Vivian Williams is well known in the U.S. and Canada for her fiddling ability. She has won many contests in both countries and is one of the leading old time and bluegrass fiddlers on the West Coast. Phil performs on guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle, bass, and plays just about anything with strings on it. He has published a collection of fiddle tunes for the mandolin under the title The Mandolin Player's Pastime. Phil and Vivian own and operate Voyager Recordings and Publications, which has released recordings of over 85 fiddlers. They helped found the Seattle Folklore Society, Northwest Folklife, and the Washington Old Time Fiddlers Association.
Pioneer Dance Tunes of the Far West
The Williamses present tunes danced to in pioneer times in the Far West from the 1850s to the 1880s, along with often hilarious accounts of dances from pioneer journals and interviews, stories about the tunes, and illustrations and description of dances done to the tunes. The program is based on historical research over the past several years, the Williamses' background doing pioneer dances growing up the in the Pacific Northwest, and their personal acquaintance with pioneer dance fiddlers from whom they learned to play. The tunes are played on fiddle, guitar, jew's harp, and fiddlestix.
