Illinois quickstep
By William Furry

Ivan Lee Dodge (1915-1987) was an old-time country musician from Waverly, Illinois. Partially blinded at birth, Dodge totally lost his sight as a youth and later attended the Illinois School for the Blind in Jacksonville. His ear for music, however, was never impaired. Trained to be a piano tuner. Dodge taught himself to play guitar, mandolin, fiddle, harmonica, and other "folk" instruments in his spare time. A veteran of several central Illinois bands, Dodge was well-known for his musicianship and encyclopaedic knowledge of early country songs and traditional tunes. "Dog Treed a Possum Up a White Oak Tree" is an Illinois fiddle tune Dodge learned from the late fiddler Howard Sims, who came from a family of fiddlers in Modesto. Dodge and Sims played tunes together for forty years before the latter died in 1977. Before Dodge passed away he taught the tune to another Illinois fiddler, Bill Rintz, formerly of Springfield, who led the Alien Street String Band for several years and recorded the tune on a now out-of-print cassette titled "Illinois Shortcuts." The 32-bar dance tune (AA-BB), here transcribed by Rintz, is still played for traditional square and contra dances in Illinois. Ironically, for religious reasons Sims refused to play for dances, although his father, "Uncle" Henry to his friends, had no such bias, and would enlist Ivan Dodge to back him up whenever he played for dances. Fiddler Rintz notes that in the first full measure of the B section he often plays a G# in the turnaround, although the accidental might be a modern variation.

18 ILLINOIS HERITAGE