Interview

This is a small part of an interview with Joe Griffin, guitar player with the Sunday Night Jammers, done at 5pm on 10/19.

Hope: Alright. Here goes. Okay. So when did you join the Jammers?

Joe: I would say the official date was the Fourth of July party at Camilla’s house in 07. I had just gone to one of their potlucks and they invited me to come along and I didn’t bring an instrument but they did some jamming there and after that I started going Sundays very regularly…

Hope: So you’d known the people before you knew— you started in the group?

Joe: Not that well, because I’d only started contra dancing that same year,
like that maybe March, that same year. For a few years they’d been running an ad in local weekly newspaper for Rehoboth and I didn’t know what contra dancing was but was curious enough one Friday things lined up and I just went there and take a look at it. And didn’t know what to expect. I was probably a little bit overdressed. And I saw one girl, who looked like she knew what she was doing, so I did one dance and then I said to myself I’d go the library and try to get a book about contra dancing.
So I left. Shawn tried to get me to stay, take somebody with interest in, and I said “I’ll be back at another time.” Got three books out of the library—totally useless—so I just went back and I jumped into it after that. Went fine. So that’s when I started meeting those people more and more. Heard about the Jam sessions and that’s about when I started trying to play the guitar too. Well, that’s only half true. When I was about—I used to love music when I was a kid: my family wasn’t that musical and I think
I was thirteen years old and I saved my money $20 for Sears catalogue, mail-order guitar, and I got that when I was not with anybody. We lived in Little Compton, kind of by ourselves, so I, you know, and it never went far. I think some people learn by themselves, but it’s more difficult. You know, I’d put it away for years, and eventually
with the Jammers and these other folks up in Concord I've gotten —just working with other people is, makes a difference to me, that I stick with it, and I get—learn a lot from them and makes it a difference to me or I would never do it. Some people do and I think they deserve a lot of credit for it; could be they just have more innate ability than I do or maybe they just have more time…

Hope: Yeah. I started playing violin in a public school program and switched
to private lessons a year later, but it was never something I would have started on my own I don’t think. Though I always remember wanting to play.

Joe: Yeah.

Hope: Yeah. So tell me about the other group in Concord.

Joe: Oh, okay. Yeah. It’s called Roaring Jelly. Which is sort of a nickname for
an explosive they used to use in the early 20th century--

Hope: Nice!

Joe: A detonator—there’s actually three bands named Roaring Jelly, one in Arizona,
this one and one which is since disbanded over in England. So if you’re looking for the website I’ll send you the link to the right one. And they’re open: you can play at dances with them after you’ve gone to two practices

Hope: Really?

Joe: Yeah, and you know yourself I’m not any great guitarist so you know I mean I go to their third Friday dances and other occasional gigs that they do. They’re different from Rehoboth in some ways they’re much more structured. There’s a bandleader, Deb Knight, who’s in several contra bands, plays the violin and the piano, and she’s good. Not only talented musician but a good leader of the group. And she stands up there and leads and you do what she says and you do it her way. Which is just the opposite of the Jammers where everything’s by committee.

Hope: Yes! Yeah…

Joe: And they’re both good! They both have it good points and in this way I get them both. Uh, they have a CD um and…Let’s see...they have—they’ve been in existence for over thirty years and so a lot of people have passed through, you know it gets…Like for me it’s a long commute and I don’t know how long I’ll stick with it. But the carrot is you get to play at the New England Folk Festival, it must be end March or early April, the Friday opener and for me that’s a big carrot! I don’t know why; I’m not usually like looking for that kind of thing, but I just get a kick out of the whole thing. And good people, just like Rehoboth. People who I find easy to get along with, not trying to manipulate you all the time, things like that just seem to stick with it so far, with that community. And if you look on the web there are other open bands that I hope to be able to progress to…My main goal is small contra band. And you have to be able to do that by ear, you know the real bands—you’ve seen

Hope: The real: without the music?

Joe: Yeah, without the sheet music. Roaring Jelly, like the Jammers—both use sheet music

Hope: Ah, okay

Joe: Which saves me because

Hope: Yes

Joe:I haven’t got to that point. That’s a goal too, that I want to be able to at least
have the songs memorized like from the Portland Collection, and the more popular things like that, and eventually just playing backup. Which—I honestly think is more difficult sometimes—I can remember the melodies to a lot these tunes

Hope: Yes

Joe: but the chord sequences

Hope: Yeah

Joe: It’s tough. A lot of people, somehow, mysteriously to me, like Camilla—she knows the melody, she knows what cord to play.

Hope: That’s so amazing. Like, I felt really badly at the last Sunday session because I
kept picking these tunes with no chords and she would just go with it

Joe: Yeah

Hope: So amazing.

Joe: Yeah. And she told me like a rational way to do it, looking at the notes and all,
but it would take me a half hour or so—it’d be over a long time ago. But I try with the Portland Collection right now, if you have that

Hope: I don’t.

Joe: Oh, it’s—if you get into this thing, in fact I have both the books and what I was going to say, they have two CDs, select songs, a sample from all the different styles, with piano backup and guitar. And I spend hours and hours playing along with that and I still use the book in front of me for most of it, but what I get through, I get through it without the book. And that’s progress! I’m 59, so I have to hurry, you know? But it’s just something you know, I should’ve, I wish I’d…dunno…I don’t want to say regret, but kind of. It seems to be--it’d be good if I’d started a long time ago.