and we had such a good time that we just never really stopped.

Don and his wife, Sandra, now visit regularly. I always bake something—a cake, brownies, a pie—and we gather around the table in our dining room (where the piano is). I set my phone on the table to record, and off we go. Don calls tunes from memory—he has an astounding internal library—and I chime in when I can. Sometimes he’ll switch over to the piano and play foxtrots with Jeremy. Jeremy is usually on piano, but he’ll pick up the clarinet or even oboe here and there. These sessions are the best.

Forgotten Tunes and Deep History

When we were preparing for the Hall of Fame show, I told Don I wanted to find some great old tunes that have slipped through the cracks, tunes that deserve another life but aren’t played much anymore. With his combination of astonishing memory and broad knowledge of fiddle trends, he was the perfect guide.

He taught us a five-part version of “Old Red Barn” that his father had learned from a cylinder record. Later, I found the original recording on YouTube—it was in a different key, but Don’s memory of the tune’s structure was spot-on. Nobody plays that full version anymore. Most fiddlers only know the first two parts.

He also taught us a few nameless tunes, or at least ones whose names have been lost to time. We built a rich, unusual set list for the Hall of Fame performance full of these rare gems. The performance itself was great, but a terrible rainstorm meant low attendance. Thankfully, we got to repeat the show shortly afterward in DeKalb to a much better turnout.

Sheet Music, Shared Tunes, and New Discoveries

Somewhere along the way, Don brought over several binders of sheet music that had belonged to Ruth Johnston. Don doesn’t read music, but I do, so he thought I might find them useful. One day I opened a binder of Don Messer books, sat down with Jeremy, and we started sight-reading through them.

They were full of great tunes and good transcriptions, so we picked out about 25 favourites and learned them together. As it turned out, Don already knew most of them, and I even got to teach him a couple, including a lovely set of clogs he’d never played before. We added several of those pieces to a summer house concert with fiddle friends Dennis Harrington and Randy Foster.

Memory That Matters

Don knew my dad, Carl Davey, and remembers how he played—specific tunes, style choices, repertoire. Truly, there’s no one else who holds that history in such detail, and I can’t say how much it means to me to be able to learn about my father’s playing now that I’m finally in a place to understand it.

The Joy of Forgotten Tunes

One of the surprising lessons in all this is just how many beautiful tunes don’t survive the way they deserve to. The ones that do are often the simpler ones—easier to remember, easier to teach, easier to pass along. But the ones I’m falling in love with now are often twisty, tricky, and oddly shaped. They come in uncommon keys, have three or more parts, unusual phrasings, or melodies that don’t quite settle into your ear on the first listen.

In other words: they’re exactly my kind of tunes.

They stretch your fingers. They stretch your ear. They stay interesting. And we get to help bring a few of them back to life.


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