"Traditional music seems to go in cycles of popularity," muses Joe Herrmann, one third of the Critton Hollow String Band. "In the '60s, there was a tremendous boom and interest. Big hits on the radio by the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary and countless others made folk music the center of society's attention."
No great expectations prompted Herrmann and his wife, Sam, to take their music to the streets of Annapolis, Md., in 1975, though. They just wanted to see "what might happen."
FAQ
Critton Hollow
String Band
WHEN — 4 p.m. Oct. 13
WHERE — Ozark Mountain Smokehouse, just south of the intersection of Rupple Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Fayetteville
COST — $15
INFO — 409-1224
"We came home with enough money to make us proclaim, 'This is better than picking apples!'," he remembers. "The next October, instead of picking apples, we packed up our VW bus, picked up our new friend and mandolin player Robbie Gordon, and set out down the East Coast to play music wherever we could."
Herrmann had a unique way back then of choosing places to play.
"We would pull into a town, find a phone book and look up restaurants to find the local vegetarian/alternative establishment, give them a call and propose that we would come play if they would feed us and let us pass the hat," he recalls. "My recollection is that none refused the offer."
If it worked on the road, Herrmann thought, it might work in their own backyard, so when they returned home in 1976, they approached a local restaurant and resort and got an every Sunday gig that paid $75 plus dinner and beer.
"We called ourselves 'The Critton Hollow String Band,'" Herrmann says. "Although we were a duo at the time, we had intentions of expansion."
Over the decades, there were several configurations of the band with third and fourth musicians joining Joe on fiddle, banjo and guitar and Sam on hammered dulcimer, mandolin and guitar. The most recent threesome, with Joe Fallon on guitar, banjo and bass, has been around for 38 years -- and is just now making it to Fayetteville.
"I had listened to one of their earlier recordings and really liked them," says Mike Shirkey, promoter and 37-year host of "The Pickin' Post" on KUAF, the regional National Public Radio affiliate. "Then when Joe called and said they were coming to Oklahoma, I immediately said, 'Yes, work Fayetteville into your trip!' This might be the only chance for us to hear this really fine trio."
"My personal musical journey took me from folk music to rock 'n' roll to jazz and back around to traditional fiddle music," Herrmann says. "Starting around 1974, when we first started going to fiddle festivals, it seemed that there were a lot of people around our age (20-30) taking up interest and that we were learning from a generation that was mostly a good bit older (60s and beyond) while at the same time there seemed to be not too many folks spanning the ages between us. Now that we are reaching into our 60s and 70s it seems like there is a wave of younger 20s and 30s developing the same enthusiasm."
NAN What's Up on 10/13/2019