New England Fiddles (1984) presents seven of the finest traditional musicians as they play in their homes and at dances and contests, passing their styles to younger fiddlers, and commenting on their music. Featured are Ron West (Yankee), Paddy Cronnin (Irish), Ben Guillemette(Quebecois), Wilfred Guillette (Quebecois), Harold Luce (Yankee), Gerry Robichaud (Maritime), and the Cape Breton style of Joe Cormier (National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts).

See it web-streaming!

New England Dances (1989) is a spirited visit to some old dances, focusing on the callers and musicians who make them happen. It features Phil Johnson calling squares in Lebanon, Maine with the Maple Sugar band; John Campbell and Norman MacEachern at the Canadian Club in Watertown, Massachusetts; William Chaisson and Joe Cormier at the French American Victory Club in Waltham, Massachusetts; Arcade Richard and Victor Albert in Leominster, Massachusetts doing quadrilles; and Charley Mitchell at the Blue Goose in Northport, Maine doing contra dances. Also included are some bravura dance sequences by Irish step dancers Liam Harney and Deirdre Goulding, and Cape Breton step dancer Harvey Beaton.

BONUS TRACKS include:

• 11 tunes (21 minutes) from the out takes
• 8 minutes of Simon St. Pierre, the remarkable fiddler from Northern Maine, during his 1983 Washington DC trip to accept a National Heritage Award, (footage from the Alan Lomax Archive)
• the filmmaker talks about making the films.
• An annotated transcript of New England Fiddles is included as a PDF text file.

What others have said--

• New England Fiddles is a terrific film, and it will help share with the world a secret: New England has some of the finest traditional fiddling anywhere! Thanks for creating such a thoughtful, spirited film to explore the range, depth and energy of fiddling in New England. --Alan Jabbour
• John Bishop and Nick Hawes take us past the solemn facade of clambakes and town meetings into a lively world of all night dances, kitchen suppers, and local musicians who could have helped Daniel Webster play down the Devil. With it's quadrille like structure, this documentary whirls us from fiddler to fiddler in a rising climax of musical and cinematic excitement. --Alan Lomax
• Like the best art, John Bishop's films speak for themselves. New England Fiddles takes its place in a body of work that deals uncompromisingly with the roots of today's popular music, and portrays with insight and affection both a genre and its creators. --Peter Guralnick
• ...a fascinating film about how people's lives relate to the music they make. --Pete Seeger
• American Anthropologist review by Nick Spitzer

Fiddle links-
The Old Time Herald
Folkstreams
Country Dance & Song Society