Things were starting to look up for the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival- at least from a competition standpoint- as a new century arose. The contest was now firmly established as a Decatur, IL attraction, what with the perfect location (the newly-renamed Holiday Inn Select)...a venue where ragtime fans no longer had to worry about it raining on the parade.
What could go wrong?
We'll tell you later.
But first...let's talk about the 2000 version.
That year, 23 contestants weighed in (14 in the Regular Division, nine in the Junior Division); while eight JDs were trying to wrestle the division's crown away from the new kingpin, Adam Yarian, everybody in the RD group fought to get the newly-vacated title...left open because the then rules said that Brian Holland couldn't go after a fourth straight championship.
Two Reg Division contestants had never tasted the OTPP experience before: Barbara Curry and Michael Urban-Piette.
Meanwhile, John McElhaney ended a sixteen-year wait between berths in the contest (an event that underwent all sorts of changes since he last tried it in 1984...the biggest being the competition's move indoors in 1987).
One thing hadn't changed for Johnny Mac: He proved he was still RD semifinals material.
In the JD competition, Jerry Ailshie, Erin Long, and Ashley Leverenz were back to tussle with Adam Y. and Harrison Wade. But for 2000, they were joined by first-timers Will Best, Charles and Chris Korban, and the newest Danville (IL) discovery, Lauren Clayton.
When all was said and done, Harrison passed up Jerry (and Charles turned out to be the better Korban)...but Adam from Maryland was able to notch a third straight Junior Division championship.
Fourteen-year-old Adam did it...he punched his ticket into the contest's adult division.
Back in the adult-division wars, Mimi Blais was determined to leave no doubt that 2000 was her year...no questions asked.
The question was: "Who's gonna place second?"
At first, Michael Stalcup was running second...but he flamed out in the semifinals, and fell so far behind that Dan Mouyard, Marty Mincer, and Faye Ballard passed him up (with Faye taking second for herself at the end of the RD second round).
Well...if 2000 wasn't going to Mimi's year, would it be Faye's? (After all, when OTPP was still a one-division competition, Faye nearly ripped the crown away from Joybelle Squibb in 1976, the contest's second year.)
As it all turned out, Dan and the Two Martys (Mincer and Sammon) passed Faye up...but all four of 'em couldn't come out ahead of Mimi. (Marty S. placed second in the Regs.)
It all came down to dueling versions of "Kitten on the Keys:" Mimi's version was better than the rendition Marty M. brought home.
And no woman contestant has since snared the Regular Division's top prize.
Circumstances prevented Mimi from coming back to Decatur for the 2001 C&F...so that meant both division titles were there for the taking.
2001 was the year the Memorial Day weekend extravaganza boasted 24 contestants (sixteen RDs and eight JDs); seven pianists were new to the contest this time...and all but two were Regular Division performers.
David Feurzeig and Janet Bullock were two of 2001's first-timers; so were Al Roma (an American living in Germany at the time) and Andrew Barker (a Briton living in America back then).
Lauren's piano teacher, Bev Wolf, filled out an entry blank, too.
Bev was the instructor who also showed Ashley and Erin- as well as 1999 JD performer Marcie Hunt- the ropes.
Speaking of JD...it was a one-Korban year (Charles carried the family banner this time) and the first year Illinoisan Karah Gettleman and Iowan Sarah Davison (who grew up to become a Tennessean and help start a great band called High Road III) got in there.
I first met Sarah two years earlier, when I competed at the National Old-Time Country, Bluegrass, and Folk Music Festival and Contest (still held at that time in Avoca, IA). In 1999, the then sixteen-year-old grabbed that festival's ragtime piano championship...a title I'm told I almost won on my own first try.
Getting back to 2001...it looked as if Al was going to triumph on his first try. He boasted a four-point preliminary lead over David and the youngest of the RD performers, ol' Adam Y. But Adam Y. and Al R. lost ground in the division semifinals, and Dan went from a fourth-place tie with Faye to a second-place tie with Al...while David F. scooted to the top coming into the Reg finals.
OTPP Weekend 2001 turned out to have quite a few firsts:
*Harrison emerged victorious (his initial title) in the younger competition...in a year where the second-place and third-place JD finishers finally got awarded prize money, too.
*Sarah became the first female Junior Division contestant to receive prize money (she finished third while Will got second place).
*David couldn't hang on to the top Regular Division spot...and, instead,
Dan M. became the first OTPP contestant to follow up a JD title with a championship in the RDs. (Adam, Al, and Faye rounded out the RD Top Five.)
2001 was also the year Decatur's Holiday Inn Select went under new management.
This new management group decided to remodel the hotel...lobby, rooms, and all. And the danger was that the makeover wouldn't be done in time for 2002's Memorial Day weekend.
Plus, the group's members felt the Holiday Inn Select had room for just one big musical event per year. As a result, the new team decided to prop up the Central Illinois Jazz Festival and turn its back on the OTPP Contest.
The clincher came from the Decatur Convention and Visitors Bureau, a group that had been giving the Old-Time Music Preservation Association $2,000 per year to help with advertising the contest.
On the eve of the 2001 get-together, bureau officials told OMPA: "We're cutting you off!"
And so, for the first time in fifteen years, Ted Lemen and Co. needed a place for contestants to show their stuff on the 1883 Weber upright piano nicknamed "Moby Dink."
When we come back to take another look at the history of the OTPP soiree, we'll learn about the contest's next site.
I'm Jim Boston...thanks for reading this blog!
So was Tony (in 1982)...a couple of years before Virginia entered.
I'm talking about the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival...an event that, at long last, has a database.
And the credit goes to three people: Dan Mouyard (the first Junior Division champion to become a Regular Division champ at the Illinois event), Judy Leschewski (a 1977 contestant who found out she could make more of an impact by becoming the celebration's first contest coordinator- a job she held for decades), and Dale Wells (a 1994 Regular Division finalist whose own stint as an OTPP contestant ran from 1986 to 2010).
Dan emailed me a couple of weeks ago; in his post, he added a link to the C&F database...and once I got on there, my eyes were some kind of full.
Lots of great, great memories!
I'd first heard of the contest in 1979. I was in college at the time, and one Saturday afternoon that May, I hurried back to my dorm room, turned on my TV set, and...watched the tail end of NBC Nightly News (Saturday edition, of course), where the last report showed Dorothy M. Herrold banging away on an antique upright piano placed on a caboose in front of the Monticello Railway Museum. (That's right...the contest was held outdoors back then.)
The reporter called Dorothy (who'd just become OTPP's first three-time undefeated champion after besting the previous titleholder, 1975-76 standardbearer Joybelle Squibb) "The Chopin of Ragtime."
Two years and seven months earlier, I'd walked inside a church and decided to give the ol' 88s another chance (after a reluctant start in 1965).
After watching that TV report in which the old teacher from La Porte, IN showed the crowd how old-time piano really works, I'd never given attending the C&F (let alone actually entering it) any sort of thought.
Until 1993...thirteen years after the database starts.
According to the database, three contestants went after the crown DMH had just vacated: John McElhaney, Paul Gronemeier (as things turned out, a longtime OTPP hopeful), and- as things also turned out- the first man to get the Big Trophy, a Californian named Bruce Petsche.
At first, OTPP was a one-day competition in which each pianist had to prepare three selections. And the audience joined a panel of judges in selecting the champ.
In those days, Ted Lemen's claim to fame had no Regular Division-Junior Division setup; everybody, regardless of age, competed for the top prize. (Bruce pocketed $250 for winning it all.)
So, in 1981, the field shot up to twelve hopefuls...including little Jennifer Booker, Paul G., and defending titleholder Bruce.
Even Dorothy came back to Monticello, IL to fight to get her crown back. (Can't do that today if you've topped the RDs three straight years.)
Instead, Mark Haldorson (a man from Illinois' Peoria area) inaugurated his own three-year stint ruling old-time piano.
And Tony Caramia (now one of the big names in ragtime piano) was one of ten 1982 performers trying to end Mark's reign.
Two years later, 31 other pianists (Jennifer and Paul were two of them) fought to claim the title Mark had just vacated.
One of those musicians was...Virginia Tichenor, who's now one of ragtime's big names as well.
Nope...pianist-drummer Virginia didn't take the crown.
That championship went to a professor from Peoria's Bradley University, Janet Kaizer. (By the way...another of the contestants Janet had to get past to make it to the top was her own husband, Ed, himself a Bradley prof.)
Well, after that mini-marathon, the Monticello Railway Museum made some changes to its Number One fundraiser.
First of all, OTPP was turned into a two-day event, with prelims on the first day and finals on the second day. Then the field was busted into two pieces- a Junior Division (for pianists eighteen or younger) and a Regular Division. With this new format, the JD champion was determined on the first day, and the top five RD performers would come back to play the next day for that division's title.
So, with a new format for 1985, Janet got to keep her Reg crown, while Neil Moe became the first Junior titleholder.
Funny thing: Neil WAS the Junior Division for 1985.
The next year was the final outdoor C&F (due to the weather turning bad and due to an event called "Hands Across America")...the only year the event was staged at the football field at Monticello High School...and the first year all RDs had to go through qualifications for a spot in the division's semifinals before five finalists could be winnowed out.
In the RD field (fourteen performers strong), Janet and Ed were still in there, and Paul was still knocking on the door. They were joined by two newcomers who'd each go on to embark on a long association with the contest: Michigan's Dale Wells and Wisconsin's Linda Harmon.
And a third RD newcomer would really shake things up: Ron Trotta.
Meanwhile, eight teens/preteens would make sure Neil wouldn't get to enjoy a second straight year of being the sole JD contestant. They included sisters Heather and Kori Wilken...as well as Ed's and Janet's son, Joe.
And Jeremy Lehmen, who joined Jennifer in sitting out 1985, joined her in coming back to Monticello in '86 to challenge Long Tall Neil.
Neil pushed all his challengers aside to keep the Junior Division crown.
Then, with circumstances producing a six-member Regular Division finals contingent, Janet was on her way to becoming the third performer to wrap up three adult titles in as many years...while Ed (holding down second place coming into the RD finals) was trying to make sure the two biggest cash prizes would go to the Kaizer family.
But Ron snatched all of that away, charging from fifth (RD prelims) to third (RD semis)...all the way to the very top.
With twelve World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contests in the books, the Monticello Railway Museum had some new questions to answer about its pet project as the museum prepared for 1987.
The questions included: "Can Ron Trotta keep his hands on the championship trophy?" "What's Paul Gronemeier got to do to get that title?" "Has Neil Moe got one more title left in him?" "Are the Kaizers coming back?" "Will Linda Harmon come back? She's great...especially when she's playing upside down!"
The biggest question was: "Where's the contest gonna be held NOW?"
I'll tell you what happened in Part Two of this post.
I'm Jim Boston, and thanks for finding this blog!
