Dave Bing and Dwight Diller (Monthly Program)

Old time music from West Virginia!Dave Bing is the fiddler you find at the center of the knot of the biggest and best jam session at any old-time music festival in West Virginia. Perhaps best known today as a member of Gandydancer, Dave Bing began playing fiddle some three decades ago. He was a founding member with his brothers Mike and Tim of the legendary Bing Brothers, and is much in demand as a teacher of traditional West Virginia fiddle styles. An influential figure in the state?s traditional music community, Dave has spent years tracking down the music of older musicians from central West Virginia. Dave comes from Roane County in the center of the state.Dwight Diller is the banjo player at the old-time music festivals that everyone seeks out to learn about traditional music and styles from the parts of West Virginia where the mountains get high. He lives in Pocahontas County, and has sought out and worked at preserving the music and styles of his part of West Virginia. He grew up steeped in the mountain culture of central West Virginia; his ancestors were some of the earliest settlers of this region. Dwight's early interest in the old stories and music led him to seek out the old people in his home area who were the repositories of this tradition, folks like the Hammons family. This search eventually led to the release of their music and stories by the Library of Congress, Augusta Heritage Center, and Rounder Records. Now with over three decades of playing and almost as many years teaching the old music, Dwight has come into his own as an interpreter of his heritage. His music is always changing, always fresh, never parroted; it has the active ingredients that keep it in the spirit of the archaic feel of the music of the 19th century.