Music at the Museum

Spring chores could wait for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon while folks listened to the spritely tunes of Mary DuShane and Nick Jordan at the Waseca County Historical Museum. 

Sponsored by the now disbanded Bothy Folk Club of Mankato, DuShane’s fiddle pairs with Jordan’s guitar and foot percussion in a broad repertoire of Southern traditional roots music including old-time swing and Irish dance tunes, Appalachian and jug-band music, and a little spicy Cajun for flavor. 

In between numbers, DuShane and Jordan shared information about the origins of some of the pieces they played. One in particular, DuShane said, came from a time when their band was traveling around different areas to learn old tunes that hadn’t been written down. “It’s important to do that, before that old music is lost. I learned this next one from an old guy in Indiana. When I asked him what it was called, he leaned over and told me it was ‘None of your business!’ So that’s what we call this next tune,” she laughed.

This is the first time DuShane and Jordan have played in Waseca, though both of them have some interesting connections; DuShane had previously played in bands with museum director Joan Mooney’s husband (“We both had black hair back then, didn’t we Jerome?”) and Waseca resident Lori Pommerenke was a student of Jordan’s while she was obtaining her  Ph.D. in environmental science. Pommerenke says she has gravitated toward folk music since college. “A few years ago I heard about the Bothy Folk club and their occasional concerts and presentations, so I went. Unfortunately the man who did all the organization for the club was at the end of his energy for organizing it. The performers said ‘Do we know anybody who wants to host us?’ I said ‘Sure!’” Pommerenke said she briefly considered hosting the performers in her own home, but then had the idea of coming to Mooney at the museum. “Joan’s a musician, and married to a musician, so I asked her. She agreed right away.”