Description
My father came from Rockcastle County, Kentucky. My mother was born and raised in Madison County. Dad played the fiddle and I picked the banjo with him. He just played a few of the old ones—Soldier’s Joy, Tennessee Wagoner, Black Eyed Susan. We’d play for square dances—just banjo and fiddle. Then I got started on the fiddle and eventually quit the banjo. There used to be a lot of fiddlers around and some of ‘em was pretty fair. I’d catch a lot of these tunes off them. Me and Doc Roberts, I’d say we kinda learned together off old Charlie Walker, a colored fellow. I figure he was about eighty when I was twenty-five or thirty. Dealin’ livestock and farming—that’s what I done all my life, now I’m just fiddlin’ around. – Van Kidwell, 1974
Personnel: Tracks 1-2, 4-16 previously released on Fiddlin’ Van Kidwell with The Hotmud Family, Vetco LP 502 (1974). Van Kidwell (fiddle); Rick Good (banjo, steel guitar); Suzanne Edmundson (guitar, mandolin); Dave Edmundson (guitar, mandolin). Tracks 17-32 on Fiddlin’ Van Kidwell with The Hotmud Family: Midnight Ride, Vetco LP 506 (1975) Van Kidwell (fiddle); Rick Good (banjo, guitar, steel guitar); Suzanne Edmundson (guitar, mandolin); Dave Edmundson (guitar); Tom “Harley” Campbell (bass fiddle); Bill Lowe (guitar). Tracks 3-34 on The Hotmud Family: Stone Mountain Wobble, Vetco LP 503 (1974) Van Kidwell (fiddle); Dave Edmundson [fiddle (track 33), guitar (track 34)]; Suzanne Edmundson [mandolin (track 33), banjo-mandolin (track 34)]; Rick Good [guitar (track 33), banjo-guitar (track 34)]; Tom “Harley” Campbell (bass fiddle).
