As an anglo concertina player, I play an instrument right at the heart of the Australian folk tradition and well-established in ITM. Although a bit out out of date, it also played a big part in Sth.African township music which I also love and like to play.
I was trying to think of a form of American folk music in which the concertina has a well established role. I couldn’t come up with anything. I couldn’t think of a single track, off hand, on the Harry Smith Anthology that features concertina. I have a feeling that I must be overlooking something but can’t think what that would be. Surely concertinas would have been around in numbers in the mid to late 19th century and wouldn’t they have been as attractive to Americans as they were to Australians and South Africans?
B ythe looks of it one of the old cheap ‘German’ concertinas, there are pics of Packie Russell playing an almost identical one and some mouldy smelling specimens are still sitting in Clare cottages. Mostly they fell to bits after a few years.
To get back on topic, have you tried the ICA, International Concertina Association [ www.concertina.org ]? They send out a newsletter usually with music from their extensive music library, it’s often English and popular music but I’d imagine that if there’s American music, they’d have it.
