What, When, Where???

House Concert: 
Saturday, April 28, 8 pm ~ $15
Hosted by Jerry Northington & Suzanne West, at their home:
5 Stones Throw Road, Wilmington, DE
Please call (302) 478-6383 or e-mail somanysong@aol.com
to reserve your seat, as space is limited.
Please call or email for directions. . .

Diane Jones ~ banjo
Billy Cornette ~ guitar
Betty Vornbrock ~ fiddle

House Concert ~
The Reed Island Rounders, in Wilmington, DE

    The REED ISLAND ROUNDERS have been playing together since 1993, when fiddler Betty Vornbrock and guitarist Billy Cornette formed a band to compete at fiddler's conventions. They have been joined by various banjoists over the years, and now Diane Jones has added her banjo and vocal talents to the band. They have found a mutual love for the Old-Time music of West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and southwest Virginia. The band is known for their musical variety. From the foot-stomping dance tunes of the Blue Ridge, to romantic waltzes, to dark and lonesome mountain tunes and chilling ballads, they evoke the soul of Appalachian life. The Rounders have two CD's, "Goin' Back" (2002) and "Hand Me Downs" (2006), and their house concerts are a fun and intimate way to enjoy this wealth of music!

    Betty’s fiddling repertoire includes wonderfully smooth, yet edgy, renditions of Southern Virginia, West Virginia, and Northern Kentucky tunes. Diane has a strong rhythmic clawhammer banjo style. She also has a wonderful collection of old-time songs (hope she gets the Peepers out). Billy adds a very solid guitar rhythm, plus comic asides—a great storyteller!

    When Diane joined Betty and Billy in 1995, it proved to be a perfect match. Every one of them has the same passion—passing on the wonderful legacy of the old-time fiddle and banjo traditions. Tunes and songs that have been transported across the Pond and morphed by talented, but isolated musicians in their respective hollows. Or tunes created more recently by the souls that built the railroads, worked the mines, farmed the hills—a release, a cathartic creative process that transported the creator, the player, the dancer, the listener-- away from a life of hardship for a spell.