Ron Penix
Autoharp, Guitar, Fiddle, Guitaro, Hammered Dulcimer, Mountain Dulcimer, Bass, Banjo, Keyboards, Mouth Bow, Mandolin, Vocals
From the Carryin' On CD liner notes:
The Left Handed Capricorns, consisting of Ron Penix, Gary Walton, and Kevin Mulloney, prove that necessity really is the mother of invention. Collectively, we play about anything with strings, some instruments better than others. I had been teaching people to play their stringed instruments since the early 60's, teaching just enough theory to make them understand why they had to adhere to the laws of written music. This continued until 1994 when, after several open heart surgeries, I quit teaching.
Two years ago, the friend who had been supplying my student flow called to refer a young man eager to learn Old Time banjo and after seeing the intensity of Gary's approach to music, I agreed to help him. In these 2 years, he has gone from frailing, to drop thumb, to a melodic clawhammer playing style so similar to mine that the only way to tell which one of us is picking is: he doesn't make mistakes. Gary Walton and that eager student are one and the same. He is also our lead singer.
We decided to enter the Old Time band competition at the local Fiddler's Convention in '98. We needed a guitar player! Six weeks before the contest, Gary's friend Kevin Mulloney, who had been playing electric rock (shudder!!) agreed to help us. We tamed him enough to win 2nd place. He grew to like Old Time music and stayed with us. Now, he not only supplies the rhythm, but flat picks our fiddle tunes note for note and that, along with the fiddle and banjo sharing equal leads, is the sound we are trying to project. He sings, too! And that's how we came into being. The irony is: purely by chance, we are all left handed Capricorns. On this record, we're just being our true selves.
...Back to the Fiddler's convention...we still had 2 problems: we didn't sing and we didn't have a fiddler. In February before the June contest, both Gary and I bought fiddles. Mine is a Roth, his didn't have a name but it's a beautiful instrument. Both are heard here. I subsequently, and true to my nature, have picked up an Amati, a Maginni and a Strad copy--but I still fall back on the Roth. I said to myself, "I've got to be foolish to try to learn to fiddle at my age and with my problems", but after wearing out 3 bows, I finally learned to saw the bow instead of pound the fingerboard with it. Two years later, this is what evolved. So, now we have a fiddler but still, no singer.
Although I've been blessed all my life with an excellent ear for pitch and a voice that could match that pitch, I'm the 1st to admit that after the surgeries I sound like a frog with croup when I sing. The only reason I sing, now, is to show somebody a melody sequence. I figured that since Gary's speaking voice had a nasal resonance, his singing voice would be the same. I was pleased to find that it did, but his natural range was high and he couldn't carry a tune. Even though I couldn't sing myself, I dedicated the next 6 weeks to teaching Gary to sing the lead vocal and Kevin to sing a harmony. The 2nd place finish did something to both of them because now I have to work to keep up with them. They switch vocal leads at will and sing with confidence.
From the outset, I told them that the only thing they would get out of me would be Old Time Traditional music. Still today, Gary, seemingly without knowing, segues into his favorite of the day Doc Watson tune and Kevin still tries to sneak a heavy metal run into his flatpick break but they have both picked my brain of everything I've learned about Old Time music, soaked it up like a sponge and they still want more. I have to work to keep up with them now. For the last year, I've been handing down all the old tunes, styles, arrangements , methods and playing styles that I picked up starting more than 50 years ago from kind-hearted mentors that not only shared their music with me, but taught me to teach myself. One of those mentors was Maybelle Carter and you will detect her influence on my playing style on all of my work on this project. The guitar that I play here is my 1927 L-5 Gibson arch top--still not a scratch on it. The autoharp is a 15 chord New Golden Autoharp that Maybelle gave me back in '75.
The further we get into this recording, the more you will notice that I'm doing less and they're doing more. That's how it should be when you're HANDING DOWN tradition. The future of the music I've loved so long is CARRYING ON and is in good hands. The joy is in the knowing. The last cut is even better proof of our reason for this recording. I spend most my days, now, trying to keep 2 tunes ahead of these fine Old Time musicians, Occasionally, I throw out a tid-bit of information that I withheld from their brain picking---just to keep it interesting.
All the traditional tunes are done in the traditional key, except Grand River. We like it better in A than in D. Music will seep into your soul if you let it--and you'll be better off. To that effect, we've dished you up an extra large helping. Enjoy! It's hard to believe 3 people could make such a clamor, but we did--Kevin and I worked overtime.