The Hammer Dulcimer in the 1970's Pittsburgh Music and Dance Scene
Pittsburgh was a great place to learn to play folk music in the 1970’s. A well-storied community of budding musicians and dancers learned the Appalachian traditions of peers and old-timers from West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Young people bought instruments from two stores, North Country Music in Wexford, run by CW Abbot and Bob Hutchinson and The Music Emporium run by Stu Cohen.
Stu Cohen with Ernie Hawkins at the Shadyside store in the 1970’s
Music parties connected college students to established musicians like Richard Hughes, Walter Scott and Dwayne Thorpe. George Balderose had house concerts at Calliope House. The Pittsburgh Folk Arts Cooperative started the Smoky City Folk Festival in 1977. That year I was practicing and learning tunes everyday with members of my band Devilish Merry. We played in various live music venues, including Caz’s Café, Wobblie Joe’s, Frankie Gustine’s and The Portfolio. Individuals and soon an incorporated Calliope produced concerts and my instrument was well represented with John McCutcheon and Malcolm Dalglish coming to town.
Devilish Merry at Calliope House
Bruce Privratsky made my first hammer dulcimer. He was from Appalachia, Virginia where I spent the summer after freshmen year in college teaching photography at the art center there. Bruce taught music and I audited his classes. When I came back to Pittsburgh I found hammer dulcimers were in West Virginia, players like Bob Shank of Hickory Wind and Sam Herrman of Critton Hollow String Band. But I learned from other players on other instruments. I play solo sometimes now, but my musical education was ensemble based, where I learned music generally from other musicians. I also learned patience and new communication skills to make my instrument blend into a whole sound. Ron Buchanan, Tina Fink, Bob Stein, Sue Powers and Matt Neiburger of Buckdancer’s Choice got me started. Then Sue Powers, Larry Edelman, LE McCullough and Jan (Hamilton) Sota of Devilish Merry really helped me buckle down. We released “The Ghost of His Former Self” on Wildebeest Records in 1979. McCullough’s tune and the album title say it all, as I look back on those Pittsburgh days. New hammer dulcimer players sprang up. George Balderose built dulcimers and Janet (Silnutzer) Reing played one of them.
Janet and Mike Reing with the Deer Creek String Band
Catherine Hess bought my first dulcimer when a new one arrived made by Dennis Dorogi. Catherine played with Carole Norulak, another hammer dulcimer player in Queen Anne’s Lace.
Queens Ann's Lace
Both Carole and singer Jan Boyd played a Dorgi instrument at that time. Jan Boyd was a founding member of the Pittsburgh folk group Common Threads.
My Dorogi played well though the recording of the 2005 Devilish Merry CD “Beauty Is Everywhere” but soon after I acquired my current instrument, built by James Jones.
The value of the Pittsburgh traditional folk scene to me is immeasurable. We taught each other in music sessions after concerts, band rehearsals, parties, parties, parties and regular places to gig. I do not see that so much in Pittsburgh any more. The dance community is strong. But I have still to find a Pittsburgh music community today that is strong as it was in that era. Prove me wrong, I have heard about the Steel City Squares!
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