Sue Draheim (/ˈdrɔːhaɪm/ⓘDRAW-hyme; August 17, 1949[2][3] – April 11, 2013)[4][5] was an American fiddler, boasting a more than forty year musical career in the US and the UK. Growing up inNorth Oakland, Draheim began her first private violin lessons at age eleven, having started public school violin instruction at age eight[6] while attending North Oakland's Peralta Elementary School. She also attended Claremont Jr. High, and graduated fromOakland Technical High School in 1967.[7][8][9]
Originally trained as a classical violinist, Draheim became involved in many other genres and recorded albums with groups representing Cajun, Old Time, country, Zydeco, folk jazz, Irish and British folk music. Early on in her career, Celtic fiddle became Draheim's major focus.
While Draheim was primarily a fiddler, she never lost touch with her classical training, and was a member of the BerkeleySymphony Orchestra and the Bay Area Women'sPhilharmonic[10] as well asUC Berkeley's University Chamber Chorus;[11] Draheim, along with fiddler Kerry Parker, also "augmented" the harp trio "Trillium".[12] She also played in the US premiere ofFrank Zappa's experimental orchestral pieceA Zappa Affair.[13] She was described byGael Alcock, cellist/composer with whom she performed one of Alcock's pieces, as "fiddler extraordinaire".[14]
In the late 1960s, Draheim moved to a North Oakland house well known in theBay Area music community and called simply "Colby Street".[15][16] This move proved to be a decisive one in terms of her musical career as it was where she changed from a "violinist" into a "fiddler". In writing her short biography in 1970 to accompany the album notes forBerkeley Farms, Draheim gives us some background on that transition:
I've lived around the Bay Area most of my life. There wasn't much money at home. I had to talk my parents into letting me take fiddle lessons. I started that when I was eight years old. This was public school instruction. After three years of that, I began private lessons. I stopped when I was fourteen, and didn't touch the violin until I was 19. I moved to Colby Street when I was eighteen years old. It was there that I met Jim Bamford. He taught me my first fiddle tunes (as opposed to the classical violin music I'd learned). This was in 1967.[17]
Draheim quickly got involved in American mountainstring band music, forming a group called the "Diesel Duck Revue" in 1967 with Mac Benford, Hank Bradley, Sue Rosenberg, and Rick Shubb,[18][19] performing with them at Berkeley'sFreight & Salvage in 1968.[20]
At about the same time she started playing with a Colby Street group that, when she performed with them at theSky River Rock Festival (Tenino, Washington in 1968 and 1969), called themselves "Dr. Humbead's New Tranquility String Band and Medicine Show". The band consisted of Sue Draheim, Jim Bamford, Mac Benford, and Will Spires and owed its name to their manager and sound man Earl Crabb (aka "The Great Humbead"); by the timeMike Seeger arranged for them to be recorded for the FolkwaysBerkeley Farms album in 1970, they'd shortened the charming but cumbersome name to simply "The New Tranquility String Band".[21][22] Performing with the band, her photograph appeared on the poster for the 1968Berkeley Folk Music Festival.[23] Draheim and Dr. Humbead's New Tranquility String Band also appeared at the 1969 Third AnnualSan Diego State Folk Festival;[24] links to recordings of their performance there are provided on folkartsrarerecords.com's website.[25]
Colby Street housed other groups as well, one of them being the "Golden Toad", featuring mandolinist and guitarist Will Spires;[26] she joined them for the summer solstice concert atGrace Cathedral in 1970.[27] In 1970,Joe Cooley,Irishbutton accordion player who was living in San Francisco at the time, visited the Colby Street house[28] and that was the beginning of Draheim's lifelong attachment to Irish music. She and others joined Cooley to perform Saturday nights atSan Francisco's long-standing Irish pub, the Harrington Bar,[29] making up the band which they called "GráinneogCéilidh."[30][31] Years later, Draheim's command of the Irish folk music idiom as well as her versatility in other genres would prompt one fan to comment: "And that is a very apt illustration of the point: Sue Draheim, a classically-trained violinist who has been mistaken for a real-dealSligo fiddler who nowadays has a chair in a San Franciscosymphony orchestra as well as playing in old timey bands".[32]
In 1970 Draheim also got involved with several musicians at what was known as Sweets Mill Music Camp, about 200 miles east of Oakland on the edge of theSierra National Forest. It was there that she played with legendary Delta blues guitaristSam Chatmon in a group called the "California Sheiks" (named after Chatmon's back-home group, the "Mississippi Sheiks". Some recordings of Draheim andChatmon from that period are known to have survived: one, a 7-inchmonotape reel holding eighteen songs and labelled "Box 3, Item 2007.04sdff070" in theUCLAEthnomusicology Archive (which misspelled her name as "Drahiem"),[33] and the other, one song (which is not found in UCLA's collection) which was released inCD form in 1999 as part of aSam Chatmon retrospective.[34]
From late 1970 to early 1977 Draheim lived inEngland, where her talents as a fiddler soon became so well recognized thatAustrian music journalist Richard Schuberth[35] counted her among the "crème de la crème of the English folk-rock scene".[36][37] She brought with her a background of US genres of folk music which blended well with theBritish folk-rock scene. In one case at least, her influence on the British music scene rebounded to have an effect on the US music scene: American guitarist and author of several instructional manualsDuck Baker wrote that he had learned thePeacock Rag from John Renbourn "who would have gotten it from Sue Draheim".[38] Draheim had begun her association with John Renbourn in 1971,[39] and joined the John Renbourn Group,[40] cutting the albumFaro Annie[41] withJohn Renbourn,Keshav Sathe, andJacqui McShee in 1972. Impressed by Draheim's old WestClare style which she'd learned fromJoe Cooley,John Renbourn observed: "I found out more about Irish music from Sue than I could ever have imagined."[42] That same year she also performed onHenry the Human Fly, an album by songwriter and guitaristRichard Thompson.[43] 1972 was a busy year for her as she and John Renbourn worked together withWizz Jones to produce Wizz's albumRight Now, in addition to recording albums withScottish folksingerMarc Ellington.[44]
In 1972, Draheim debuted live with the then unknownAlbion Country Band.[45] The band (sometimes known as Albion Mk 1,[46] and described bySpanish film and music critic Antonio Méndez[47] as being "traditional British folk with an electric infusion"),[48] appeared onJohn Peel's BBC Radio 1 program called "Peel Sessions" which introduced up-and-coming musicians.[49] In June 1972 Draheim and the Albion Country Band also recorded and had broadcast a piece (Four Hand Reel/St. Anne's Reel) for the BBC radio show calledTop Gear,[50] which also featured contemporary musicians; the recording was later released in 1994 onAshley Hutchings's compilationThe Guv'nor vol 1. Two tracks onThe Guv'nor vol 2 released in 1995 are from that same 1972 broadcast.[51] Also in Albion at this time wasSteve Ashley, who later referred to Draheim as "the great American fiddle player".[52] (For a photo of Draheim with the Albion Country Band, seeThe Peel Sessions: The Albion Band).
Not confining herself to the folk rock genre, she recorded the albumSolid Air in 1973 withJohn Martyn, who has been described as blurring "...the boundaries between folk, jazz, rock and blues".[53] When Draheim worked briefly in 1973-1974 with Albion's incarnation as the Albion Country Band which includedSteve Ashley, they backed up Ashley on his first albumStroll On,[54] whichFolk Review named "Contemporary Folk Album of the Year" in 1974.[55] Just before leaving theUK to return to the US in 1977, Draheim recorded again withJohn Renbourn to produce the albumA Maid in Bedlam.[56]
In late 1977 she returned to Oakland where she joined the all-women group Any Old Time String Band[57][58][59][60] and recorded two albums with them,Any Old Time String Band andLadies Choice. Both albums were re-released in 1996 byArhoolie on a single CD titled"I Bid You Goodnight".
One of Draheim's hallmarks was her eclecticism, and the first half of the 80s found her recording with a variety of artists including ethereal, new wave pagan/wiccanGwydion Pendderwen,[61] the more solidly traditional Cajun and country Delta Sisters,[62] and Rory McNamara with his blend of Irish and American music.[63]
Draheim,Jody Stecher (from the Colby Street days), and Kate Brislin (who was with Draheim in the Any Old Time String Band)[64] joined Kathy Kallick and others in 1995 on Kallick's albumUse a Napkin (Not Your Mom),[65] a recording which featured Appalachian style songs composed by Kallick, and was especially aimed at children (a group of whom sang along with the musicians).
Additionally, during the 1990s nearly a dozen retrospective compilation albums (including three by John Renbourn) were released which featured earlier recordings with Draheim, some of them going as far back as the 1970s (see discography).
In 1999, Draheim joinedGolden Bough, aNorthern California group which focuses on traditional Celtic folk music. After producing two albums with them which were released in 2000 and 2002, she left the group just two years later in 2001, but still got together to play with them from time to time.[68] JoiningCraicmore, a group which describes itself as "a contemporary traditional Celtic band",[69] Draheim released an album with them in 2002.
Teaming up with mandolinist Lief Sorbye,[70] Draheim completed the other half of the duo known as "Caliban"[71] which led to her joining the Oakland-based Celtic rock bandTempest[72] which Lief had founded; she recorded two albums with them onMagna Carta Records (Shapeshifter and the15th Anniversary Collection). Appraisal of Draheim's work with Tempest included such comments as: "The addition of Sue Draheim (Jon Renbourn Group and Sorbye's other unit, Caliban) has added an extra, deeper and (again) more relaxed dimension to the Tempest sound. Her ultra-fluid fiddle lines and soft harmony vocals lend balance...",[73] "The harmony vocals, courtesy of newcomer Sue Draheim (who also plays fiddle and viola) are more prominent than ever...",[74] "Sue Draheim's fiddle weaves exuberantly wild or exquisitely controlled ...",[75] "Sue Draheim's fiddle has a very warm and rich sound ... that just highlights her beautiful playing. Sue really gets to the heart of the song with her playing and makes the melodies come alive, without overpowering the band"[76] and "Sue Draheim is a revelation on fiddle, bringing years of playing with her, adding texture and tone."[77] One journalist, reviewing a Tempest album released after Draheim had left the group, lamented: "...I miss the blazing elegance of fiddler Sue Draheim...".[78]
Draheim and others were founders of a group known as "Stuart Rosh and the Geniuses",[79] releasing the albumAccept No Imitations in 2004. The group was led byStuart Rojstaczer scientist, writer,[80] and musician performing under the name of "Stuart Rosh".[81] Referring to her "flowing fiddle lines and backup vocals", Rojstaczer wrote that "Sue's lessons will set you on the path to musical bliss".[79]
Later in 2004 she worked with the young singer Michael Bannett[82] to produce an album featuring a collection ofBritish Isles songs from the 17th to the early 20th centuries. Draheim got together with Golden Bough again in 2006 for a 25th anniversary reunion concert, which resulted in an album release of traditional British folk music. Moving into a different genre altogether, Draheim joined "Hiss Golden Messenger", which has been described as "alternative country" and "country rock", to produce an album in 2009. An Arhoolie Records retrospective was released in 2013, including some of Draheim's earlier recordings with them, but Draheim's last new release was in 2011, a live recording with Southern country blues singer and guitarist Wayde Blair[83] atBerkeley's Art House.
In her later years Draheim settled inBerea, Kentucky,[84] with her partner Wayde Blair, whom she had known and performed with in Berkeley,[85] and quickly got involved in the music scene there, performing at Berea's Center for the Arts as well as with a smallcontra dance group known as "Sea Change" at Berea's Main Street Café.[86][87]
When she was diagnosed with cancer in March 2013, Berkeley'sFreight & Salvage (long a Bay Area center of folk music and a favorite of Draheim's, having performed there many times over the years from the beginnings of her career with Dr. Humbead's New Tranquility String Band and Medicine Show[88] and as recently as 2010)[89][90] held a special concert to show support for and honor her on April 1, 2013.[91] Among those performing in recognition of her contributions to music were musicians Eric & Suzy Thompson,Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin, and Will Spires (who had played with Draheim in the early years of her career),[92]Tempest, Golden Bough, andKathy Kallick, (who had played with Draheim when her career had been firmly established), as well asLaurie Lewis &Tom Rozum, Tony Marcus & Patrice Haan, Paul Hale String Quartet, Live Oak Ceili Band with the Patricia Kennelly Irish Step Dancers, Don Burnham & the Bolos, Johnny Harper, Delilah Lewis & Karen Leigh, Harry & Cindy Liedstrand, and Gerry Tenney & the Hard Times Orchestra.
Sue Draheim died on April 11, 2013, in Berea, Kentucky, at the age of 63.[4]
^A note on the origin of the band's name:Gráinneog Céilidh translates literally asHedgehog Party. The wordcéilidh has become more specifically associated with Irish dance bands, practically all of whom includeCéilidh (or Céili) Band in the final part of their names (seeModern ceilidhs andThe Ceili Bands of the 60's and before ). Agráinneog (hedgehog) is a much maligned creature in Ireland (seeThe Folklore and Traditions of The Irish Hedgerow) and has a reputation for being dirty and unkempt; Joe Cooley may have had the somewhat ragged appearance of the Colby Street people in mind when the name was suggested but, having a friendly little joke at their expense, admitted only that the hedgehog was "just the warmest, furriest little creature" (seeThe Joe Cooley Tapes). (Special thanks to Jody Stecher for the story behind the name).
![Draheim in San Francisco, 2011[1]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fwikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aSueDraheim_3121778.jpg)
