|
||
|
|
|
|
| Carthy Sisco Lee Stripling Jim Ketterman Jim Evans Glenn Berry Harry Johnson Jeff Anderson Marilyn Scott Gil Kiesecker Floyd Engstrom Stuart Williams Vivian Williams Author: Brid NowlanPhotographer: Doug PlummerAbout the projectExhibit ScheduleWA State Old Time Fiddlers Association Home PageArchivesHome
|
Harry was born in
Fargo, North Dakota, in 1921. He learned his first fiddle tunes while playing back-up
guitar for his mother’s cousin, Helmer Almundsen. Helmer’s Norwegian father
would hum tunes from the old country for his son to play on the fiddle. Years later Harry moved to Kirkland, Washington. One day he heard some sweet fiddle music in the distance and tracked it to a barbershop. "Here was Al Sanderson playing his fiddle, and a guy on the piano, and Ralph Gillenwater on the old guitar." Harry became a regular visitor and would hum the tunes he had learned from his cousin for Al to play. "Al was from Minnesota, so some of the stuff that I could hum to him, that just fit his style nicely and he picked them up pretty good. One day he was playing something and he stopped, handed me his fiddle and said you play." Harry says he didn’t know what to do with it, and when he tried to play "it sounded like the strings were still on the cat." But he bought a fiddle and started playing Helmer’s tunes. Once he started there was no stopping him and his warm, singing tones have won him many prizes. Harry still loves to get together and play with other musicians here and in his winter home in Arizona.
|
|||
