Ole P Gussias

This tape is outside of my wheelhouse as it is all Norwegian speaking and the tunes are very Norwegian on flat fiddle and hardingfele.  This tape was just labeled Gussias.  I had to ask around to many of my Norwegian music friends to come up with an answer.  I was eventually was led to Jorun Marie Kvernberg who is an expert on fiddle music from Romsdal, Norway.  She gave me this answer-

"I believe this is Ole P. Gussiås (1908—2002) from Ranvika in the former Nesset municipality, now Molde municipality. He played both the fiddle and the hardangerfiddle, and learnt tunes from his father, Peder P. Gussiås (1871–1945). I have another recording. I also have copies of several tunes he wrote down from both Romsdal and Nordmøre region. He also had a link to Hustadvika municipality (where I come from) and wrote down tunes from fiddlers there as well".  We can only assume Ole made his way to Wisconsin and visited with Leonard.

Because the tunes are straight from Norway and not Upper Midwest, I am not going to take the time to break it all down into seperate tracks and edit nicely.  But because it is a non-commercial home recording made by Finseth, I am going to share the file here.

Leonard Finseth and Selmer Ramsey

This is a fun tape to unearth! Selmer Ramsey of Thief River Falls, Minnesota was one of the Upper Midwest's great band leaders in the early to mid 1900's.  Here he is trading tunes with Leonard Finseth of Drammen Township, Wisconsin.  There was a little bit of talking between tunes, but not much.  Selmer points out, "There used to be so much going on in these old waltzes, nowadays, not so much".  And after Finseth plays his Old-Time Polka in G (UMFF G21), Selmer says, " My dad used to play that and Andy DeJarlis too".  Unfortunately one side of the tape just won't play even after i cleaned my nice cassette deck.

  

Leonard Finseth and Stanley Lardahl. March, 1960.

Leonard plays fiddle and Stanley plays guitar on this recording.  This early recording of Leonard's fiddling sees him playing more standard American old-time tunes along with his Norwegian American old-time fare that he was known for in later years.  Tunes like Ragtime Annie and Mississippi Sawyer are interspersed with the waltes, schottisches and polkas.

Otto Rindlisbacher

Today's tape is not Finseth himself, but him recording fiddler Otto Rindlisbacher of Rice Lake, Wisconsin.

This possibly unknown Otto Rindlibacher recording is from tapes given to me by the Leonard Finseth family.  As far I can tell some of these titles do not match the names or the order of other known Rindlisbacher tapes online from the University of Wisconsin's Mills Music Library.  Leonard Finseth is announcing and best guess is LaVerne Lardahl is on guitar.

Otto Rindlisbacher- Mills Music Library