BELLOWS FALLS — On Friday, March 16, at 7:30 p.m., the Stone Church on the Hill in Bellows Falls presents its annual St. Patrick's Fiddle Frenzy by welcoming the Red Fox Session Band for an evening of traditional and modern Irish songs and fiddle tunes.
The Frenzy takes place this year, as it has for the past 12 years, at Immanuel Episcopal Church, 20 Church St.
“In true Vermont fashion,” according to a news release, “the band of four includes an innkeeper/golfer (bones and bodhran), a farmer/trash hauler/bagpiper (guitar), a beekeeper/math teacher/home health aide (fiddle) and a business manager/graphic artist/website creator (fiddle).”
Primarily square and contra dance fiddlers, Jill Newton and Laurie Indenbaum have been playing double fiddles together for more than 40 years and have played everywhere from a manure silo to the Vermont Statehouse, with innumerable barns, yards, churches, and grange halls in between. Their Irish repertoire was greatly expanded 10 years ago when they joined forces with Tom Logan and Alan Partridge at the Red Fox.
Partridge, who plays guitar, has been all over the world from a young age, finally settling for good in Windham. Married to State Representative Carolyn Partridge, he has more instruments than a pawnshop and he plays all of them.
Logan, a.k.a. Tommy Bones, is the Publican at the Red Fox Inn and plays bones and bodhran and sings. Tommy is an Irishman from South Boston who, before moving to Vermont, was a longshoreman along with his father and uncles on the Boston waterfront. Many of his favorite songs are ones that he learned as a kid and sang with his dad.
The Red Fox Session Band has played for the Bondville Fair, the Chocolate, Cheese & Chili Fest in Landgrove, all sorts of St. Patrick's Day events, and, most recently, kicked off the Vermont Legislature's 2018 Farmer's Night in Montpelier at the Vermont State House in January.