Enjoy this interview with Back Fiddlers Creator Eduardo Montes-Bradley and featured fiddler Earl White as they discuss their film and the history of black fiddlers. Hosted by Suzie LeBlanc, C.M. and one of EMV's Artists-In-Residence, David Greenberg, this interview is a delight for all who want to learn more about back fiddling culture.
Directed by Eduardo Montes-Bradley, the film traces the personal and family stories of violin players of African descent in New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, Texas, Missouri, and as far as Oregon during the Indian Wars and the Gold Rush. Inspired by the legacy of Joe & Odell Thomson, director Montes-Bradley resorted to performers Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson from The Carolina Chocolate Drops, and old-time fiddler Earl White to reconstruct three-hundred years of Black music with the help of local historians, academics, and award-winning authors like Kip Lornell and John J. Sullivan. Black Fiddlers is the result of one year of uninterrupted research, on the road and on location. The result is a compelling one-hour documentary film carefully designed to inform and entertain while presenting the audience with a diversity of arguments never explored before on film.