Lack of fiddle fest doesn't halt jamming
Some musicians who go to Lyons don't know the show is canceled; others know but show up anyway.

By Erin Negley - Reading Eagle, September 11, 2006

It's tradition at fiddle festivals for musicians to form impromptu groups and jam while more organized performances are presented on the stage.

At Lyons Borough Park on Sunday it was all jam and no stage as more than a dozen musicians put on their own show at the site where the Lyons Fall Fiddle Festival had been held annually for 23 years.

Lyons Borough Council announced in early August that the event was canceled. Festival organizers Arlan and Donna Schwoyer said they could no longer handle the work.

At 11 a.m. Sunday, when the festival would have begun, Carl H. Adams was the only musician in the park. He waited alone with his guitar for the others he knew would arrive.

“I get tired of playing by myself on my porch,” the Greenwich Township resident said.

A few hours later, he was one of six musicians jamming under some trees, playing bluegrass, old country and mountain tunes.

Jim B. and Shirley A. Reilly hadn't heard the annual festival was canceled. They drove from Philadelphia as usual with Jim's steel guitar. But they knew when they pulled into a nearly empty parking lot that something was amiss.

They weren't happy about the cancellation, but Jim joined the other musicians and played a few songs.

As the afternoon passed, more than a dozen musicians played fiddles, guitars, Dobros, banjos and a mandolin for an audience of about a half dozen. A train whistle in the background added to the stories the group wove with their music.

Mount Penn resident Mike E. Laudanski and Josh A. Sceurman of Rockland Township enjoyed themselves Sunday but missed some aspects of the festival.

“This thing really showcased the locals,” Laudanski said of the annual event.

“It didn't seem right not to come,” Sceurman said.

They said they also missed the home-cooked ham and string beans.

But there's good news for Laudanski and Sceurman and fiddlers who would rather play on a stage and for a larger audience: The fall fiddle festival will return next year, borough Councilwoman Suzanne F. Reed said Sunday.

Council plans to appoint a recreation board that will organize the event.

Reed expects the 2007 festival to be in mid-September.

“People really want it and they're interested in it,” Reed said. “It's a tradition and we miss it.”