Flying Shoes Radio Hour Episode 2 – Wild Asparagus

May 23, 2025 Flying Shoes Radio Hour 55.51M

This second episode of the Flying Shoes Radio Hour features Wild Asparagus, an influential dance band based in Western Massachusetts, and named for a feral crop in the Connecticut River Valley. Band members – David Cantieni on oboe, saxophone, flutes, whistles, and bombard; George Marshall on concertina and bodhran, Ann Percival on guitar, piano, and ukulele, and Becky Tracy on fiddle – sometimes play with other musicians, including Becky’s husband, Keith Murphy. But they have really honed their skills as a quartet, incorporating harmonies, counter-melodies, some pretty unique riffs, and even bringing in tunes from outside the typical contra dance tradition. Since 1984, the band has shared their music with generations of dancers across North America and around the world, including at their monthly contra dance at the Guiding Star Grange and as the featured musicians for the Tropical Dance Vacations that are produced by George. 

I first encountered Wild Asparagus as a new dancer in the early 1990s, and I got to know them better during the years that I shared a house in New Hampshire with Timm Triplett (who was a bandmate of George and David in another influential Massachusetts contra dance band, Swallowtail.) Wild Asparagus’s music was the soundtrack for countless joyful moments for me on the dance floor. 

In November of 2022, the band played for an exuberant Flying Shoes dance at the Rockport Opera House, in Rockport, Maine. It was only the second indoor Belfast Flying Shoes dance since we paused all of our dances in March of 2020 because of the Covid19 pandemic. The next morning after the dance, the band and I chatted, laughed, and reminisced… and they also played some tunes. It was an effusive conversation, buoyed by shared memories and the adrenaline of the packed hall the night before. It’s an absolute pleasure to share this podcast version of that recording now, in 2025, which is shortly after the band celebrated its 40th anniversary of their original Wild Asparagus trio, and also the 30th year since Becky joined the band.

One special note: At the end of the show, we’ll share a cut from Wild Asparagus’s “Live at the Guiding Star Grange” album, which they recorded at their monthly dance, and definitely conveys the excitement of how they play for dances. The band wanted to include this cut of Speed the Plow and Enjoy Yourself, because Ann learned that song from Jamesie Brewster of St Croix. And we talk about that in the show. But, as you’ll know, the rest of the show has a comfortable vibe of a Sunday in Maine with Wild Asparagus. Enjoy!

Show Notes

Links:

During our conversation, the members of Wild Asparagus refer to other artists, including these: 

  • Swallowtail, the influential Pioneer Valley MA contra dance band (George Marshall, David Cantieni, Timm Triplett, Ron Grosslein, and Tim Van Egmond)
  • John Skelton, a woodwind player in the House Band 
  • “Jamesie” Brewster, a legendary Caribbean musician. Learn more about Jamesie in this St Croix Source article; in this film about his role in “Scratch” and Quelbe music of St Croix and the US Virgin Islands jamesieproject.com/; and in the Columbia College Archives.

Tunes:

  1. Ross’s Reel # 4 / Frenchie’s (both trad)
  2. Dick Gossip (trad)
  3. Stonetown (John Skelton)
  4. Song for Gale (Larry Kaplan; sung by Cindy Kallet and others)

Break

  1. Recreational Doctor (Keith Murphy)
  2. The Lazy B (David Cantieni)
  3. Speed the Plow (trad) / Enjoy Yourself (Carl Sigman & Herb Magidson) from the Wild Asparagus album, “Live at the Guiding Star Grange”, © 2009

Transcript

Click here to download

Chrissy Fowler 0:00
Hi there. This is Chrissy Fowler welcoming you to the Flying Shoes Radio Hour, a podcast featuring music and conversation with the musicians who play for contra dances. This show is produced by Belfast Flying Shoes and the Country Dance & Song Society, in cooperation with WBFY, Belfast Maine’s low power community radio station. The Flying Shoes Radio Hour was created to highlight the roots and branches of the contra dance music that we love, the musicians who play it with and for others, and the dancers of all ages that it inspires. The weekly show on WBFY usually features music from the station’s digital library, but sometimes the show features an in-studio interview with contra dance musicians whose talents catalyze joy and connection wherever they play, including here in Maine, where this program was recorded. This podcast is born from those conversations, and in each episode, we get to hear the musicians’ sound up close and personal, as well as stories about their history and approach to playing. Enjoy the show, and thanks for listening.

Chrissy Fowler 1:20
This second episode of the Flying Shoes Radio Hour features Wild Asparagus, an influential dance band based in Western Massachusetts, and named for a feral crop in the Connecticut River Valley. Band members – David Cantieni on oboe, saxophone, flutes, whistles, and bombard; George Marshall on concertina and bodhran, Ann Percival on guitar, piano, and ukulele, and Becky Tracy on fiddle – sometimes play with other musicians, including Becky’s husband, Keith Murphy. But they have really honed their skills as a quartet, incorporating harmonies, counter-melodies, some pretty unique riffs, and even bringing in tunes from outside the typical contra dance tradition. Since 1984, the band has shared their music with generations of dancers across North America and around the world, including at their monthly contra dance at the Guiding Star Grange and as the featured musicians for the Tropical Dance Vacations that are produced by George. I first encountered Wild Asparagus as a new dancer in the early 1990s, and I got to know them better during the years that I shared a house in New Hampshire with Timm Triplett (who was a bandmate of George and David in another influential Massachusetts contra dance band, Swallowtail.) Wild Asparagus’s music was the soundtrack for countless joyful moments for me on the dance floor. In November of 2022, the band played for an exuberant Flying Shoes dance at the Rockport Opera House, in Rockport, Maine. It was only the second indoor Belfast Flying Shoes dance since we paused all of our dances in March of 2020 because of the Covid19 pandemic. The next morning after the dance, the band and I chatted, laughed, and reminisced… and they also played some tunes. It was an effusive conversation, buoyed by shared memories and the adrenaline of the packed hall the night before. It’s an absolute pleasure to share this podcast version of that recording now, in 2025, which is shortly after the band celebrated its 40th anniversary of their original Wild Asparagus trio, and also the 30th year since Becky joined the band. One special note: At the end of the show, we’ll share a cut from Wild Asparagus’s “Live at the Guiding Star Grange” album, which they recorded at their monthly dance, and definitely conveys the excitement of how they play for dances. The band wanted to include this cut of Speed the Plow and Enjoy Yourself, because Ann learned that song from Jamesie Brewster of St Croix. And we talk about that in the show. But, as you’ll know, the rest of the show has a comfortable vibe of a Sunday in Maine with Wild Asparagus. Enjoy

Becky Tracy 4:22
I thought we would start with a set of tunes that the band has probably played from its inception. Is that right, guys? Because I wasn’t in the inception of the band.

David Cantieni 4:39
That’s pretty close. Pretty close. Ross’s Reel # 4 and Frenchie’s

Becky Tracy 4:34
Ross’s Reel #4 and Frenchie’s.

Ann Percival 4:40
Ready?

Becky Tracy 4:40
Yeah.

music 4:40
(tune)

All 4:40
Laughter

Becky Tracy 8:07
Well, somebody was asking last night. They were asking me about the band history. And I was like, you know, it was those three who started, with the concertina and bodhran, and the oboe and the silver flute with David.

George Marshall 8:20
Recorder. Don’t forget the recorder.

Becky Tracy 8:22
Oh, I, sorry, I forgot the recorder, somehow.

David Cantieni 8:24
Oh, I forgot the recorder too.

Ann Percival 8:26
And the fife, which was burned.

Becky Tracy 8:28
And then Ann on piano and guitar.

Ann Percival 8:30
And a synthesizer.

Becky Tracy 8:32
And a synthesizer. See, the things that I don’t know, because I wasn’t in that era. So there was no fiddle originally.

Chrissy Fowler 8:40
No fiddle! Right.

David Cantieni 8:41
That’s right. Right.

Becky Tracy 8:42
No, not at all, the trio.

Chrissy Fowler 8:44
Right. So what was the inspiration to form up this little band, this little vegetable band here?

George Marshall 8:52
So David and I played in a band called Swallowtail, late 70s. We decided to go on a cross-country tour, Swallowtail did. And so there were five of us that did that. And we had a reasonably good time. So we decided to do it again the next year. But, the first year, our piano player had written his PhD philosophy thesis. Now, Timm Triplett ,

Chrissy Fowler 9:19
My beloved former housemate.

All 9:22
Yes, yeah.

George Marshall 9:22
Yeah, because that’s, we met you when we would be staying, doing dances in Durham, New Hampshire, and we would come up and stay with Timm, and you were part of that whole scene. So, so our history goes back pretty far too. But anyway, we did this cross country tour, and Timm wrote, by hand, because there were no laptops at that point, his PhD thesis. And he could not face doing the rewrite by hand on the second year

David Cantieni 9:22
In the van.

George Marshall 9:25
In the van. And so he said, I’m still your piano player, but you have to find somebody else for this tour. I think you should go on the tour, because it was really good, but I can’t participate. But I’m still your piano player. And so I started looking for piano players, and I found Ann. And so Ann

Ann Percival 10:09
I didn’t know how to play jigs.

George Marshall 10:11
Had just started playing piano, and she learned from a book called “How to Play the Piano, Despite Years of Lessons.” And so we had a few gigs before, so Ann would be, was learning how to play contra dance piano. And we were helping her, guiding her, with what we wanted to do. And it worked out okay, but things were still a little bit dicey. So her grandmother, who she was living with, gave her bus fare so that, because she was going on tour with these four guys. And she said, Well, if it doesn’t work out, you can always take the bus home, and here’s money to do that. So Ann felt confident about going on tour. This driving tour.

Chrissy Fowler 10:54
She could get out of it, escape hatch.

Ann Percival 10:56
Yes, exactly, yeah, because my grandmother said, “All musicians are dopers.”

David Cantieni 11:02
She was Norwegian.

Chrissy Fowler 11:06
Wow.

Ann Percival 11:07
Yeah.

Chrissy Fowler 11:07
And that was history. Right there.

George Marshall 11:09
And, well, and so then we were on that tour, and David and Ann and I wanted to continue to play together. But when we got back, our regular piano player was playing with Swallowtail, so we knew we had to start another band.

Chrissy Fowler 11:21
Yep.

George Marshall 11:22
So we we did that, and we played as Three Hand Reel. And we decided that name was too limiting, because there were just three of us. And so, David and Ann had converted a chicken shack or chicken coop into a house.

Ann Percival 11:39
You’ve got a good memory, man.

George Marshall 11:40
It was more like a tiny house before tiny houses were ever really considered a thing.

Chrissy Fowler 11:45
Forerunners. Forerunners.

Ann Percival 11:46
Yes.

Chrissy Fowler 11:47
Yes. Visionaries.

George Marshall 11:49
They were, the chicken coop was backed up onto an old asparagus field. So there was a lot of wild asparagus growing around.

Chrissy Fowler 11:56
Oh, my word.

Ann Percival 11:57
Yeah.

George Marshall 11:57
And David had one foot at least, really implanted in the classical music scene

David Cantieni 12:03
On oboe.

George Marshall 12:04
On oboe. He was a serious oboist. And he said, “Well, there’s a there’s a group called the Asparagus Valley

David Cantieni 12:12
Modern Music Ensemble.

George Marshall 12:14
And so we could call ourselves Wild Asparagus, because there’s all this wild asparagus. See, and Hadley used to be the asparagus capital of the world.

Chrissy Fowler 12:15
Really?

George Marshall 12:15
But then a big blight happened, and, uh, asparagus rust. And so it was no longer commercially feasible to grow asparagus. And so, but there was still, asparagus is a perennial.

Chrissy Fowler 12:01
It stays.

George Marshall 12:01
And so it still came, came up.

Chrissy Fowler 12:04
Wow. Like the blackberries in Oregon

George Marshall 12:14
And, exactly.

Ann Percival 12:15
Right.

George Marshall 12:13
Exactly. And so we called ourselves Wild Asparagus because of that room for expansion.

Chrissy Fowler 12:34
That is a story I’ve never heard.

George Marshall 12:42
And so really, the thing that launched into it was that we decided to do a 10 week tour.

Chrissy Fowler 12:57
10 weeks together?

George Marshall 12:58
Circumnavig-, the three of us circumnavigating the country.

Chrissy Fowler 13:02
Wow.

George Marshall 13:03
And we did 56 gigs, 56 dances in 10 weeks.

David Cantieni 13:07
And we actually made some money too,

Chrissy Fowler 13:09
Wow. And did you like each other afterwards?

George Marshall 13:13
Well, it was hard in the middle, but it’s become reconciled. And the thing that, the thing that never got old for me was realizing that Ann loved to leave behind her hair brush.

Ann Percival 13:26
Oh, geez, George.

David Cantieni 13:27
Wow, this memory.

George Marshall 13:29
It would be a really fun trick for me is after we’d all gotten out and we’d do an idiot check, because Ann was not the only one who left stuff behind.

Chrissy Fowler 13:37
Sure. Yes.

George Marshall 13:38
So we’d go through the house, and I would find the hair brush, and I’d put it in my pocket. And then when Ann is, like, looking through her bags for her hair brush, I would say, is this what you’re looking for? It just never got old for me.

Chrissy Fowler 13:50
Wow! Okay, so what tune are you gonna play now that, like, fits with all of that?

David Cantieni 13:56
Wow. I’m just trying to think.

Becky Tracy 13:58
I know we kind of, we kind of played a set of tunes that sort of, of that era, you know, like the Ross’s Reel. Do we want to jump ahead to, like, just Dick Gossip?

David Cantieni 14:08
Yeah, yeah.

Becky Tracy 14:08
Which is sort of still in the early phases,

David Cantieni 14:10
Yeah. So we got a fiddler, or several fiddlers, we sort of

Ann Percival 14:15
Our first fiddler was Vandy Kaynor, and I think he did, then he didn’t want to be on the road so much. And so then we ended up playing with, uh with

Becky Tracy 14:23
Kerry Elkin.

Ann Percival 14:24
It was Kerry Elkin,

David Cantieni 14:25
Kerry Elkin. Oh boy, and I’m sure yeah.

Becky Tracy 14:27
And he brought Irish music to the band.

David Cantieni 14:28
He might have brought that too, the Dick Gossip, though I’m not sure if that was

George Marshall 14:32
And then Mary Lea.

Ann Percival 14:34
And Sue Sternberg

George Marshall 14:34
And Sue Sternberg and Sam Bartlett were all

Becky Tracy 14:38
And that was within the span of 10 years.

David Cantieni 14:40
Yeah.

George Marshall 14:42
We kind of worried that fiddlers might be a little fickle, because we couldn’t, but we just were looking for the right one.

Ann Percival 14:48
And we found the right one.

George Marshall 14:48
And then Becky came along.

Ann Percival 14:49
That’s another story that I will tell.

David Cantieni 14:52
Okay, well, so what are we going to play then?

George Marshall 14:53
So, Dick Gossip, then.

Ann Percival 14:54
It’s a tune that you can go into from anything. It’s a really useful tune.

music 14:56
(tune)

Chrissy Fowler 16:43
So, this band is Wild Asparagus, and here in our little studio, our remote studio, we have George Marshall, who’s playing concertina. We have Becky Tracy playing fiddle. We have Ann Percival playing piano and guitar. And we have David Cantieni on a variety of wonderful winds.

Ann Percival 17:02
Well, shall we continue on with some another set, another tune?

Chrissy Fowler 17:06
Yeah.

Ann Percival 17:06
With, uh,

David Cantieni 17:07
I was actually thinking of maybe the Lafferty’s story, because, I was saying we were playing all these fast tunes, and kind of, in contra dance, you have to play these phrased, fast-ish tunes. And we sort of did, we sort of broke the mold with this tune, I think.

Ann Percival 17:23
Here’s, here’s how it went down. This was at Alta Sierra. It was, Sam Bartlett was gonna get married, with the bagpipes and all this stuff. Anyway. But we, at this particular camp, you played a lot of classes. Like three or four classes during the day, and then play all night. And you’re tired. And at one point we just, we were like, about to play another set of tunes, and it was like, I can’t play this one more time. I can’t play. I can’t play one more set of tunes. So I started going like this.

David Cantieni 17:58
Instead of

Ann Percival 18:01
Well, what we’d been doing.

David Cantieni 18:02
Yeah.

Ann Percival 18:04
Okay, let’s just play this, a little bit of it.

Becky Tracy 18:07
Should we play the tune or play the half

Ann Percival 18:09
Let’s play, let’s play it from the beginning.

Ann Percival 21:12
It was like, it was like a whole saga in four times through.

Becky Tracy 21:15
We got all of it

Becky Tracy 21:16
Oh, yes, so yeah. I mean

George Marshall 21:18
The interesting thing is about how this works with dancing. Because, of course, it’s all about the dancing

Chrissy Fowler 21:23
Exactly.

George Marshall 21:23
Is that you’d think that the dancers would dance as slowly as the tune was going along. So that, you know the beat is, but actually, the dancers dance at the same speed that they normally would, which would be 1234578; 123456

Becky Tracy 21:42
Or walk walk walk walk.

George Marshall 21:44
Long lines dance forward and back,

Chrissy Fowler 21:47
Bang your head,

George Marshall 21:50
As a dancer, your experiences is that the band is playing this very relaxed thing, and you move very differently than when you’re doing faster.

Chrissy Fowler 21:59
Marianne Taylor, who perhaps each of you knew, was famous for explaining that the music really guides how people walk and how people dance and people move. She had some great demonstrations of, illustrations of that. And I, I think about that Lafferty’s rendition, and it really, I mean, those half, that half time treatment is so much, it’s a, it’s, it’s so much a staple in current times.

Ann Percival 22:22
Definitely, yeah.

Chrissy Fowler 22:23
But it really was an early, it was such a, and I’d, I never heard that it stemmed from a surfeit of tune playing. And so that’s really delicious. So many good things.

Ann Percival 22:35
All right, so now we’re going to talk about our secret weapon.

Ann Percival 22:38
Oh.

David Cantieni 22:38
Oh are you?

Chrissy Fowler 22:39
Oh yeah.

Ann Percival 22:40
It might be loud, but we’ll just play a little bit.

David Cantieni 22:43
Oh.

Ann Percival 22:43
So, we have a secret weapon. It’s called the bombard. Yeah, and it’s, it’s a beautiful, loud thing that makes people scream, which is so fun.

David Cantieni 22:54
And

Ann Percival 22:55
And David’s been under the weather for a little while. He could, couldn’t play the bombard or the saxophone. And last night at our dance here, it was the first time we’ve experienced the weapons.

David Cantieni 23:06
And if I could just say, the reason that I have, because it’s a very primitive oboe. So in that respect, it’s accessible to me.

Chrissy Fowler 23:16
So it’s related to an oboe.

David Cantieni 23:17
It is an oboe.

George Marshall 23:18
It is an oboe. It’s part of the oboe family.

Chrissy Fowler 23:20
Ah. Amazing.

George Marshall 23:21
It’s got a double reed.

David Cantieni 23:22
It’s French.

George Marshall 23:23
That is, you hold a reed in your lips.

David Cantieni 23:26
It’s from Brittany. And we had a friend. One of my college friends got into French music, and he ended up moving to Minnesota. And when we were visiting him in Minnesota on one of our tours, Bob Walser, he handed me an instrument. He said, “I can’t think of anyone else that will play this with me.” And I don’t think he and I ever played together. And this isn’t the one. He, the one that he gave me was not this. So that’s how it started. And then we started hanging out with these people from, we played at the Augusta Heritage Arts Workshops in Elkins, West Virginia, and there was a British band there named the House, called the House Band. They weren’t, they played a lot of Irish, but also they played French. And because they were British, they weren’t, they felt that they were ostracized from being in the Irish week, and the Irish thing. So they were teaching a band, a Celtic band workshop there. And John Skelton, who was one of my mentor people, played the bombard. And that’s how I learned how to play it in the context of the band. So this

Becky Tracy 24:44
And in fact, this tune

David Cantieni 24:47
Yeah, go ahead.

Becky Tracy 24:47
You know the story better than me, but this tune came from the, the House Band, and it’s called Stonetown

Becky Tracy 24:55
And I think John, John wrote it.

Becky Tracy 24:58
Yeah. And there was a glorious period with the band, before I, before I joined the band, where the House Band would come to our local dance, and the dance would be busting at the seams because there would be all of Wild Asparagus and the House Band on stage. And it was racket.

Ann Percival 25:21
It was amazing.

George Marshall 25:22
One thing that’s really important to know about the bombard is that it was actually a weapon of war, like the bagpipes. It’s an outdoor instrument, and so, really, playing it indoors is kind of a mistake. But the big thing about the bombard is that it’s such high pressure to play it, you, it takes such physical effort that they don’t usually have a single bombard playing. They have at least two, because they alternate playing phrases, because one person, except maybe “David Leather Lungs”, can’t really play the melody the whole time through. So when Bob was saying, “I can’t think of anybody else that would want to play this with me”, he was actually hoping that David would be able to play, so that they could alternate, so they could actually get through a whole tune.

Becky Tracy 26:07
Right, which is the Breton way.

Chrissy Fowler 26:09
Amazing. The Breton, Brittany part of France.

George Marshall 26:10
Yeah.

Ann Percival 26:10
All right. So we’re going to play Stonetown for you. We’re going to play it two times in E minor and then two times in B minor.

David Cantieni 26:16
Oh, yeah. So we usually do it, yeah, and,

Ann Percival 26:18
Just so you get the idea of what we’re talking about. Two and two.

music 26:21
(tune)

Becky Tracy 26:21
Now you see why he gets his own little booth in a recording studio.

Ann Percival 28:53
Different building.

Chrissy Fowler 28:54
I totally get it. So beautiful. I will say that when the bombard came out at the dance last night, my heart just went “Ahhh! Ooohh!” So many good memories!

Becky Tracy 29:07
Yeah, that was certainly

Chrissy Fowler 29:07
So much heightened emotion! I, we have a, one of our former board members, in fact, would talk about the influence of like, kind of loud, almost to the point of like a little bit, a little bit over-stressful music, because our halls could get loud with people yelling and hollering, and um, and that somehow that was part of the magic. Like that that heightened, almost like a danger kind of feeling, would, would give you almost a pleasure. And I, maybe that’s part of the bombard’s appeal.

George Marshall 29:38
It definitely releases endorphins.

Chrissy Fowler 29:40
Yes, so beautiful.

Ann Percival 29:42
Do you want a waltz now?

Chrissy Fowler 29:43
Yeah, that would be so lovely.

Ann Percival 29:44
So, we’re gonna sing a waltz. It’s called Song for Gale, written by Cindy Kallet (Larry Kaplan). Um, it’s a sort of a maritime waltz. And so we’re here at a beautiful house overlooking the bay, and it’s, there’s water everywhere I can see. So I thought that this would be a good one

Chrissy Fowler 30:01
And Cindy used to live around here, in midcoast Maine.

Becky Tracy 30:03
Yup. Yeah. I know.

Chrissy Fowler 30:03
So it’s a great fit. So much deliciousness.

Ann Percival 30:09
123

music 32:46
(tune)

Chrissy Fowler 34:48
Belfast Flying Shoes is a participatory arts nonprofit with a mission to build community and cultivate well-being through the joy of traditional music and dance for people of all backgrounds and identities in Midcoast Maine. In addition to this radio program and podcast, we produce concerts, workshops, a monthly community and contra dance series, other dances, school residencies, and programs for incarcerated men and older adults. Learn more at belfastflyingshoes.org. We are also a proud affiliate member of CDSS, the Country Dance & Song Society, an organization that connects and supports people in building and sustaining vibrant communities through participatory dance music and song. To find out more about their camps, affiliate services, other programs, and resources for music and dance throughout North America, visit cdss.org. Let’s get back to the show.

Chrissy Fowler 35:52
Oh my word. Just listening to the music. It just sends me to all these other places, because I’ve been listening to your music for just about all of my life as a person involved in the contra dance music and dance world. So, it’s just so great. And you’ve, you’ve been a lot of places with this music, right?

Becky Tracy 36:10
Hmm. Yeah.

David Cantieni 36:13
There was Guatemala.

Becky Tracy 36:14
There was Guatemala, that’s right. But the big, the big place that we’ve spent twenty, how many years?

Ann Percival 36:22
29.

Becky Tracy 36:23
This is coming up on 29.

Chrissy Fowler 36:24
Twenty-nine.

Becky Tracy 36:25
So the 29th year of being in St Croix is coming up. We’ve spent a week there, and it’s had a big influence on our, on our music. A really big influence.

Ann Percival 36:36
Yeah.

Becky Tracy 36:37
There’s, there’s a there’s a tradition down there. There’s the quelbe dancers, who dance similarly to how we dance. And then there are the bands.

David Cantieni 36:55
The roots of the music in St. Croix are similar to some of the roots of the music in New England.

Chrissy Fowler 37:01
That’s so crazy. That’s amazing,

David Cantieni 37:03
Some of the forms, well, the, it was the French, and the, but then there’s the African influence, in which

Becky Tracy 37:10
And there’s a lot of there’s a lot of whistle, there’s a lot of flute, rather, and a lot of sax. And that, and, of course, a lot of rhythm. And those elements started to seep into David’s playing, in our playing, Ann’s playing. We all were influenced by it. So we thought we might take you there, for a little bit. And into the writing. There’s a lot, so a lot of writing happened in St. Croix.

Chrissy Fowler 37:41
Tune writing?

Becky Tracy 37:42
Tune writing. So, the band was very kind to invite my husband, Keith Murphy, down to St. Croix. And Keith, who doesn’t doesn’t want to like lie on the beach, had to find some way of justifying his existence in St. Croix. And he would, he, early on, he created this challenge with David to write a tune every day.

Chrissy Fowler 38:11
Every day?

Becky Tracy 38:12
Every day

Ann Percival 38:12
And then play it at night.

Becky Tracy 38:14
Yeah, and at a certain point, it wasn’t like that at the beginning, but at a certain point, we had to start performing themthat evening.

David Cantieni 38:21
Yeah.

Becky Tracy 38:21
That became too much.

Ann Percival 38:23
It became a thing.

David Cantieni 38:24
We sort of don’t do that anymore.

Ann Percival 38:25
So we would say, we would be at the dance and we’d say, “Hey, hey, hey!” and all the dancers would say, “It’s the tune of the day!” And so they would know that we could be stumbling and falling.

Becky Tracy 38:36
Yeah, there were some pretty interesting times on the dance floor during that particular set.

All 38:38
Laughter

Becky Tracy 38:41
Let’s just say the missing beat was one of them.

Chrissy Fowler 38:44
I think I’ve heard that story.

David Cantieni 38:48
It was so funny.

Becky Tracy 38:48
Well we’re not going to play that now. We’re going to play a tune that Keith wrote, called Recreational Doctor.

Ann Percival 38:58
1234

music 38:58
(tune)

Chrissy Fowler 41:19
Oh my gosh. I just love the idea of doing, like, writing tunes in the Caribbean. But did you like sit down, like a, did you have like, a little desk that you sat in, to like do your composing?

David Cantieni 41:29
Well, we have a couple of favorite beaches.

Ann Percival 41:32
Tune writing beaches.

Chrissy Fowler 41:33
What? Oh my word.

David Cantieni 41:34
Tune writing beaches. That’s right. So I’ll take my whistle, or my, or or my, my bamboo that’s mostly taped up with duct tape, and take it to the beach. And it’s one of my

Becky Tracy 41:47
And I just, I can’t take a fiddle, so I take just my brain.

David Cantieni 41:52
Ooh.

Becky Tracy 41:52
It’s all I have.

Chrissy Fowler 41:52
Lucky you have it.

David Cantieni 41:54
Yeah.

Chrissy Fowler 41:56
So you try to like a tune every day like you did, like every day you had a new tune?

David Cantieni 41:59
Well, actually, yeah, and one day, I wrote three or something like that. But then, there was

Becky Tracy 42:03
And then you had a few days off.

David Cantieni 42:04
And then, that’s right, but then this one, I wrote as a jig one day, and then I modified it the next day. And Keith was not, well, you know, he needed to

Becky Tracy 42:16
He was just ribbing you.

David Cantieni 42:17
He needed to rib me

Chrissy Fowler 42:18
He’s got high standards, Keith Murphy does.

David Cantieni 42:20
Yes. And so we call it, he called me a lazy b__. And so this tune is

Ann Percival 42:25
This is it.

Becky Tracy 42:25
The Lazy B.

All 42:27
laughter

music 42:28
(tune)

George Marshall 42:28
When you’re trying to get into a tune, it’s a little bit like jump roping

Ann Percival 44:55
Or jumping on that, the thing that goes around

Becky Tracy 44:57
Yeah it’s like, jumping, jump roping, or

Chrissy Fowler 45:00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Becky Tracy 45:00
Like wait!

George Marshall 45:01
Wait!

David Cantieni 45:02
And then you start to

George Marshall 45:03
And if you focus on the rope

Chrissy Fowler 45:07
Yes.

George Marshall 45:08
Then all you see is the rope

Chrissy Fowler 45:09
Yes! Getting into a revolving door.

George Marshall 45:13
Yeah.

Chrissy Fowler 45:13
Getting getting on one of those, like an escalator when you’re with a small child, on an escalator

Ann Percival 45:18
Yes

David Cantieni 45:18
Mhm.

Ann Percival 45:18
Oh yeah.

Chrissy Fowler 45:19
But then once you’re on it, man, the joy. And sometimes just the waiting is amazing.

All 45:28
Laughter

Chrissy Fowler 45:28
That was so good.

Becky Tracy 45:28
So, the other, so, the other thing that happened in St. Croix, the, we talked about the influences, and there was also song influences.

David Cantieni 45:37
Oh.

Becky Tracy 45:37
And so Ann has a beautiful story about a song that we started incorporating for dancing that’s just, it’s just about, you know, what we’re, what we feel about the dance, really, and yeah.

Ann Percival 45:50
Yeah, and yeah, we’ll play a little, I mean, we’ll add a

Chrissy Fowler 45:56
You have a recording of it right? On your, on your, is it a live double album?

David Cantieni 45:59
It is.

Becky Tracy 45:59
Yeah,

George Marshall 45:59
It’s “Live at the Guiding Star Grange.” It’s a double CD set.

Chrissy Fowler 46:03
Oh yeah. That’s really great.

Ann Percival 46:04
So one year in St Croix, Gus was maybe what eight?

David Cantieni 46:09
Our son.

Ann Percival 46:10
Our son, Gus, is eight, and there was this man named Jamesie. And he used to be one of the leaders of one of the bands that we, that George would have come over and play for us. And we just sort of, I mean, he really, really liked Gus. And so, after the dance weeks, often, David and I would go and stay at this place called Cottages by the Sea. And Jamesie was, he was there. And he would get free lodging for sweeping, sweeping the paths, because they get very sandy. And so, one night it was raining, and he, he stays in this little, I don’t know what you’d call it. It’s not even as big as a container.

George Marshall 46:54
It’s a mini tiny home.

David Cantieni 46:56
It’s a mini shed, yeah, right.

Ann Percival 46:57
A little shed where he has a tiny, you know, he’s got a bed in there. And he invited us to come in and hang out with him. And all you needed to do was bring a bottle of white rum and some seven up and you’re in like Flynn. And so we went in there, and he sang songs for us, and I recorded them, and that’s where we came by Enjoy Yourself. And so now, I mean, it turns out Guy Lombardi recorded it, like tons of people recorded it, but I had never heard it. And the chorus is: “Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think. Enjoy yourself while you’re still in the pink. The years go by as quickly as a wink. Enjoy yourself. Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.” And you know, as we all age, that becomes more and more

Chrissy Fowler 47:44
Relevant, yes.

Ann Percival 47:45
Relevant for all of us.

David Cantieni 47:46
And these times, you know.

Chrissy Fowler 47:47
Top of mind.

Ann Percival 47:48
So here is our dance set with the song incorporated, and it’s very fun to dance to, I’m told.

Chrissy Fowler 47:57
And this is from Live at the Guiding Star Grange, the double album.

Becky Tracy 48:00
Actually, I know that it’s very fun to dance to.

Ann Percival 48:02
Oh that’s right!

Becky Tracy 48:03
Last year in the Caribbean

Ann Percival 48:06
Becky broke her arm, and so she couldn’t play, so we had to get a sub for her, but she got to dance to us.

Becky Tracy 48:15
It was the best!

Chrissy Fowler 48:16
It’s like having your cake.

Becky Tracy 48:17
It’s the first time I had danced to the band since I was, since they were, you know, interested in me as a, as a fiddle player, and I went to one of their dances thinking

Chrissy Fowler 48:29
It’s like pre-dating

Becky Tracy 48:32
Yeah.

Chrissy Fowler 48:32
That’s so nice and then, um

George Marshall 48:34
But the story about how we met Becky shouldn’t be left out.

Chrissy Fowler 48:44
Shouldn’t be left out?

George Marshall 48:46
Yeah.

Ann Percival 48:39
So, yeah. So here’s my Becky Tracy story. Kerry was moving on to another place. Sue

David Cantieni 48:47
Sue and Sam were moving on.

Ann Percival 48:49
And then, Sue and Sam played with us for a while, then Sue and Sam were moving on. And we were kind of like, okay, we need a fiddler now. We need another fiddler. We need a good fiddler. And so, there I was in bed one night, and I get a phone call from a pay phone, because, you know, a pay phone. And it was Stuart Kenney, our then bass player, and he called and said, “You need to come to the grange right now.” Like, I’m like, in bed, it’s 10 o’clock. I’m in my pajamas. So I’m like, what? He goes, “No, you need to hear this fiddler. You probably have never heard of her. Her name is Becky Tracy.” I’m like, “I have no idea who that is.” And he’s like, “Come now.” So I got in my car. I put on some, like, stretch pants over my pajama bottoms, and I drove to the grange, and I snuck in, and I sat right by the door. And then, did someone, someone noticed that I was there, I think. Right?

Becky Tracy 49:54
Yes. Yeah. So, Mary Cay Brass was, is saying, “What’s she doing here? She’s in her pajamas. Why is she here?” And I had no idea who they were talking about. Like what’s g-

George Marshall 50:06
And Mary Cay Brass is a, was the piano player in the band that Becky was playing with.

Chrissy Fowler 50:10
Who were you playing with?

Becky Tracy 50:09
I was playing with the Greenfield Dance Band.

David Cantieni 50:11
Dance Band.

Chrissy Fowler 50:11
Okay.

George Marshall 50:12
So that’s David Kaynor’s

Chrissy Fowler 50:12
Okay. David Kaynor’s band. Yep, yep.

Ann Percival 50:14
Yeah.

Becky Tracy 50:14
Yeah. And so. So here I am on stage, hearing this muttering, going, who are they talking about? You know, what is going on here?

Ann Percival 50:26
Yeah, so that’s how we found Becky.

George Marshall 50:27
Ann was head hunting.

Chrissy Fowler 50:28
Head hunting!

Becky Tracy 50:28
Ann was head hunting. And then she, you know, so she talked to me and, and she said, you know, do you want to, like, come up and play with us a little bit at our house? So what they did is they, they had a party, and then they invited all their friends to kind of check me out. It was so hilarious.

Chrissy Fowler 50:49
It’s worse than the grandparents checking out your future spouse!

Becky Tracy 50:53
Yeah. So that was my audition.

Ann Percival 50:59
She passed with flying colors. And the rest is history.

George Marshall 51:03
And it was 20 something. How many years? 20 something?

Becky Tracy 51:04
Oh, it’s longer than the Caribbean. So,

Ann Percival 51:07
Yeah.

George Marshall 51:07
So it’s like 30

Becky Tracy 51:08
30 years. Is that right? Oh, my gosh.

Ann Percival 51:11
We’re really a lot younger than you think we are.

Chrissy Fowler 51:13
You started playing when you were very, very young.

Ann Percival 51:16
We were very young when we started. Oh yeah.

Chrissy Fowler 51:17
You look at those pictures, and ooh, you’re babies.

David Cantieni 51:19
We were.

George Marshall 51:20
I realized that I’ve been doing sound reinforcement for over 50 years, because I started when I was in high school, running a video program for a retirement community. And so I would run ca- I would run video cameras, and I would do sound and record pro- radio shows, like this, for the, for the retirement community.

Ann Percival 51:42
Wow.

Chrissy Fowler 51:43
Unbelievable.

Becky Tracy 51:44
And we’re just

George Marshall 51:45
We’re old now.

Chrissy Fowler 51:47
But you know, you’re you’re definitely

George Marshall 51:49
No, we’re not old. We just have a lot of experience.

Chrissy Fowler 51:51
A lot of experience.

Ann Percival 51:53
And we have a lot of wisdom

Chrissy Fowler 51:53
And exactly, elder statesmen, as it were, statespeople, elder, yeah, lots to share. And the beautiful thing, and that’s the beautiful thing about this kind of music and dance, is that you can do it for a very long time, or you can just start right out. It spans all the generations.

Ann Percival 52:05
It does.

Chrissy Fowler 52:07
It’s so good. Well, we’re just kind of winding down our time. I just love the stories, and especially like a story of a local, a local person giving you inspiration for music that you then bring back up to the Guiding Star Grange.

Ann Percival 52:26
Mhm.

Chrissy Fowler 52:35
Who was this person again?

George Marshall 52:28
It’s Jamesie Brewster. And he was a Virgin Islands treasure. A big proponent of quelbe music, which is what they used for the quadrille dancing. And when we got to St. Croix, the very first time, we realized that they had a contra dance like tradition on the island, and that was quadrille. And the dances, if you’re a contra dancer, you’d recognize that one of their formations they use is a giant Becket formation dance. And so you have your partner next to you, and you’re facing another couple across the way. And there are couples all down the sides. And the calls are all in French. But Jamesie was really well-respected. And part of the reason that he had that cottage was that uh that was kind of his retirement plan, is he had a place to stay, and he was welcome. And people really loved him, and for good reason.

Chrissy Fowler 53:11
Like a local cultural icon, kind of?

George Marshall 53:16
Yes.

David Cantieni 53:17
He wrote a lot of songs, and there is a tradition, maybe associated with Calypso, because Calypso is also a sort of a history kind of thing. And he wrote these songs. A lot of them were dirty, but some of them were about historic things too.

Chrissy Fowler 53:42
Wow, wow. Such a gift. Well, I really, really appreciate you coming and playing and talking, and definitely coming and playing for our dance. We hope it happens again.

music 53:51
(tune)

Chrissy Fowler 59:53
Thank you for listening to the Flying Shoes Radio Hour Podcast. Go to cdss.org/podcasts, for show notes for today’s episode, where you’ll find info on the musicians and the tunes, a transcript of this show, and links to other CDSS podcast episodes. Thank you to Great Meadow Music for the use of tunes from the album Green Mountain by Mary Cay Brass and friends. Please note that the views expressed in this podcast are of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect those of CDSS, Belfast Flying Shoes or WBFY. This podcast is produced by Ben Williams, Kathleen Wing, and me, Chrissy Fowler. Until next time, keep on supporting community music, community dance, community radio, and especially your local community arts organizations, who, like the Country Dance & Song Society and Belfast Flying Shoes, help sustain musical traditions like these.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai