![\"Fiddler](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2015\/09\/Boardman-LO.jpg\")
<\/a>Fiddler Greg Boardman of Bates’ applied music faculty.<\/p><\/div>\n
That single, comprising the Boardman compositions “Next Guy” and “Faces on the Wall,” was released in 1965. (The compilation, an expanded edition of a 1983 LP, is titled New England Teen Scene<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Fifty-two years, a dozen recordings, and countless performances later, Boardman is back on vinyl. He has just released La fronti\u00e8re est morte \u2014 Songs with and without words<\/em><\/a>, an LP of original songs and instrumental music, along with a couple of choice cover versions. (Two cuts, “One Soul at a Time” and “The Scapegoat (is innocent)” are posted at Boardman’s Soundcloud site<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Boardman sings and plays guitar, fiddle, and other strings on the LP. His accompanists include sons Ethan and Aidan; a Bates singing ensemble, the Gospelaires; and multi-instrumentalist Julia Plumb ’05.<\/p>\n Boardman will be accompanied by Plumb and cellist Daniel Hawkins for a record-release concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4 at Lewiston’s Trinity Church.<\/p>\n In addition to teaching at Bates and making his own music, Boardman teaches strings full time in the Lewiston public schools and is the founder of, and a faculty member at, the Maine Fiddle Camp, in Montville. We talked with him about his return to vinyl, the simple power of a Hank Williams song, and the deeper meaning of scapegoating.<\/p>\n The songs all come out of very personal experiences and reactions to them, just processing. “One Soul at a Time,” which I recorded with the Gospelaires, was actually written way back in 2002 \u2014 a reaction to the 9\/11 horror, and, you know, the \u201cOK, what do we do with this?\u201d kind of thing.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the oldest song on there, but everything else is pretty up to date. Just where I\u2019m at in my life, reacting to the world, coming to grips with the violent nature of human beings, and learning more and more about it. While I remain a glass-half-full kind of guy, and someone who clings to the promise of scriptural prophecy, the music also illuminates the state that we\u2019re in as a species.<\/p>\n Greg Boardman performs “The Scapegoat (is innocent)”<\/em>: I\u2019ve been totally blown away by the writing of a French thinker named Ren\u00e9 Girard, who died a couple years ago. He talks about how, with scapegoating, we don\u2019t even realize we\u2019re doing it \u2026 and puts forth the idea that we have a chance to stop and think about, and understand, exactly what we\u2019re doing in creating mobs and finding scapegoats, and finding solace in the elimination of the scapegoat.<\/p>\nLa fronti\u00e8re est morte<\/em> is a thoughtful, even elegiac record. Does it speak to particular things that were happening in your life?<\/h5>\n
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\nhttps:\/\/soundcloud.com\/bowandstring\/the-scapegoat-is-innocent<\/p>\nOne of the instrumentals, and kind of an epic, is “The Scapegoat (is innocent).” Is that related to the so-called scapegoat mechanism, where social tensions are relieved by the creation and destruction of an innocent martyr \u2014 Christ being the obvious example?<\/h5>\n
It’s always nice to encounter a Hank Williams song.<\/h5>\n