STOMPIN DAVE’S MUSICAL HISTORY LESSON IN BRIDPORT

Some things just make you smile and send you on your way cheered as you travel the world.

Here is one person who seems to be able to raise a smile, get your toes tapping and get you through the rest of the day beaming inside.

He goes under the name of Stompin’ Dave Allen and he can be found most Saturdays in the Dorset coastal town of Bridport playing his ‘Bluegrass’ and American folk music as he hoofs at the same time!

Stomping out a cheering beat as he flatfoot dances on a small wooden soundboard and plays his fiddle simultaneously to an audience of busy market day shoppers in the town.

My first reaction was perhaps he should be half way up the Appalachian Mountains plying his trade in the USA but then this juxtaposition was perhaps not what it seemed?

When you look back at the roots of ‘Bluegrass’ Stompin Dave was in fact very much bringing it back home! Many older tunes can be traced back to England, indeed Ireland and Scotland too, these often rural influenced musical pieces would have been very much at home in this area 150 years ago too.

Stompin Dave flat foot dancing as he plays.

What at first appeared to be a man very much out of his place, he was in fact very much on home musical turf regarding the tunes he was playing, enhanced perhaps by their transatlantic sojourn but back once again to their starting point.

Leaving university with a first class BA honours degree in Music in 2000 Dave works as a full time musician, he has made several visits to the USA including competing in US national bluegrass banjo contests.

Tunes that in the past had made their way 3,000miles over the Atlantic to the US and were then adapted and brought back home another 3,000miles via Stompin Dave with his first class musical and dancing talents.

Keep up the good work Dave and maintain the music for all Bridport’s visitors get them toe tapping and smiling, as without knowing it, they will be sampling some real musical history if they did but know it!

Find out more about Stompin Dave at: http://www.stompindave.com/