Walt Koken

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Walt Koken (born October 9, 1946 in Columbia , Missouri ) is an American banjo and fiddle player and singer who contributed significantly to the American revival of old-time music in the 1960s.

Act

Koken began playing the banjo in the late 1950s, using the clawhammer style, in which the strings of the banjo are plucked downwards with the back of your fingers. Since the mid-1960s he has been a member of the Busted Toe Mudthumpers with George Dorian (fiddle), Marty Lebenson ( jaw harp ), Jeff Thorn , John Coster or Bob Pine (guitar) and Larry Marshall (banjo). The group toured Canada and the San Francisco area in 1968 until Pine and Dorian were killed in a car accident.

Koken then went to California and founded the Fat City String Band with Mac Benford and Bob Potts in 1970 , with whom he toured the east coast of the United States . In 1971 he re-founded the Mudthumpers in Ithaca with Doug Dorschug and Jennifer Cleland . In the 1990s Koken began to record his music - after a long break, the album Banjonique was released by Rounder in 1994 - and founded the label Mudthumper Music . In 2001 he met Clara Milliner , and with her and the guitarists and banjo players Kellie Allen and Pete Peterson he founded Orpheus Supertone . In the Milliner - Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes , he and Clare Milliner published over 1400 traditional pieces for the fiddle. In 2012 the album Sittin 'in the Catbird's Seat was released . He also released the DVD Slo-Mo Banjo , which gives an overview of his playing techniques.

Fonts

  • Clare Milliner & Walt Koken: The Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes . Kennett Square, PA: Mudthumper Music, 2011.

literature

  • Malcolm Smith: Livin 'old-time with Walt Koken and Clare Milliner . In: Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine 54 (3) 2011. pp. 60-65

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Banjo Newsletter: Sittin 'in the Catbird's Seat
  2. ↑ Banjo Newsletter: Review: Slo-Mo Banjo DVD by Walt Koken
personal data
SURNAME Koken, Walt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American fiddler, banjo player, and singer
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Columbia , Missouri