Meet your 2021 OldTime JamCamp Tutors
Craig Woodward
Craig Woodward is a fiddler, banjo player and front man of Flying Engine Stringband. Flying Engine Stringband is the current incarnation of the Melbourne based Old-time Stringband, formerly known as Headbelly Buzzard which Craig co-founded in the early 1990’s.
Craig also performs with Old-time and Country Blues duo Woodward & Rough, the traditional Cajun band, Johnny Can’t Dance as well as various line-ups under the name Craig Woodward and Friends.
Craig is a long time practitioner and professional teacher of Old-time fiddle and Clawhammer banjo music. He’s a dedicated jam session leader, and for the last fifteen or so years he has led a weekly Old Time jam session at various pubs in Melbourne’s inner North. Currently this jam session is held at the Merri Creek Tavern in High St., Northcote.
Craig has travelled several times to the USA to perform, jam, research and study American ‘southern’ roots music. In 1998, in what was his first and only fiddle contest, Craig was placed in the top ten Old-time fiddlers at the Annual Galax Old fiddlers Convention in Virginia. The Old Time Fiddlers Convention has been running since 1935, and only two other Australians have been placed in the top ten, Catherine Moser from Northcote, in 2010, and Rod Jones of Sydney, in 2018.
In 2004, with the increasing popularity and interest in American ‘Southern’ Old Time Stringband music at Victorian social jam sessions, Craig recorded and released a semi instructional cd set of fiddle tunes, 45 Simple Old Timey Tunes for the Fiddle. This cd set has been very influential on the local style and is still very popular as a ‘starting out’ reference for new players. 45 Simple Old Timey Tunes for the Fiddle is currently unavailable but Craig plans to rectify this situation for September.
Check out this article from Melbourne Roots which describes Craig
"as one of Melbourne’s premier old-timey musicians. One of the founders of well-known string band Headbelly Buzzard, who held the famed Friday night residency at North Fitzroy’s The Railway Hotel for fourteen years,"
You can follow Tom on his facebook page. Make sure you check out the videos he has been working on during the COVID19 experience.
Thomas Kendall
Tom Kendall has played for years with the Knott Family Band out of Melbourne and has recently been taking annual trips to the US to cut his teeth playing guitar and mandolin among the bluegrass and old time pickers of North Carolina and Virginia in the Appalachian mountains of the USA. By attending these fiddler's conventions, he's been soaking up the essence of the southern style of playing and singing bluegrass and old time music and bringing back many tunes and songs from his travels.
Tom has also entered contests at the fiddler's conventions in Sparta and elsewhere in NC and Virginia achieving prizes for both his mandolin and guitar playing.
Tom's mandolin playing is equally influenced by older country styles of playing such as Ira Louvin as well as bluegrass styles of Bill Monroe. He also studies many contemporary bluegrass guitar pickers as well as the picking of old time and bluegrass guitar legend, Doc Watson. Tom's singing is similar in tone to Doc Watson with a velvety tone that can make any ballad sound like his own.
Jeremy Marcotte
Jeremy Marcotte was born and bred in North Carolina and he currently lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Jeremy has studied old time fiddle playing, learning tunes in the distinctive rhythmic style of North Carolina and Virginia. He has learned from great fiddlers such as Shay Garriock, Richard Bowman, and recordings of Tommy Jarrell, Benton Flippen and the Shelor Family. He plans to carry on with this distinctive square dance style of fiddling so that people all over can be moved to get up and dance and learn to play the tunes in this style.
He has spent many years going to fiddler's conventions in North Carolina and Virginia. In 2015 he won first prize at the Old Union Grove Fiddler's Convention for his clawhammer banjo playing. He's also had many other top five finishes at other fiddlers conventions in the state of NC. as well as being part of award winning old time bands at various fiddler's conventions.
.Jeremy has spent a great deal of time visiting musicians of older generations and aims to keep their music alive by sharing it and at the same time putting his own spin on their tunes and songs.
Tom and Jeremy currently play in Melbourne, and at festivals around Australia as The Blue Creek Boys. The duo performs early country vocal duets from the Louvin Brothers and other brother duets, ripping fast dance tunes with clawhammer banjo and fiddle and tremolo-laiden mandolin solos featuring the sweet tones of a forgotten time.
You can check out Jeremy & Tom's new album right here.
And, you can enjoy an half hour concert with
The Blue Creek Boys right here!