Leftwich, Higginbotham, and Ritchie Hiawatha Music Festival Performance (1984-07-21)

Leftwich, Higginbotham, and Ritchie specialize in playing Appalachian mountain music. They learned the tunes or arrangements via the oral tradition, thus keeping alive a method of learning which has endured for centuries but is in danger of perishing due to the advance of recording. Brad Leftwich and Linda Higginbotham were a fiddle and banjo folk duo from Indiana. Guitarist Mark Ritchie joined them occasionally for performances. Brad was born in 1953 in Oklahoma. Besides his recordings with his wife Linda, he has also performed and recorded with Plank Road Stringband; The Humdingers; Tom, Brad, and Alice; and the Hogwire Stringband. He is also known as a banjo and fiddle teacher and musicologist. Linda Higginbotham is a banjo and banjo-ukelele player. Like Brad, she comes from a musical family. She is knowledgeable about the folk music of Indiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas. Nothing could be found on Mark Ritchie. The sound quality of this recording is very poor.