Joe Weed - producer, composer, musician and filmmaker_KZSC Bushwhacker's_2025-07-25_interviewed by "Dangerous Dan" Orange

oe Weed is a musician, composer, fiddler, and documentary filmmaker; playing music since 7 years old; as a fiddler, remembers and passes along who you learned a song from, and who it's by..."Mystery of the Ookpit" is a film about a fiddle tune that was mistakenly assumed to be derived from Native American music, but instead was written in 1965 by a Canadian; it gained prominence when someone played it at the Weiser, Idaho, National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest, where it was declared the winner - at this festival, at the next year, everyone plays the previous year's winner; Joe had made a previous documentary (2011) on the Westphalia Waltz, which turned out to be a massive project; with the Ookpit Waltz, he set out to make a short film, but it grew & grew; Vals Buena Vista is a song about an intersection he found when bicylcing in south Santa Cruz County; Joe also plays fiddle for Contra Dances; how Joe came to California (post-WWII baby boomer migration), where the schools had extensive music programs; met his wife, Marty, in the mid-70's, and she was already living off Summit in the Santa Cruz Mountains; The Money Question? Yes, in all its forms (performing, producing, composing, filmmaking), but in part because his wife, a professor, had health care & retirement - he couldn't have done it without her.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan", airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.