The Pigtown Flingers Carry On A Tradition

If you hear some hard-driving music that sounds pretty old-fashioned and doesn't need an amplifier even in a big ! barn, you may be hearing the Pigtown Flingers performing. They whiled away a noon hour playing at the Pendleton Arts Information Center at the Michigan Union last week and made the rafters of that venerable building wobble with their driving renditions I of "Arkansas Traveler" and other old í tunes, as well as "The Victors." The Pigtown Flingers have been ' ing in the area for the last two years. Three persons make up the nucleus of I the group. The fiddler is Jon Blasius of :Detroit, a tooi and die maker. Martha "Burns of Ann Arbor, who works at Michigan Historical Collections, plays the mandolin-banjo and the mandolín. And Mike Berst, a Detroiter who sells auto paint, plays the hammered dulcimer, the instrument which perhaps more than any I other gives the group's music its special I character. Also performing with the [ group last week was Jack Werner, guiI tar, who is a lab technician here in Ann I Arbor. ' Sometimes there is a pianist and both Jon and Mike play the accordion, too. I The Pigtown Flingers can present more I than one musical face to the world. Their musical name comes from one of I the most popular of old time fiddle tunes, "Pigtown Fling." "It's a tune that has had many different names in different sections of the country," Martha notes. She lists some of the other names: "Old Dad," "Wake Up, Jacob," "Jacob's Ladder," "Stony Point " and "Wild Horse." There are one or two more that are unprintable. The group has a wide-ranging and ever-growing repertoire of tunes, all of which are played by ear. "There isn't 'any sheet music for the dulcimer, and I wouldn't know how to read it if there were." says Mike. Many of their best tunes are handed I -down by old timers. Both Jon and Mike I I are members of the Original Dulcimer .Players Club, where "the members average about 70 years of age," according to Jon. "Their memories are a storehouse of music." The late Chet Parker, a famed dulcimer player of the Grand Rapids area, "knew an incredible number of tunes," says Mike, adding the informational I bit that until his death Parker played a dulcimer he made himself back in 1904! I Mike's dulcimer was made by his colleague Jon, who has fashioned seven or eight dulcimers. "I got inspired and I made this one in only a week's time," _ I recalls Jon. It is distinguished by its I H lightness, whereas many dulcimers are I I quite heavy. Mike can carry it easily, I I along with the canvas-covered folding I stool he places it on when playing. The hammérs he uses have very I ble shafts of bamboo and heads of soft I I wood covered with leather. I "But many kinds of hammers are used by different dulcimer players," said Mike, "such as hammers taken from a piano. And some even have been made I from whalebone corset stays ! " ■ Jon's fiddle is a rather remarkable instrument, too. He bought it for $4 in a H junk shop in Ohio. The maker was a Cari ! Christian Meisel who lived in KlingenthI al, Germany, and made this particular II violin in 1732. Jon demonstrates a special kind of vioI lin virtuosity when the Pigtown Flingers play "Pop Goes the Weasel." Then he plays the violin upside down, backwards, I and like a cello. He lifts each leg alternately and places his bow arm under it I while playing and goes through other I contortions - all the time producing the ItuneorTorHjoestheWeaser "I learned it from Frank Stevens, a barber in Sand Lake, who is still going I I strong at the age of 87 years," says Jon. I "I have also seen it done in Canada. ApI I parenüy it was a standard routine for the I I fiddler in groups like ours in bygone I I days." Some of their tunes have no words and I I some have them, usually expressing I I some homespun humor. Typical are the words for "Oíd Soldier I I with a Wooden Leg": "Thcre was an oíd soldier and hè had I J a wooden leg, "Bul he had no auto, no ride could he I I beg, "So he took two thimbles and an oíd I tin can, "He built himself a Ford and the I I damned thing ran." The sounds of their driving music tract everyone passing through the second floor of the Union to the doorway of the Pendleton room. Some come iñ and take a seat. Others listen for a few minutes, then go on. Two yourig men with red-tipped white canes pause at the doorway and smiles light up their faces_ The Pigtown Flingers sound is difficult H to put into words. "Driving" is the one word that comes quickly to mind. Sometimes "rolling" might seem more appropriate. The various instruments blend well. At times you almost seem to hear the plaintive overtones of the bagpipe. Old timers will teil Mike his dulcimer playing "sounds just like my grandfather's did." But the Pigtown Flingers make no effort to reproduce the sounds of the past exactly. Nor is their repertory confined to 19th century tunes. At the Pendleton Room they played "Beer Barrel Polka" and "The Victors" and were ' just as effective with them as with "Turkey in the Straw." "We're not locked into the past," they say. "Instead, we're carrying on a tradition."