Bob Bovee or Gail Heil 18287 Gap Drive Spring Grove MN 55974 (507) 498-5452 bobngail@springgrove.coop www.boveeheil.com Work Samples Audio: Old Chisholm Trail Eli Green's Cakewalk The Girl I Left Behind in Sunny Tennesse To hear the work samples, Windows Media Player is required. If you do not have it installed, you can download it for free here: Download Windows Media Player

Bob Bovee and Gail Heil American old-time string band Bob Bovee and Gail Heil have been performing together since 1980, singing and playing American traditional music of the Southern mountains, the Midwest and the West with fiddle, guitar, harmonica, banjo, and autoharp. This is traditional American rural music is played in homes, at dances, and for earlier entertainments such as minstrel shows and country radio. With a repertoire including dance tunes, ballads, cowboy songs, humorous and sentimental numbers, blues and rags, their show is spiced with stories, history, and folklore that will entertain audiences of all ages. They also teach, call, and provide music for square and circle dances from the days of barn dances and house parties. Available: Anytime, any day; no mileage restrictions. Space: Stage area at least six by twelve ft.; for large venues or dances we require a sound system with at least four microphones and stands Fee: Negotiable

Additional Information:
Bob Bovee and Gail Heil, perform a variety of types of old time music which were born in the American south, but which have spread to the rest of the country and the world in the last few generations.

Gail started learning fiddle music in the mid-1970s from Missouri fiddlers like Vesta Johnson, Frank Reed, Bob Holt and Emmanuel Wood. Among her singing influences are traditional singers such as Ozark performers Almeda Riddle and Tip McKinney. Bob learned old time cowboy songs from his family. Family members also introduced Bob to old time string music by taking him to fiddle contests and other fiddling and string band music occasions. Bob's father played the harmonica and got Bob started on that instrument.

Today, Bovee & Heil performances combine their voices, the fiddle, banjo, guitar and harmonica. The Bovee & Heil repertoire includes fiddle dance tunes, songs taken from string band tradition, cowboy songs, and tunes learned from the area around their home in Spring Grove, MN. Bob and Gail see their music as both window to the past and a way of telling stories and expressing emotions still relevant today. The directness, the honesty and the intensity of traditional music done in the old style has a beauty and impact that explains why the form is going through a lively renaissance once again, growing in popularity. There will always be a place for a music that can affect people so deeply while connecting them with their roots.

While some performance settings for their style of music, such as medicine shows and mistrelsy, have disappeared, many of the old fashioned settings for their type of music still exist. They play extensively for square dances, auditorium concerts, town festivals and in local cultural centers such as libraries, and for groups whose purpose it is to preserve old-time music and dance, such as folklore societies and music camps for adults.