Florida Fiddler Delights Marco Players Theater Crowd

On Wednesday and Friday evening and Sunday afternoon at the Marco Players Theater, the Florida Fiddler, J.Robert Houghtaling, played songs from his original music score for the award-winning PBS film “The Great Florida Cattle Drive, Unbroken Circles.” The songs, interspersed with some great Florida storytelling, had the crowd clapping their hands, tapping their feet, and hanging on his every word - and every note.

J.Robert was joined onstage by his son Martin, along with a score of guitars, a mandolin, and his trusty fiddle.

He started things off with his song “Florida Fiddler”, filled with plenty of tasty fiddle sounds and clever lyrical hooks.

“Come hear the fiddler play,” Houghtaling sings, “the Florida Fiddler fiddles and fiddles...who can understand the children, catching fiddler crabs in the sand...Oh, come hear the fiddler play, come hear the fiddler play.”

Then Houghtaling tells his first story about part of the naming of the film he wrote the score for. Part of the name, “Unbroken Circles”, reminded him of the song “May the Circle be Unbroken.” So, he cleverly reversed the cords from “May the Circle be Unbroken” and inserted them into his beautiful original song “Unbroken Circles.”

“I thought, ‘maybe I should take a little of that song,’ Houghtaling said. "I turned a couple of notes upside-down and backwards."

"Unbroken Circles go on forever," he sings as he demonstrates the chords. He then performs the song for the first time in front of a live audience. And it was beautiful.

Over the course of the evening Houghtaling alternates between the fiddle, mandolin, a Martin guitar, and a steel guitar. He plays them all masterfully.

A highlight of the show is a beautiful 4:42 version of “Mangrove and Buttonwood”, a song featuring two of the beautiful trees found in abundance on Marco Island. The song is based on a true story.

“The names were changed to protect the innocent,” the Florida Fiddler jokes.

Houghtaling’s storytelling ability was on full display when he told fascinating stories about his travels with Seminole leader Jim Billie. Billie is a politician who chaired the Seminole Tribe of Florida from 1979-2001 and again from 2011-2016. One adventure involved riding with Billie in his airplane to the Miss Seminole USA contest in Oklahoma City. He said the contestants all said one of the greatest things about winning the contest would be the opportunity to ride in Chief Billie’s airplane to visit the promised land of the Seminole in Florida. “That really got me,” Houghtaling told the audience. “That made me think of writing another song.”

“I want to ride in Jim Billie’s airplane…”

“I love living on Marco Island,” he told the audience. "I live less than two miles from the beach, and the same distance from the Little Bar. It’s a really good life. In my backyard we’ve got critters running by. I’ll see a family of raccoons. We definitely have bobcats. I think she has three kittens right now.  here are coyotes out there. I even saw a bear once. They call this a wildlife corridor. I have a wildlife corridor in my backyard.”

"The thing is,” Houghtaling continued, "I didn’t even know what a wildlife corridor was until I was invited to play an early morning breakfast over in the middle of the Everglades.”

Then he launches into another original song from the film score, titled “Long Way to Georgia.”

“From the Florida Glades to the Georgia Border, I ride the trails of the wildlife corridor…Wake up, wake up, rise and shine, it’s a long, long way to the Georgia Line…from Florida Bay to the Georgia pines, they’ve been roaming around since the beginning of time…so wake up wake, rattle them bones…all of God’s critters are free to roam…brothers and sisters we’re not alone…all of God’s critters are free to roam…wake up, wake up, rise and shine…it’s a long, long way to the Georgia line…"

Like any great entertainer, the Florida Fiddler, once he’s told his last story and sang his last song, leaves the audience wanting for more. Suffice to say, next time that you see the Florida Fiddler is appearing onstage near you, make sure you grab yourself a ticket and settle in for a wonderful evening of entertainment.