Rural Missouri - July 2023 - 16
Howard Marshall smiles as he listens to Richard Shewmaker
play his fiddle during a presentation at Missouri
River Regional Library in Jefferson City promoting his
most recent book " Keep It Old-Time: Fiddle Music
in Missouri from the 1960s Folk Music Revival to the
Present. " The book is the third and final volume on fiddling
in Missouri. Howard has presentations in the fall
including Oct. 7 at Woodneath Library in Kansas City,
Oct. 19 at the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City,
Nov. 18 at The Focal Point in St. Louis and Nov. 30 at
The State Historical Society of Missouri in Columbia.
Fiddling is in Howard's blood. There's been a fiddler in
his family for at least five generations and his grandfather
was the chief fiddler when he grew up in Moberly. " In my
teenage years, I got interested in other things, " he says.
" But I always had fiddling in the back of my head. "
After serving in the Marine Corps, Howard returned to
mid-Missouri and went to Mizzou. " I got back to Columbia
in 1968 as the folk music revival and bluegrass music
were blossoming and the music scene expanded in the
1970s when there seemed to be young fiddlers everywhere, "
Howard says. " I had this memory of my grandfather
playing old fiddle tunes and thinking I could never do
that, but I just discovered it and it became my passion. "
Howard says the fiddle became the Everyman instrument
due to its portable nature and its infectious tone.
" Fiddle music is music that is meant to be danced to, " says
Howard, a member of Callaway Electric Cooperative. " And
people want to dance; they like to dance. You know, push
all the furniture to the corner of the room and dance for
two or three hours before you go home. "
That rhythm and flow between the fiddlers, his or her
fellow musicians and dancers is what makes the jam sessions
he's so fond of memorable. " The fiddler uses his or
her imagination, memory and ears to play their tunes, " he
says. " A fiddler may never play the same tune exactly the
same way twice. "
Howard describes his 20-year-old self as an " amateur
archivist " when his fiddling passion began. He couldn't
find much information on fiddling, so he started scribbling
notes on 3-by-5-inch index cards he kept in his pocket
whenever he'd hear new fiddling stories or meet musicians.
That interest in preserving history led him to graduate
school at Indiana University and eventually a job at the
Library of Congress before returning to Mizzou. " It's
given me this professional interest in figuring out how to
conserve and carry on traditions that could otherwise be
lost, " he says. " If a tune is played and not recorded it may
be forgotten. I've been recording with reel-to-reel tape to
cassettes and now digital media. "
16 RURAL MISSOURI | JULY 2023
Howard's in-depth trilogy chronicling Missouri's fiddling
history started in 2012 with his first book. That one began
with the French fiddlers in Ste. Genevieve in the 1700s
and moves forward to later generations. His next book in
2017 picks up in the 1920s and goes until the 1960s. His
final book takes readers on fiddling's history during the
time he began playing in the 1960s to present time. Howard
says that time period made " Keep It Old-Time " a bit
more personal for him to research and write.
" However, I know many of the fiddlers who appear in
the first two volumes as well as those in the new book, " he
says. " And I knew personally about and was involved in
many of the historical themes in all three. "
" Keep It Old-Time " chronicles fiddling's rise in the '60s
and '70s and the user-friendly Suzuki method that became
popular in the '80s allowing kids to learn without needing
lengthy, formal violin lessons. " They just started playing
fiddle tunes and by the '90s, music teachers just decided
they needed to let those students play a fiddle tune or
two, " he says. " It's grown today that the folks in the fiddling
contests are so different than in the '50s, '60s and
'70s. Their skill level is quite high. "
Howard has performed shows around the state for each
of his three fiddling books, including more this year. He
keeps music as local as possible so he invites local fiddlers
and accompanists to join him as he mixes fiddling history
with his stories and tunes as well as audience questions.
This back-and-forth helps cement the fiddling legacy
Howard has built over decades.
" I think it's important to know where things come from
and why we love them, " he says. " That's
how we know how to carry it on. "
Millersburg
For more information or to buy any
of Howard's books, call 800-621-2736
or visit upress.missouri.edu. Contact
Howard at howard.marshall1944@
gmail.com. See future performance
dates in photo caption above.
http://upress.missouri.edu
Rural Missouri - July 2023
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Rural Missouri - July 2023
Contents
Rural Missouri - July 2023 - Cover1
Rural Missouri - July 2023 - Cover2
Rural Missouri - July 2023 - Contents
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