The Old-time string band Hart & Blech has been playing the traditional music of the
Southern Mountains and Plains together since 1985. Each member of the band -- Allen
Hart on banjo, Sheila Blech on guitar, and Kerry Blech on fiddle -- has a long history
of involvement with traditional music and dance.

Our 1999 CD, "A Devil of a Row," is still available.

Our latest CD, "Build Me A Boat," is now available!!!

Allen grew up near Los Angeles, CA in the 1950s as part of a family that loved to play old time music. His father, Lewis, played banjo and guitar and taught seven-year-old Allen to play banjo in a two-finger picking style. Allen learned the frailing technique in the 1960s, and thereafter played in countless string bands, the most fondly remembered being the True and Trembling String Band, which played up and down the West Coast in the 1970s.
Some of the older traditional banjo influences on Allen's playing include Eddie Lowe, Fred Cockerham, Wade Ward, Clyde Troxell, and Odell Thompson. Allen also cites some of his peers as major influences: Bob Webb, Tom Sauber, Warren Argo, and John Burke. Allen moved from California to Seattle in 1984.
Matokie Slaughter and Allen swap banjos and work on a Dock Boggs tune, at the Slaughter home in Pulaski, VA, August 1988.

Sheila has some classical voice training, but also is self-taught in Balkan singing (her rousing rendition of "Macedonian Girls" at the 1983 Galax Fiddlers' Convention folk song competition is still talked about) and has danced and taught international folk dancing for over 20 years. After living in Southern California, the Boston area, and in New Jersey just outside of Philly, she moved to Seattle in the late '70s because it was green and there was a thriving folk dance and folk music scene. She began to play old time backup guitar in the early 1980s , learning at first from Jeanie McLerie at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes.
She also was a member of one of the Northwest's earliest clogging groups, The Duwamps Cloggers, and played guitar for a time in the all-women string band, The Cricket Sisters. Sheila currently is a full time mother.
The old time string band, The Cricket Sisters, getting ready to play at the Northwest Folklife Festival, Seattle, WA, late 1980s. Sheila Blech, Carol Sword, Stephanie Dickie, and Jesse Larson.

Kerry first heard "hillbilly" music as played by his uncle, Dick Blech, who also gave him a toy guitar in 1951. By 1953 Kerry was taking guitar lessons and had acquired a new Gibson. He became interested first in folk music in high school, then drifted into old time music shortly thereafter, also playing some jug band music in college. While in college, Kerry was urged further into old time music by one of his professors, Douglas Unger, who soon became a friend and fellow band member in the Standing Rock String Band. Kerry also played in Ohio in the Rhythm Gorillas (recorded on Volume 1 of Young Fogies, Heritage 056, the LP version only), the Radio Aces, the Champeen Cat Gut Ticklers, and Jumbo and the Crocodiles. He moved to Seattle in 1984 to be with Sheila and they married in 1985.
Kerry learns some licks from one of his mentors, Joe Thompson, at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in July 1996. Photo by Jean Murphy.

Kerry, Sheila, and Allen first met at the Festival of American Fiddle
Tunes in Port Townsend, WA in 1983. Kerry and Allen both moved to
Seattle in 1984 and shortly thereafter began a band, "Three Bricks Short,"
with Jeff Cherniss. Jeff then asked Sheila to join that group for dances.
When Jeff moved to the Bay Area, the trio continued, first as Three Bricks
Short, then changed its name to its current one, Hart & Blech. The trio has
played for many dances in the Northwest, has done a few concert sets,
and has appeared, whole or in part, at many festivals across the country,
including the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, the Galax Old Fiddlers'
Convention, the Fries Fiddlers' Convention, the Northwest Folklife Festival,
the Cuyahoga Valley Heritage Festival, and the Kent State Folk Festival.
They enjoy playing for square and contra dances and recently have added
Piedmont Frolics to their resume (when doing a dance with caller Sherry Nevins).
They also have played many benefits for worthy causes. Although family
duties (primarily child-rearing) have cut into their performance schedule, they
still like to get out and play when the stars are in the proper alignment. If you
are interested in having Hart & Blech play for your function, contact us by email
at BlechFam @ comcast . net. We hope to see you somewhere soon.
Sherry Nevins calls to the music of Joe Thompson and Friends at the 1996
Festival of American Fiddle Tunes. L. to R.: Sherry Nevins, Jean Murphy,
Judith Bows, Bob "Rootie Kazootie" Carlin, Kerry Blech, Mark Gaponoff, Bonnie
Zahnow, Joe Thompson, Wayne Martin, and Tony Mates on the doghouse.
Caller Kathy Anderson (top) with the old time string band <<Hart & Blech,>> Allen Hart, Kerry Blech, and Sheila Blech; September 1991 at Centrum's Ethnic Dance and Music Week, Port Townsend, WA. After playing for the country dance in Astoria , OR, the intrepid travellers pose in front of the Columbia River. Allen, Sheila, Mirabelle, Kerry, and caller, LauraMé Smith, September 1996. Photo by Gina Kytr.
One of those fun sessions at the Northwest Folklife Festival in the early 1990s. Sheila on sitting guitar, Allen on banjo (partially hidden), Forrest Carroll on standing guitar, Kerry on center fiddle, and Mike Schway on right fiddle. It seems that the rare instances that this combination of players assemble, we always seem to make some form of the media. We have been pictured in the Farmer's Insurance brochure and on CNN in this configuration.
At the Hallowe'en dance at the Ballard Eagles Hall in Seattle, October 1997. Left to right: Sherry Nevins (The Caller, with Broom, sweeping the dancers off the floor; as the Wicked Witch of the [North]West), Kerry Blech (with Fiddle, as the Pasha of Old-Time music), Allen Hart (with Banjo, as The Old Scout of Old-Time music), and Sheila Blech (sans Guitar, as the Ms. Frizzle of Old-Time music). And a good time was had by all.

Hart & Blech appear on two anthologies of old time string band music:
They play "Tie Your Dog, Sally Gal" on A Tribute to the Appalachian String Band Music Festival -- Clifftop, WV CD, available through Kerry, Allen, or Sheila, or through Chubby Dragon Productions (124 Quakerbridge Rd, Croton-On-Hudson, NY 10520).
And Allen and Kerry play "Will Davenport's Tune" on the Young Fogies, Volume II, Rounder 0369, available from the band, from Chubby Dragon (as above), from Rounder Records (One Camp St., Cambridge, MA 02140), or at finer music stores everywhere.
You can get it from us through by email at kerry@BlechFam.com.

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