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Uncle Willie and the Brandy Snifters
They were contemporaries and friends of Mike Seeger, Tracy Schwarz, and the New Lost City Ramblers,
mining the same music, with similar ends, establishing extensive bibliographies and lyric collections from painstakingly listening to recordings from worn and scratched 78's.
Here are some of their songs to listen to while browsing this page (they open in a new tab)
Tanner's Rag
Walk Right in Belmont
I know my name is there
Here's a glass of Apple Brandy (Their theme song)
Scroll down, or links on this page to: Lyle and Liz Lofgren's "legend of Uncle Willie"
Newpaper articles
Guthrie Folk Festival
New Lost City Ramblers
Lyle Lofgren's musical history: "Playing in the Band"
Jon Pankake article, "Wasn't that a time."
Jon Pankake Grammy article
Marcie Pankake, Lyle Lofgren, Willard Johnson, Jon Pankake, Bud Claeson
This is a scrapbook of photos and articles about them, mostly provided by Bud Claeson in May of 2022 to me, outside on a chilly Minnesota spring day. The photography reflects this...
Sorry, we didn't get to page 52. Perhaps that part told of being on our competing public radio station in Northfield Minnesota.
It was a good experience for both of us, and led to Bud looking me up again after nearly 50 years, and occasional emails with Lyle.
They occasionally made it into the Twin Cities newspapers, this one undated but early 60's by their look.:
They were responsible for bringing a A list of 1960's Folk performers to the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis:
They also helped bring the New Lost City Ramblers there in 1960
Mike Seeger and wife playing with Lyle Lofgren, early 2000's
Fiddler Lyle Lofgren's musical history probably written around 1981:
This was an early handbill (a ditto, perhaps?) lacking Marcie at that time.
You can image the dollars they made as folk musicians...
Their handbills frequently impersonated older musicians:
When I had them on my WCAL radio folk program, around 1975 or 6, and recorded them at coffee houses in Minneapolis, Willard was considering retiring from the band:
But later he rejoined...
Jon Pankake wrote liner notes for some Folkways records in addition to writing a local music magazine recounted here::
His outspoken style alluded to in the article led to heated arguments with young Bob Dylan my article linked here
Ironically it was his liner notes rather than his musicianship that earned him a Grammy in 1998:
Here were surviving members of the band in the early 2000's
Thanks to Bud Claeson for supplying the images and articles, and to the band for some wonderful music...
Link to additional webpage with Bud's recollections
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