Jigging with the Porch Stompers

When Merle Hall, the banjo player for The Porch Stompers, first came to Iowa State University in Ames, he had no idea of finding a musical niche. Much like Dylan finding Odetta records in Dinkytown, Hall found Pete Seeger’s book on how to play the five-string banjo in a neighborhood bookstore. He paid a buck thirty five, took the book home, and read it from beginning to end.

A couple of weeks later, he went searching for an instrument. “This was pre-‘Deliverance,’ and no music stores carried them,” said Hall in a recent phone interview. That movie and its signature, “Dueling Banjos” theme revived interest in the instrument in the early 70s.

Hall was about to order a banjo from a catalogue at a music store, when the proprietor decided to search his attic. He brought down an old Sears banjo. and promptly sold it to Hall for $25. “He gave me all the parts to make it playable and he sent me home with it for $25,” Hall added.

That first instrument has long since been laid aside. Hall bought better ones and even built a few himself. He met local acoustic players at UI at the Wednesday Night Candle Show, a coffeehouse in the cafeteria of one of the dorms. Hall connected with a banjo player who mentored him in claw hammer and three-finger style. “I learned a lot from him, and we played a lot together for the next several years,” Hall said.

While Hall established himself in business (he’s currently a systems information manager with Pioneer Hybrid), he played with several Iowa acoustic bands. His longest gig was with The Barn Owls who played regularly for the Central Iowa Barn Dance Association that started having dances in 1991.

He came to the Porch Stompers by invitation in 2002. “I’d been playing with the Barn Owls for quite a while and I ran into Alice McGary, the Porch Stomper’s fiddle player, and she invited me to come play one night,” Hall explained. “I showed up at her house and there was a girl playing guitar and a girl on the bass…Alice was trying to recruit other people to play with.” But a year or two later, the guitar and bass players left. Rick Exner was recruited to play guitar and Nate Kemperman became the bass player and a second fiddler.

Currently, the Porch Stompers play a mix of Old Time, some folk and country, and dance tunes from Canada and Ireland. “It all sort of gets categorized into Barn Dance,” Hall said. Their style is their own, but they try to keep true to the danceable portions of their music.

They work closely with the local caller. “It’s usually with someone who understands the music and we understand what they’re trying to do. Most of the callers are people who do barn dances and contra dance events so they’re familiar with the music. The only difference in the bands is that they may know different tunes. The caller really has complete control. They give you a tempo. They’ll tell you it’s a jig or it has to be 4/4 square tune. It can be a crooked tune.” Hall explained that crooked tunes often had extra measures or parts so that the dance has to be able to accommodate that.

Hall and the Porch Stompers have played dances up in Grand Forks for the North Country Fiddle and Dance and have worked closely with Jeanne O’Neill who will be calling the dance at the Senior Center in Grand Forks on Saturday April 26.

When the Porch Stompers do their concert at Elements Coffeehouse in Fargo, the night before the dance, they will still do some fiddle tunes, but will do more vocals. “Mostly Alice and Rick sing,” Hall said. “The kind of things that they do are things that they really enjoy singing, usually some old country tune.

If You Go

WHAT: The Porch Stompers in concert
WHERE: Elements Coffeehouse, 1201 13th Ave N, Fargo
WHEN: Friday night, April 25
INFO: (701) 232-2587

WHAT: Porch Stompers w/Jeanne O’Neill, concert and dance.
WHERE: Senior Center, 620 4th Ave S, Grand Forks
WHEN: Saturday, April 26
INFO: (701) 772-7245