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Name: Marcy Cochran
Member Since: Late December 2003
DMH Roles: Playing fiddle, viola, mandolin, vocals, and a Swedish nyckelharpa. Also, resident graphics guy, part-time promoter, and old-time music flavormeister.
Hometown: Washington, DC
My Favorite Self-Penned Original and Why I Wrote It: "Difficult Run," a fiddle tune for a favorite place, and "Holiday Hell," written for a "Bummer Christmas" themed show a few years ago.
Key Musical Influences: John Hartford, Bruce Molsky, Charlie Acuff, Sheila Nichols, Dirk Powell, J.P. Fraley, Allison Krauss, Mark O'Connor, Darol Anger, David Bass, and my DMH band-mates
Favorite Fiddlers: (in addition to the above): Betse Ellis, Rayna Gellert, Bobby Taylor, Art Stamper, Buddy Spicher, Johnny Frigo, Casey Driessen, April Verch, Elana James, Vassar Clements, Benny Martin, Stuart Duncan, Aubrey Haynie, Stephane Grappelli, Andrew Bird, Rani Arbo, Deanie Richardson
Favorite Musician on Any Instrument: Tony Ellis, Leroy Troy, Abigail Washburn, Mark Schatz, Rushad Eggleston, Edgar Meyer, Del, Rob and Ron McCoury & band, Christian Howes, Laurie Lewis, Jim Hurst, Tim O'Brien, Tony Furtado, Eva Cassidy, Marty Stuart, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Scott, Bobby McFerrin
Dream Cover: anything by Lyle Lovett, WITH Lyle Lovett, OR playing twin fiddle on some wild old-time tune with Dirk Powell or Tim O'Brien during a DMH appearance on Prairie Home Companion (hey, it's a really GOOD dream, okay?)
Musician I'd Like to Trade Places With for a Day: Not trade with, Be. I'd like to BE Marty Stuart for a day (or Elton John).
Favorite Gig Memory: Millennium Stage the first time... walking into Kennedy Center, one of the major sites of my mother's orchestra career and of many, many of my fondest childhood memories, with my own fiddle on my back to perform on stage with my band (with Mom and Dad sitting in the front row). Also, Opening for Railroad Earth at the State Theatre and looking out in the audience to see people hula-hooping to our music!
Favorite Quotes: "Hey, I ordered a cheeseburger!" (Exclaimed by the third guy in the Far Side cartoon next to the "glass is half empty" guy and the "glass is half full" guy). and "Your focus determines your reality." -Obi Wan Kenobi (I'm not really a Star Wars nerd... well, maybe I am.)
Top 10 Desert Island CDs:
Strength in Numbers' Telluride Sessions, Bela Fleck's The Bluegrass Sessions, The Wilders' Throw Down, The Wayfaring Strangers' This Train, Jimmy Scott's But Beautiful, Benny Martin's Tennessee Jubilee, Southern Culture on the Skids' Mojo Box (for long drives home late at night on the desert island), Eva Cassidy's Live at Blues Alley, Mark O'Connor's Heroes, Leonard Bernstein's opera "Mass", Uncle Earl's She Waits for Night, Down from the Mountain, Crooked Still's Hop High, Dirk Powell's Time Again, The Freighthoppers' Gravy Train (okay, that's fifteen... if I can be marooned with 10, I can be marooned with 15).
Favorite Festival: The Appalachian String Band Music Festival in Clifftop, WV every August
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 Marcy grew up backstage at Wolftrap, the Kennedy Center, and the National Gallery of Art, the daughter of a classical violinist who played in the orchestras for all the concerts, dance, opera, and musical theatre that came through those venues. Mom had hopes of making a classical musician out of her early on with violin and piano lessons, but as a kid she had the attention span of a flea, and it didn't take. By high school she got inspired and dove in to study voice seriously, singing with several high school choral groups and with the George Mason Chorale. She taught herself guitar, and wrote and sang some of the worst heart-on-sleeve, whiny folk music ever foisted on friends and family. All part of growing up.
She became a professional graphic designer, got busy with life, and forgot about playing music for a while. But over the years living in the DC area, listening to wonderful folk music radio programs on WAMU and WETA, and partaking of the lively DC music scene, she was eventually overwhelmed with the urge to make music of her own again.
So, to ring in the new millennium, Marcy took up fiddling. She couldn't find a teacher in the DC area, so she packed up her great grandfather's fiddle and headed for the woods of Tennessee. Mark O'Connor's Nashville fiddle camp was a week of mind-blowing, life-altering total immersion, and she returned for 3 more summers after that. There she learned from, and was awe-struck by, Bruce Molsky, Daniel Carwile, Casey Driessen, Buddy Spicher, Johnny Frigo, Aubrey Haynie, Mark Wood, Christian Howes and Victor Lin, and got to savor John Hartford's fiddling out on the front porch. She fell in love with all styles of fiddling-- the whole point of Mark's camp-- but especially old-time and Appalachian, which she has pursued and soaked up ever since. Thanks to the Nashville Old-time String Band Association (NOTSBA), many kind old-time musicians in the DC area, and Kentucky fiddling friend Sheila Nichols, she's had a lot of help learning, and has gotten to play with and learn from a number of master fiddlers including Alan Jabbour, Bob Townsend, Clyde Davenport, Bruce Greene, Don Pedi, Leroy Troy, and the marvelous left-handed fiddler Charlie Acuff.
Marcy's day job is as a graphic designer and motion graphics animator for CNN's DC bureau, and in her "spare time" she's co-producing a documentary on the music of John Hartford with Louisville fiddler and photographer Sheila Nichols. For more about that see: www.twangcentral.org.
The photographs on this page were taken by Brett Davis in the chapel and on the grounds of Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC.
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