MAKANDA BAND TO PLAY ON 'PRAIRE HOME COMPANION'

Fiddle player Dennis Stroughmatt was on the road playing with another band when word came that his band, locally known as The Brown Baggers, had been chosen to perform on Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion."

The band, which uses the name Bons Temps Rouler when it performs outside the area, was one of six groups chosen in the program's annual competition to find the best musicians from towns with populations of less than 2,000. Two members of the Brown Baggers live in Makanda, Ill., population 150.

Other members of the band are Tom Cummins, John Giffin, Kenny Johnson and Dan Schingel. They will play on the April 15 program, which begins at 5 p.m. CST.

Stroughmatt presented a talk titled "Keeping Old Songs Alive" for about 20 people Tuesday afternoon at Crisp Hall Auditorium. He demonstrated different styles of fiddle playing before joining The Brown Baggers in a concert Tuesday night at the University Center Ballroom.

The Murphysboro, Ill., resident graduated from Southeast with a degree in historic preservation and history. He also has a master's degree in history from SIU. He originally approached the music as an academic, working on a project for Southeast's Center for Regional History at Old Mines in 1991. That's when he picked up the fiddle for the first time.

Stroughmatt studied Cajun culture in Louisiana and French in Quebec. He has developed a theory that the French culture in North America in Louisiana, in Quebec and in places like Old Mines in Missouri comes from the same source. The ancestors were Celts, he says, who lived on the coast as opposed to people who lived inland simply because it was easier for them to emigrate.

The music Stroughmatt's band plays is so traditional that they've been accused of being Celtic.

Stroughmatt had a background in piano and percussion but has picked up the fiddle quickly. He says he used to practice the fiddle every night from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m.

"I couldn't get a date so I just stayed home and played," he kids.

In 1996, he was playing a bit of fiddle with some musicians around Carbondale when Dr. Frank Nickell of the Center for Regional history called looking for someone to perform at a French festival here, in Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis.

"He probably caused my Cajun music career," Stroughmatt said.

The band got tight playing so much and soon afterward was a hit at an open mike night at a Carbondale beer garden. Then the band was booked to open for the well-known Cajun band Beausoleil. "Up to then I had been interested (in Cajun music) only on an academic level," Stroughmatt said.

On "A Prairie Home Companion," Bon Temps Rouler will perform "The Mardi Gras Song," a tune he estimates is more than 500 years old. "It's a Medieval chant more than anything."

Looking at French heritage helped him learn about his own culture, Stroughmatt said.

"All traditional history is important. You'd best look in on your own."