Biography of Curly Miller & Carole Anne Rose

Curly Miller, Carole Anne Rose and their children, live on a beautiful farm located at the headwaters of Sweden Creek, in the tall peaks of the Ozark Mountains in Northwest Arkansas. Their remote home is in a high mountain valley, completely encircled by mountains and blessed with many springs. Together they grow Certified Organic Log-Grown Shiitake mushrooms, herbs, and edible flowers, along with most of their family food. They have been farming together since 1987 and playing music together since 1988. Their first CD, "Camp Meeting", produced in 1993, featured Classic Banjo pieces and old fiddle tunes. As the feature band for many contra-dances around the country, they have focused on fiddle and banjo tunes for their new CDs, "I Love This Girl" and "HORSE SHOE BEND", including Old Time tunes, ethnic tunes of Irish, Scottish and World Music origins, and old fiddle tunes found in tune books from the 1800s.

Curly and Carole Anne were instructors for the 2005 Ashokan Southern Week, 2004 Swannanoa Gathering - Old Time week, and have been instructors for fiddle and banjo workshops at The Ozark Folk Center since 1990. Curly and Carole Anne have been the featured dance band for the annual Dance Week-End for the Arkansas Country Dance Society since 1991. They have been playing for the Fayetteville Traditional Dancers monthly dance since 1993, as well as for contra dances in St. Louis, Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Springfield (MO). They recently toured with Beth Molaro in North Carolina playing for dances in Asheville, Winston-Salem, Chapel Hill and at The Farmer's Ball. Curly's research has uncovered many antiquated Irish and Scottish tunes which they play for Irish Dance groups for performances and competitions. They are known for their unique and "EXTREME" fiddle and banjo sound, high-energy tune medleys, and their genuine love of playing dance music for dancers!

Curly Miller

Curly comes from a musical family and began playing classical violin at age eight, Rock & Roll guitar in his teens, and traditional music in his early 20's. He played many instruments and studied many styles including Scottish, Irish, Cape Breton, and various Old Time styles from the U.S. He performed for several years at concert and dance venues with the Arkansas-based band, The Skirtlifters, playing fiddle, banjo, mandolin, banjo-mandolin, and bowed bass. Curly performed at BRANDYWINE, PICCOLO SPOLETO, BLACK MOUNTAIN and THE OLD TOWNE SCHOOL OF MUSIC while touring with this string band. As Curly and Carole Anne's farm grew, however, they focused more on playing at home together and for local concerts, dance festivals, and contra and Irish dances.

Carole Anne Rose

Carole Anne took accordion lessons as a child, classical guitar lessons as an adult, and did the protest and folk song "thing" in the 1960's. After meeting Curly, her childhood love of the banjo was rekindled as a result of being able to listen to great Old Time and historic tunes. Together they began to play Classic banjo pieces along with Old Time fiddle and guitar tunes. Carole Anne liked bass-note, rocking, guitar-rhythm and loved clawhammer-style banjo, so she combined both styles in her own unique playing style. The duo then began the quest to find the right banjo(s) for the job.

Curly and Carole Anne's Instruments

Since they started out with the Classic Banjo style, all of their banjos have skin heads and nylon strings.

Carole Anne plays three banjos on their CDs: a lady's model (probably Lyon & Healy circa 1890), a fretless H. D. Moulton (circa 1870, which is pictured on the cover of ILTG), and a custom, hybrid 6-string (5-string style) using the 12 1/2" pot of an 1893 S.S. Stewart Imperial Banjeaurine with a custom reproduction neck built by Bob Momich of Hot Springs, NC.

Curly plays 2 fiddles on their CDs: the regular tuned fiddle is probably of French origin, mid-1800s, the cross-tuner is most likely a German catalog fiddle from the turn of the 20th century. Curly also bowed the upright bass for about half of the cuts on their CDs.

Music

Curly listens to many recordings of pre-1940's musicians from the U.S. and abroad and also references old sheet music to find tunes. In order to play their favorite tunes as often as possible, Curly will square up a tune so it can be played at contra-dances. For their new CDs, Curly found tunes on various old recordings as well as in The Skye Collection by Keith, Norman & MacDonald (originally published in 1887), Coes Album of Jigs and Reels for the Violin published by T.B. Harms & CO. (1876), and One Thousand Fiddle Tunes published by M.M. Cole Publishing Co. (1940).

Jim Nelson, reviewer for THE OLD TIME HERALD, writes:

"From start to finish, this has to be one of the more enjoyable, and unusual selections of dance fiddle music released in quite some time....I suspect that if this duo could be somehow transported back through time about 150 years and plopped down smack dab in the middle of a dance in their neck of the woods, no one would even bat an eye."

Their concert and dance music receives acclaim everywhere they perform. In all categories, their music is obscure, interesting, different, captivating, unique and exciting. Their CDs are listed in ELDERLY, COUNTY SALES, VIGORTONE Records, and others. It is played on many radio stations from coast to coast and abroad. They were filmed for an AETN educational program featuring their playing and music and for a Hollywood production starring Randy Travis and Rob Lowe.

The Old 78's Recording Studio

Curly and Carole Anne have established a recording studio "way out in the woods." They have completed two projects and are currently recording their own project with Clarke. Theyir first project for Shout Lulu (Paul and Skye McGowen and Pete Howard) is now available. The second recording for David Scrivner (a student of Bob Holt's) with Alvie Dooms and Karen Kraft is awaiting cover design.

The studio was design to reproduce the warm, alive sound of traditional instruments and features new technology for a 3-dimensional stereo image. Every effort is made to capture the sound as it happens rather than adding effects on the digital sound track. Darren Novotony of Springdale Acoustics (Springdale, Arkansas) has been technically involved in every step from putting the system together to arranging the sound environment. The Old 78s are five tunes into their new CD which should be available in Spring 2008.

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