The New Holland Honey Eaters (in the persons of Stan Gottschalk, Rebecca Gottschalk, Steve Ray and Jane Ray) specialise in traditional music (mostly pre-1945) from the southeastern United States, including Anglo-Celtic and Afro-American traditional music, minstrelsy, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley tunes and songs, rural hymnody, Cajun music, gospel, jug band music, Hawaiian music, cowboy music, and swing and blues.

They bring the folk music and folkways of the American southeast alive through the performance of theme concerts concentrating on aspects of the region's social and musical history, and through practical teaching workshops.

Stan Gottschalk has had an interest in the music and the social history of the American south for over thirty years and has performed at numerous festivals all over Australia. In addition he has published a fiddle instruction manual, Old Time Mountain Fiddle (1977); received an Australia Council grant to research traditional fiddle styles as represented in the US Library of Congress archives (an extensive research paper, Three Traditional Southern Fiddlers: Their Tunes and Their Playing Styles, was produced in 1979); and has been a regular contributor of articles on the physics of music for Mugwumps Instrument Herald, USA (1979-1980); and a regular contributor of articles, transcriptions, etc. Cumberland County Rag, Sydney (1975-1990).

Steve and Jane Ray comprise half of The Cockies, which has established itself as one of Tasmania's premier folk-based concert and dance bands. They have produced a number of CDs as well as dance instruction material.

Performances and Festivals

The New Holland Honey Eaters have been featured at the following:

Huon/Cygnet Folk Festival, Cygnet, Tas. (1988-1990, 1992, 1993, 1995 - 1999);
National Folk Festival, Adelaide (1991); Canberra (1992, 1995, 1997, 1998);
Tamar Valley Folk Festival, George Town, Tas. (1992, 1993, 1995 - 1999);
Tasmanian Folk Festival, Longford, Tas. (1989);
University of Tasmania Centre for the Performing Arts concert series (1997).

Theme Concerts

Although the band offers teaching workshops in Shape-Note singing (and Stan offers specialist fiddle, banjo and guitar workshops), the production of theme concerts has been the major part of The New Holland Honey Eaters' contribution to festivals. Their purpose is to illuminate the diverse styles of southern American music by setting it in a social context. These performances are two hours long and incorporate music, slides, field recordings and theatre. The band is costumed appropriately for the subject at hand and audience members receive a song booklet including bibliographical and discographical information and often appropriate nibblies as well (like coffee and corn bread) as they enter.

Titles have included:

"The Pet Child of Calamity's a-Comin' " - Sudden Death, Family Tragedy and General Desolation in the Southern Tradition (1988)
Bust Skull and Rotgut - the Story of Prohibition (1989)
"I Done Tried to Find My Way, Lord, But I Fell Out the Door" - The Sacred and the Secular in Southern American Music (1990)
The Panic Is On - the Story of the Great Depression (1992)
Under the Chicken Tree - Early Recorded Traditions in Southern Music (1993)
John Brown's Body - The Story of the American Civil War (1995)
"No Two in the Congregation Quaver Alike" - Learning to Sing in Extraordinary Southern American Shape-Note Tradition (1996)
Going Down the Lee Highway - the Folk Roots of Country Music (1997)
Going Down the River - Music and Tales of the Mississippi (1999)

Recordings:

I Done Tried to Find My Way, Lord, But I Fell Out the Door;
The Panic Is On;
No Two in the Congregation Quaver Alike;
John Brown's Body; and
Going Down the River

recorded and broadcast in full by ABC Radio National's Music Deli program.

John Brown's Body and
Going Down the Lee Highway

recorded and broadcast in full by Canberra Stereo Public Radio (1995, 1997).

The Year of 1900 ~ The American South at the turn of the Century

recorded live at The Attic, Hobart, 2001 by audio illusion

Contact:

STAN GOTTSCHALK

9 WELMAN STREET
LAUNCESTON
TASMANIA 7250
Telephone: 03 63316728 (home)
Fax: 03 63316210 (home - by arrangement)
Email: gottschalk@tassie.net.au

last updated by mikko; 13 November, 2001