The

Band

WHO We Are

The "founding" members of Cordelia's Dad are Tim Eriksen and Peter Irvine. But we also spend a lot of time making music with other people, in a variety of styles and combinations.

A lot of this activity has been singing socially, particularly from The Sacred Harp book. If you'd like to join us, check out wmshc.org and come sing with us.

Tim and Cath have also done some performing and recording with our friends Jeff Colby and Kelly House. When they do that, the group is called Northampton Harmony, and consists of unaccompanied 4-part harmony singing. The repertoire centers on 18th and 19th century shape note hymns. They have a CD called "The Hookes' Regular Sing" which you can order from CDBaby

Tim and Peter are part of a band called Zabe i Babe, led by Minja Lausevic, which plays popular and traditional songs from the former Yugoslavia. The band has released one album, Drumovi, on Bison Records and available at . www.cdbaby.com

Tim has his own web site, www.timeriksenmusic.com containing some info on his solo albums and other projects.

You can read a somewhat accurate biography of Cordelia’s Dad by Stewart Mason on allmusic.com

Dwight Diller with Peter and Tim
Dwight Diller with Peter

FAQs

  • Never officially. We are not actively touring as a band.Tim is playing solo shows and we get together when the stars properly align. Give us a good reason, and we will consider playing.

  • It's something someone said once, which struck us as funny at the time. Specifically, Professor Benjamin DeMott, while discussing King Lear, and we thought that flippant attitude suited the band’s early approach. That was before our first show, and even longer before we had any idea what the band would be about. To us, it's just a name, much like "Frank," or "Jane."

  • It is both a system of notation and a singing style. It is a living tradition. Today, the most popular book to sing out of is The Sacred Harp. An example of shape note singing style is the song Wake Up, on Spine. There are many opportunities to sing around the country. For an extensive list of events, go to fasola.org, or, if you are in New England, to wmshc.org.

  • Order from The Sacred Harp Publishing Company

  • Dwight was an excellent singer, banjo player and fiddler from Pocahantas County, West Virginia. He had the groove. He was an inspiration to us. Check out Dwight's web site at www.dwightdiller.com.

  • It's usually tuned somewhere around CFCFFC, except, on Spine, for track 7 (BbFCFGC) and track 8 (CFCFGC).