NEW AMERICAN POLKA MARTIN AND PAUL

The New American Polka
I first came across this vaudeville polka when I accompanied fiddler Gerry O'Connor during his promotional CD tour last year. Gerry said he learnt this wonderful tune from the playing of Jean Carrignan, the great Québécois fiddler and recorded it on his most recent solo album ‘Last night’s Joy’. This technically difficult Polka was part of a track called Stereo Connor, which featured Gerry on fiddle and the other Gerry O’Connor on banjo, with Seámie O’Dowd on guitar.
Paul Archer unlike Gerry learnt his version from the influential playing of John Kimmel (aka the Irish Dutchman), the great German/American box player who was a favourite of the New York music hall scene in the 1920’s. Here PAUL does the accompanying honours playing both vamp guitar and piano as well as lead fiddle, whilst this time I play banjo. This again will feature in the forthcoming repertoir of Archer Matthews Russell........whenever we are able to return to live gigs with an audience that is.