John P. Williams - Monroe County Influences, Vol. 1

 

On my way back from the National Invitation Fiddle Contest in Yankton, South Dakota late Sunday night in 2004 I called my buddy, Matt Wyatt, and asked if I could crash at his place on the way home. 

"Hell yeah, man!!

It was probably 2am as I drug my duffle of mostly clean clothes and fiddles into his house.  Matt was 100 percent ready to play and had mics and his recording equipment set up in his living room ready to go.  

"We're gonna record your album tonight, brother!!"

What album?  I had never mentioned this before.
We were both young, dumb as dull hammers, and we thought that this was a great idea.
  I was 22 at the time and we didn't know any better.

By Monday afternoon we'd hammered out close to 50 tunes, most of them one takes.  We had no theme, no plan.  It was just two friends playing tunes, figuring it out as we went, and hitting the record button.

I finally got this album printed in 2009.  I have given away hundreds of these CD's, sold a few online, and even sold a few downloads.  We never made a cent, but that was never the point.  

Matt's been like a brother to me for almost 30 years and we'd talked recently about putting this up for free.  We made plenty just from the memories we have of that weekend 17 years ago (and there's 8mm video floating around somewhere...).  So we wanted to offer it up for free to anyone that would want a digital copy. 

Monroe County Influences, Vol. 1 

     (click the link above for a .zip file of the album in its entirety!)

We hope you enjoy this album as much as we did making it dang near 2 decades ago.  

If you're enjoying these posts please think about throwing a few dollars to our scholarship fund that benefits the future fiddlers enrolled at Bethel Youth Fiddle Camp.

 To donate to the Pete McMahan Memorial Scholarship

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Thanks to everyone that has donated so far!

Thanks to everyone that follows this blog and supports my efforts here.  There's a lot of hours after work, weekends, and money that goes into this blog and storage.  I always enjoy getting feedback, stories, and whatever so please leave a comment or email me at - BrokenBowFiddleCo@gmail.com.

Thanks!

John P. Williams

Here's Matt and I just a few days ago.

Not much has changed.  

We still have just as much fun 2 decades later.

check out the dusty instruments below.