The Hoosier Hotcakes
Mitch & Eileen Rice

Our first album "Fresh from the Market" is now available from us, or at TD's CD's & LPs and Bloomingfoods East. Here is an mp3 of the song Gray Cat on a Tennessee Farm from the album (2.8MB). We recorded at studio V here in Bloomington. To get a feel for our live performance you can view some photos taken by our friend Kevin Atkins at the Bloomington Farmers' Market. We enjoy playing for festivals, reunions, house parties, weddings, and anywhere our downhome family-friendly music is needed. I play banjo, guitar, baritone ukulele, harmonica and sing lead. Eileen plays her wide variety of limberjacks and sings harmony on our extensive selection of roots music. Here are the words Mitch's latest song written for Bloomingfoods Kirkwood store, Down in the Alley.

Joe Dawson is a local fiddler who first learned from his father while growing up in the Salt Creek valley. His unusual versions of common tunes and unique fingering make Joe's tunes a great resource for roots music.

Lotus Dickey

Lotus was a good friend, and I was lucky to have seconded him on guitar or banjo while he played fiddle for dances and parties. His spirit lives on in the music and life truths he taught us. The Lotus site was my first try at web design, back in 1995.
The Lotus Dickey Hometown Reunion is now the largest music gathering in Southern Indiana. I've was MC and Webmaster for this annual event on the square in Paoli, Indiana, for the past five years.

The PCB Blues is an album I produced in 1991 to highlight the community's feelings about the planned PCB incinerator. Fifteen area songwriters offered their talents and there are 16 tunes, now in available for download in MP3 format. Performers include Metamora, Michael White, Ion Man, the Dead Beats, and the Hotcakes.

Highway 69 Revisited My second attempt at songwriting after the PCB Blues, this was written in 1994 to highlight the problems with the new terrain I-69 forced on the people by Indiana Dept. of Transportation.

For couple of years, Eileen and I played with Jake Krack, with Dara on guitar. From Jake I learned dozens of tunes from the West Virginia fiddling traditions of Melvin Wine, Lester McCumbers and Bobby Taylor. I created his original website.. I did some of my best five-string playing with Jake, his intensity, focus and friendliness made playing with him a real pleasure.

Morris Dancing

Eileen and I have been Morris Dancing for the past five years, here is a picture of us on May Day 2000 in front of Pygmalian's here in Bloomington. We practice from Jan-May, with the majority of our performances in May, though we always dance for the closing of th Farmer's Market in October, wearing black instead of our traditional whites. We dance in the tradition of Fieldtown (England), using sticks (to wake the earth) and hankies (to invoke the wind and rain), while the stomping of our feet brings fertility and growth to Southern Indiana.

Interesting Music Links
Henry Reed Collection
John & Ruby Lomax Collection
Digital Tradition library of song lyrics.
Folk Music Index
www.1001tunes.com
Joe Busard's Vintage 78's

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