Fiddlin' Contest

Seventeen fiddlers from Georgia and Alabama gathered to compete in the fifth annual fiddle contest for cash prizes of $200, $100, and $75. Out of the open sides of the Camp Creek Tabernacle the woods of Westville rang with Devil’s Dream, Maiden’s Prayer, Ashokan Farewell, Old Joe Clark, Dogwood Winter, Beaumont Rag, Whistler’s Waltz, Ragtime Annie, Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me, The Sweet By and By, Tennessee Waltz, Westphalia Waltz, Bonaparte’s Retreat, Mellisa’s Waltz, Boil them Cabbage Down, Waltz of the Knoxville Girl, Black Mountain Rag, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, Back Up and Push, Sally Gooden, How Great Thou Art, Sally Ann, Amazing Grace, Fifty-Year Waltz, Cold Frosty Morning, Cripple Creek, and The Eighth of January.
Nearly 500 visitors came to hear the contest. From a talented pool of fiddlers in the contest at the Tabernacle, judges Tom and Frank Maloy from Tifton, and Lomax Austin from Columbus picked the top three qualifiers and called them back for to compete for the cash prizes.
In the qualifying round Jack Goodson of Eufaula, Alabama played Tennessee Waltz and Back Up and Push. In the final round he took third place with Faded Love.
Janie Weise of Columbus,Georgia, in her first competition ever, qualified with Devil’s Dream and Maiden’s Prayer. She took second prize with Ashokan Farewell. Janie is a classically trained violinist who played for ten years with the Alabama Symphony in Birmingham and five years with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. "I have great admiration for fiddlers who play by ear," she said. "I could teach them to read music in a year, but it will take me a lifetime to learn to improvise as they do." Janie currently runs Academy Music (1342 13th Street) in Columbus, where she teaches 40 students, repairs violins, and sells instruments. Beginning this September, she will open the shop for free every second Sunday at 2 p.m. for a jam. After he qualified with Beaumont Rag and Whistler’s Waltz, top honors went to Scott Johnson of Conyers, Georgia with Rubber Dolly. Scott took up the violin in the 6th grade, after his father balked at the idea of hauling around his first choice, a stand-up bass. He played violin in the school orchestra for a couple of years. One night his dad, a keyboard player, whistled Cotton-eyed Joe, and before the night was over, Scott picked it up by ear, as well as Rocky Top and Orange Blossom Special. The next day he bought books and tapes and eventually got a teacher to show him licks and techniques. He played bluegrass tunes with a guitarist for awhile at nursing homes and VFWs then learned Western swing and eventually new country.
The Westville contest was Scott’s fourth competition. In his first, in Wimberly, Texas, he took third prize of three contestants. In his second, a famous contest in Halletsville, Texas, with sixty fiddlers, he didn’t place in the top four. But in 1999 in the North Georgia Fiddlers Contest in Hiawasee, he took third place.
Scott has played several times with the Charlie Daniels Band on tour in Georgia and once in Ft. Worth, including once playing a 35-minute rendition of Orange Blossom Special. Currently working in heating and air-conditioning with his uncle, Scott is considering moving back to Texas to play professionally.
We are happy to report that Scott heard about the Westville contest on our web site.
Frank and Joe Maloy, two of our judges this year, started playing music shortly before World War II. Originally from Milan, Georgia in Telfair County, Frank took up the fiddle and Joe the guitar initially to play in The Merrymakers band with their mother, who played piano and guitar and was a professional dancer in a vaudeville show called the O'Brian’s Family Show. Over the years Frank and Joe played with Charlie Dowdy and the Prairie Boys and Amos Steverson and the Dixie Dewboys, among others. In the 1950s they played on Macon’s WMAZ television with Uncle Ned and the Hayloft Jamboree.
For several years Frank has transcribed fiddle tunes for the North American Fiddler’s Newsletter, including traditional tunes, fiddler Arthur Smith tunes, and swing tunes from the 1940s like Black-eyed Susan Brown. For the past seven years, Frank and Joe have organized a fiddlers’ jam at the Agrirama in Tifton.
This year at Westville, in addition to the fiddle contest, in a second location visitors enjoyed the Wildwood Bluegrass Band band. Initially secured by Westville employee Albert Welsh for the Fourth of July, the band returned for its second appearance. An eight-piece string band with fiddle, mandolin, banjo, bass, guitars and singers, they played under the cedar trees by the Stewart County Academy before and after the 2 p.m. fiddle contest. At closing time the Academy was still full of satisfied listeners. Periodically, two-time clogging champion at the Hiawasee, Georgia competition, Paul Shelnutt from Woodland, Alabama, dusted his clogging platform and ripped out some buck dancing.
Westville’s annual fiddle contest continues to grow.