The Free Staters combine fiddle, early fretless banjo, parlor guitar, buffalo rib bones, donkey jawbone and tambourine to recreate the music you would have heard coming from an American front porch in the 1850s.
Dressed in 19th century clothing and playing period instruments or reproductions of those instruments, the band looks and sounds like it stepped off the front porch and into the present.
The Free Staters took their name from the tough and determined men and women who settled in the Kansas Territory beginning in 1854. As the territory became a bloody battleground between those for and opposed to slavery, lines were drawn and sides were formed into "Pro-slavery" and "Free-State" or "Free Soil" factions.
In every performance, The Free Staters strive to take their audience back to a time in our nation’s history when life was far less complex. It was an era when families spent time together gathered around the piano singing popular songs. Neighbors sat on their front porches tapping their feet and clapping their hands to the spirited sounds of a fiddle, banjo and bones.
Audiences across Kansas and the Midwest have grown to enjoy The Free Staters correct 19th century sound, which the group has attained by carefully researching the techniques so crucial to bringing that sound to life.
The Free Staters are:
Betsey Goering - Betsey plays the fiddle and began playing the instrument at age 3. Her violin was made at the turn of the 20th century. Betsey was classically trained for 14 years and has since learned to fiddle and play minstrel tunes because of her love of 19th century music.
Jonathon Goering - Jonathon plays the guitar and minstrel five-string banjo, and sings. He plays the banjo in the "stroke style," a method crucial in recreating the sound of early to mid 19th century music. His banjo was made by James Hartel of New York, complete with a calf-skin head and cat gut strings. Jonathon plays a Ventura classical guitar with nylon strings. He and Betsey are married and live in Wichita, KS.
Ryan Mackey - Ryan Mackey plays the guitar, upright bass, dumbek, and sings. He has been playing bass for nearly 10 years and has played in a wide variety of groups. Ryan's bass is a refurbished, custom "half size." Ryan lives with his wife, Allison, in McPherson, KS.
Tom James - Tom plays the spoons, bones, guitar, donkey jawbone, dumbek, jews harp, and sings. He has a passion for a variety of music genres including traditional folk. Tom lives in Wichita with his wife, Marilyn, son Mike, and daughter, Sierra Rose.
It’s the hope of The Free Staters that listeners come away from a performance feeling like, only moments earlier, they were sitting on that old, wooden, front porch tapping their feet and experiencing a small taste of mid 19th century life.
