Ray Hilt

Ray Hilt: fiddle.  Ray grew up on isolated farm outside Portsmouth, Ohio where the land was poor and subsistence meager.  His father, who apparently emigrated from Pennsylvania, played a number of old-time settings on the fiddle and Ray also liked to listen to the radio shows with fiddle music then broadcast out of Portsmouth, including those presided over by Asa Neil and Forrest Pick.  After World War II, Ray moved north to Marion, Ohio where he worked in the seed business for many years.

He had set the fiddle aside for many years but he happened to travel to the Fraleys' festival one summer and was inspired to pick it up again.  It was, in fact, Annadeene and the banjo player Jack Strickland who gave me Ray's address when I lived in Columbus.  After he recommenced playing, he met Rick Dean who was looking for a fiddle instructor for his daughter Marion.  They surely could not have found a kinder or more patient soul than Ray and they eventually formed the charming little string band heard here (Joshua is Marion's husband and was then a student at Ohio State).  Other selections by the group can be heard on Rdr 0544.

Part of the booklet notes, written by Mark Wilson, to the Musical Traditions Records 4-CD set Meeting's a Pleasure (MTCD341-4)