4 Time National Junior Fiddle Champion (Rounder Records 0046, 1974) documents the precocious mastery of twelve-year-old Mark O'Connor, the Seattle-born fiddler who had already captured four national junior championship titles when these sides were recorded with mandolin player Norman Blake and guitarist Charlie Collins. O'Connor navigates contest showpieces, breakdown tunes, and waltzes throughout, demonstrating an unnerving technical command of multiple regional fiddle styles — Texas contest bowing, Appalachian breakdown technique, and smooth Nashville contest phrasing among them. The record announced a new kind of fiddle prodigy to the acoustic music world and launched O'Connor's long association with Rounder Records, the Cambridge-based independent that would document much of his instrumental output through the following decade and a half.
Tracklist
- 1 Dusty Miller alt version 3:19
- 2 Kelly Waltz 2:52
- 3 Cuckoo’s Nest alt version 3:30
- 4 Don't Let The Deal Go Down 1:52
- 5 Dreamer's Waltz 2:51
- 6 Sally Johnson 2:32
- 7 Billy In The Lowground 2:16
- 8 Festival Waltz 2:49
- 9 Brilliancy alt version 2:20
- 10 I Don’t Love Nobody Source Recording 2:11
- 11 Roxanna Waltz 2:46
- 12 Say Old Man 2:35
- 13 Grey Eagle alt version 3:49
