Lotus Dickey and the Legacy of Old-Time Music in Orange County, Indiana
Today, the group came out to Stephen and Nancy’s to honor these keepers of the flame for their preservation of old-time music and an old-time way of life.
“We play the old-time music. I know so many songs from my parents, my dad and my grandpa and them,” says musician Stephen Dickey.
It's not by accident that Stephen has come to carry on the time-honored musical traditions of Orange County. Around here, he's musical royalty.
Stephen's father, Lotus Dickey, became a prominent figure in the world of old-time music. Lotus was a blast from the past, even back in the ’80s. His notoriety grew. They even named a couple of music festivals after him, including Bloomington's Lotus World Music and Arts Festival, because he carried with him something special, something miraculously out of place in the modern world.
“I think we took note because he was somebody that the younger people were looking for. There was somebody that represented this tradition,” explains John Kay, director of Traditional Arts Indiana. “He was continuing to write music. He had a very distinctive voice and he had this amazing talent. I think that's what actually brought him up—it was not the fact that he knew all these old tunes, but the fact that he was this amazing musician and songwriter and fiddler. There is so much amazing knowledge in the state, and Lotus, just for a moment, caused all to pause and take a look and see Indiana as something special. I think that that's what he really brought to us.”
Stephen describes, “My dad was always talking about the Bible, and he wrote all these songs about the Bible. David and Bathsheba and all that, and they couldn't figure out how he’d done that. They sat down, said, ‘Tell me how he’d done that.’ I wasn’t smart enough. I didn’t have enough education to figure it out. Dad was a smart man. Everything good he taught me. He taught me good things. He never did teach me no bad things.”
Stephen Dickey and the Family Musical Tradition
Today, Stephen carries on the values, the traditions, and the music he inherited from his father.
“He took up the mantle after his father passed away. Remember, it was all about music at home, music with family, music with friends. Stephen became the kind of ambassador for that,” says Kay.
Stephen started playing music alongside his father as far back as he can remember.
“We’d have music every night. He’d get up on there and say, ‘What do you want to play, Stephen?’ I said, ‘You just go.’ He never told me what he was going to play or what chord,” Stephen describes. “He’d teach me them songs we’d play in every chord. One song in one chord, now let’s go to the other chord. That’s what kind of musician he was.”
Kay remembers, “Going to hear him play out at Brown County State Park, this old guy with his guitar and fiddle and he had this younger guy behind him, and that younger guy was Stephen Dickey. Now Stephen's about the age that his father was when I first got to hear him as a young college student.”
While he may have slowed down a bit these days, he and Nancy are still playing together, learning new songs and new ways to play them, and, of course, nurturing for future generations, an Orange County tradition.
Why Old-Time Music Still Matters in Indiana
“There's more jamming happening in little Orange County than almost any place I know in the state of Indiana. It is very distinctive in the sense that it's egalitarian. It’s local, no one is trying to show up too much. It's more about encouraging and getting together with family and friends and making music and making community through making music,” states Kay.
Their hospitality is undeniable. Their love of the music, the tradition, and the community is infectious and more than just a little worthy of some recognition.
“Patterned after the National Endowment for the Arts, I started a program called the Indiana Heritage Fellowship. We've had everything from old-time fiddling to ballet folklorico to wood carving and rag rug weavings,” Kay explains. “We've had all different types of traditional arts, but it was kind of special to me when Stephen and Nancy Dickey got it, because Stephen will be the first to say he’s not the best singer in the world. He’s not the best fiddler in the world. He’s just a person the people go to. He's that cohesive thing that connects them to the present, but also to the past. I think that he takes that role very seriously.”
Out here with the same patch of rolling hilltop that Lotus Dickey, and his father before him, called home, Stephen and Nancy’s door is always open. Come on in, find yourself a chair, and spend some time with musical tradition that’s just as moving and enriching as spending an afternoon at the Dickey homestead.
“Thinking about Stephen and Nancy and those intergenerational qualities, there are very few young people that come into the jams these days. But Stephen and Nancy do this wonderful thing of making sure that those traditions are being fed and kept. They just want to encourage. I think that's how they see themselves. Encouragers,” Kay concludes.
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The above video is a clip from Journey Indiana from WTIU. You can watch more segments and full episodes at pbs.org/show/journey-indiana/
