Craig Edwards
AMERICAN ROOTS MUSIC
Appalachian, Blues, Bluegrass, Cajun, Celtic, Early Country, Folk, Swing, Zydeco
Whew! What a busy Spring! Just returned from the second Connecticut Sea Music Festival in Essex, CT, where I worked the the historical demonstration/reenactment group Dirty Blue Shirts showcasing maritime skills and sailor customs from the Age of Sail. I'm hard at work on writing a history of sea chanteys (Title: The Secret History of Sailor Chanteys) for Reaktion Press, the popular publishing arm of University of Chicago Press, to be completed by year's end. I've started teaching for an arts/culture/community non-profit in Westerly, Rhode Island, the UnitedTheater, which coordinates with the local schools, string orchestra, and the non-profit Knickerbocker Music Center (formerly the Knickerbocker Cafe) They responded enthusiastically when I asked if they would be interested in a Roots Music Program, so I'll be teaching fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin, button accordion, and group classes in old time string band, Irish music, and Cajun music. I had a great contradance tour with with the Dead Sea Squirrels, and I've got a busy concert, festival, bar, dance, and farmer's market, and recording schedule coming up this summer. And if anyone is interested in buying my recent sea music recording, "Alone on the Wide Wide Sea: Solo Sailor Songs," you can find it on BandCamp. As I said - whew!
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INFO
Craig Edwards plays a broad range of American roots music: traditional fiddle styles including Appalachian old-time, blues, bluegrass, Cajun, Cape Breton, Irish, and Swing, old-time 5 string banjo, flatpicking and fingerstyle guitar covering Delta and Piedmont blues, honky-tonk, rockabilly, and swing, Cajun and Zydeco accordion, and solo and group singing. Alone or with other musicians, he plays with the drive and conviction that characterize these musical traditions.
Craig first began playing music as a child growing up in Staunton, Virginia. When no one was around he’d slip his father’s fiddle out of the closet and try to coax music out of it. Singing at civil rights events his parents brought him helped form an early understanding of the deep power of traditional music. Inspired by the fertile music scene in the Shenandoah Valley, he began playing music at age eight and picked up guitar, fiddle, banjo, and later button accordion. Even in his teen rock’n’roll period he noticed that the musicians he most admired spoke of early blues and country players as inspirations.
In 1976 he attended the legendary Stompin’76 festival in Galax, Virginia, which featured many of the leading performers in what’s now called “roots music”- Doc Watson, Bonnie Raitt, Ry Cooder, Earl Scruggs, Lester Flatt, David Bromberg, John Prine, John Hartford, and many others. He began spending summers learning fiddling and banjo in West Virginia from honored old timers like Ernie Carpenter and Melvin Wine, and going from one fiddler’s convention to another, immersing himself in American roots music traditions.
Craig majored in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. He studied West African drumming with Abraham Adzenyah, and traveled to Ireland, Louisiana and Nova Scotia to learn from old-timers there. His two-part thesis featured a written “Study of Four Musicians of Central West Virginia” based on his visits there, and a concert with both solo and group performances called “The Roots of Southern American String Band Music”.
After graduating, he formed a series of bands playing Old-time, Irish, Cajun, Zydeco, blues and other roots styles. He worked as a staff musician at Mystic Seaport for many years and served as director of the Mystic Seaport Sea Music Festival, incorporating maritime music from African-American, Afro-Caribbean, Native Alaskan, and many other cultures into the festival during his tenure there. Craig now performs solo and with several groups playing a variety of genres, teaches Traditional Fiddle Styles at Wesleyan University, and designs music installations for historic music exhibits at museums. He was named a Connecticut Master Teaching Artist by the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and has won numerous fiddle and banjo contests.
Craig has performed throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe at festivals, concerts, and other venues. He plays, records, and tours with several bands in addition to performing solo and teaching.