DIRK POWELL BAND
Lafayette, Louisiana
Old Time String Band
Dirk Powell is considered one of the world's leading experts on traditional Appalachian fiddle and banjo styles, and carries on the traditions of his late father-in-law, the legendary Cajun musician Dewey Balfa, as the accordion player in the Cajun group Balfa Toujours. The multi-instrumentalist Dirk first started playing music in Oberlin, Ohio, with classical piano lessons at age 8, and at age 10, he took up the harpsichord. In his early teens, Dirk began spending more time in eastern Kentucky, where his family came from and where his grandfather, James Clarence Hay, still lived. "When I got to be about 12 or 13," he says, "my grandfather's music started resonating with me a lot more...I was able to go back down there, and it was great for me and great for my grandfather. He had given [music] up when he was young. So it kind of gave me my life and gave him back his life because music was the most important thing to him." In the tradition of the Scots-Irish, who'd come to the mountains in the mid-1700s, Dirk learned banjo and fiddle firsthand.
Dirk started playing mountain music professionally and it was at a West Virginia festival in 1989 that he first met and played with Dewey Balfa, whose performance left him "captivated." When Balfa passed away in 1992, Powell joined Balfa's daughters, Nelda and Christine (whom he would marry) and formed Balfa Toujours.
In 1994, Dirk won the annual Mulate's Accordion Contest and started teaching accordion at home and abroad. He has performed on and/or scored several soundtracks, most notably The Brothers McMullen and Cold Mountain. He also appeared in the BBC/RTE documentary series The Irish Empire as an expert on the culture of early Scots-Irish immigrants to Appalachia.
Links
http://www.folkloreproductions.com/DirkPowell.html
http://www.efolkmusic.org/ArtMusic/ViewArtist.aspx?aid=1181
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:39foxqrgld0e~T1
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