'Fiddler's Dream' author notches another award

August 12, 2018 at 12:14 a.m. | Updated August 12, 2018 at 12:07 a.m.

Howard Marshall and company performed last June in Fulton. The group included, from left, Bill Foley, of Ashland, on banjo; Margot McMillen, of northern Callaway County, on cello; Marshall and Kathy Gordon, of Columbia, on upright bass; and Henrich Leonhard, of Columbia, on guitar.
Howard Marshall and company performed last June in Fulton. The group included, from left, Bill Foley, of Ashland, on banjo; Margot McMillen, of northern Callaway County, on cello; Marshall and Kathy Gordon, of Columbia, on upright bass; and Henrich Leonhard, of Columbia, on guitar.

A Callaway County professor's work in preserving fiddling heritage just earned him the 2018 Missouri Humanities Distinguished Literary Achievement award.

Howard Marshall, professor emeritus of art history and archaeology at the University of Missouri, published "Fiddler's Dream: Old-time, Swing, and Bluegrass Music in Twentieth-Century Missouri" last year through the University of Missouri Press.

Since then, the book has been the recipient of several awards.

On March 16, the Missouri Conference of History presented Marshall with its Book of the Year Award at the organization's annual conference in Jefferson City. Then on March 29, Marshall received the Popular Culture Association's Ray and Pat Browne Book Award at the society's annual conference in Indianapolis.

Most recently, the Missouri Humanities Council announced that Marshall won its Distinguished Literary Achievement. It's one of the four awards the council distributes annually to people and organizations in recognition for their work in the humanities throughout Missouri.

"Fiddler's Dream" follows up Marshall's research about fiddling in the Show-Me State, covering the years from around 1920, when recordings and radio changed the face of music, to around 1960 with the folk song revival. Illustrating his points by using biographies of Missouri fiddlers, his work covers fiddle traditions in all corners of the state.

This book follows an earlier work, "Play Me Something Quick and Devilish," which includes fiddle traditions from Missouri settlement to the dawn of recorded music around 1920.

Both books and the CD of archival recordings are available at upress.missouri.edu and through selected local stores and organizations.