Spike Ludwig on fiddle: Faded Love and Maple Sugar

Gary "Spike" Ludwig, (b. 1941, d. 2013) was a gentle giant and a wonderful fiddler. I had the privilege of playing in a band with him briefly back in the day. These recordings of him with his other, primary, band, Enchanted Mountain Green, were digitized from old cassette tapes. The sound quality isn’t great, but nevertheless, they show how good he was. Here he plays the Bob Wills tune Faded Love, which includes a fine dobro solo by bandmate Don Reitz. This is followed by Spike's rendition of the Ward Allen tune Maple Sugar. Here's a poem I wrote in memory of Spike:
He didn't care about history,
Nostalgia wasn't his line.
And he didn't care about what was to be,
'Cause he didn't care about time.
So sometimes he'd show up early,
And sometimes he'd show up late.
Every zone has a time of its own,
He lived in a different state.
But when his bow hit his fiddle,
Every note seemed to rhyme.
And that fiddler would grin and that fiddler would spin
A tune made of sound and of time.
I know that his life wasn't easy,
And things didn't always go right.
But now that he's gone, and wherever he's gone,
I hope there's a fiddle in sight.
Cause when his bow hit his fiddle,
Things would all fall into place.
To the music he'd sway, and each tune that he'd play,
Had a touch of Amazing Grace.
Mike Aucott