'Where his heart was': Former state folklorist Claude Stephenson's life was infused with music

Apr. 21—For many years, one of the most intriguing and entertaining musical events in New Mexico was a potluck party in Claude Stephenson and Zoe Economou's South Valley yard.

Zoe, Claude's wife, called the gatherings, held late in July, soirees. They endured from the early 1980s until 2018.

You did not have to play a musical instrument to attend, but since Claude was a diverse and talented musician himself, the host of music programs on KUNM radio and served as the state of New Mexico's folklorist, many of his friends do play.

They'd show up at Claude and Zoe's house, just west of the Rio Grande, bearing not only salads, casseroles, cakes and pies but guitars, mandolins, fiddles, stand-up basses and banjos.

"Those soirees were great," said Grey Howell, 69, Corrales banjo and fiddle player. "It was like going to a family reunion in a summertime party atmosphere. There was lots of food and drink, and we'd play music for hours and hours. And we talked, if needed."

"Those parties were legendary," said Bruce Thomson, 74, a guitar and fiddle player with Albuquerque's Adobe Brothers band. "There would be a group playing bluegrass, another playing Irish music and another playing old time music. It was very fun. People from all around the state came to those soirees."

The soirees ended after Claude suffered a mini stroke and other medical complications in the fall of 2018. Claude battled through his health problems and resumed playing mandolin, guitar and other instruments at which he was adept, but the soirees were not revived. And then last August, Claude died at age 70.

Now, Zoe has decided that another soiree is merited to give Claude the kind of send off he would have truly appreciated. Friends, many of them with musical instruments, will gather in the big yard near the river on April 28 to celebrate his life.

Musical rootsZoe said Claude grew up in a lot of places because his father was in the Air Force, and he got to New Mexico when his dad was stationed at Alamogordo.

She said musical roots run deep in his family.

"His great-grandfather on his mom's side was on the radio in Pennsylvania with a barn dance kind of show," she said. "One of the Boyd brothers (of Bill Boyd and his Cowboy Ramblers) married into Claude's family on his father's side."

Zoe said when Claude was still a teenager, he ran away from home to Philadelphia and landed a job with the vocal soul group Laddie Burke and the Showstoppers, best known for the 1967 hit "Ain't Nothing But a Houseparty."

Claude started out on drums but became best known for playing strings — mandolin and other instruments in the mandolin family, fiddle, acoustic and electric guitar and some banjo. Zoe said Claude always traveled with an instrument, usually the mandolin.

The two met in 1977 at an Albuquerque lounge where Zoe was working. She was trying to teach herself to play mandolin, and Claude was recommended as someone who could help her.

"He tried to teach me, but I learned pretty quickly that my left hand was not up to the task," Zoe said. "Plus, it's pretty hard to play in front of someone who is really good."

Other things worked out, however. Claude and Zoe met in January and were a couple by March.

Over the topClaude earned a bachelor's degree in university studies from the University of New Mexico in 1985 and a master's in business administration from UNM in 1987 and a doctorate in American studies from UNM in 2001.

He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the music of New Mexico's Matachines dance groups, a topic in which he was well schooled. Claude played violin with a Matachines troupe in Bernalillo.

"He was a terrific musician," Thomson said. "He could play in so many styles and genres. His main genre was bluegrass, but he was a great Irish musician, played old time music, played some swing, played some jazz and traditional New Mexico music."

Howell plays these days with a bluegrass band called the Duke City Swampcoolers, but over the years he has been in bands such as the Clear Ditch Ramblers, Big River Boys and others.

He met Claude in 1974 when they were playing for different bands at the Golden Inn near Golden, New Mexico.

"That was the start of a friendship that lasted over 50 years," he said. "I learned a lot from Claude. He had a huge knowledge of music. The guy knew every song, every tune you could throw at him.

"I played gigs with him, duos and sometimes trios. When I started playing fiddle, I'd go sit in with him when he was playing at Alfalfa's (a former Albuquerque music club)."

Claude played solo gigs at Albuquerque clubs such as Alfalfa's, Uncle Nasty's and Ned's, and was with bands such as the Big River Boys, Elliott's Ramblers and the Sons of Rodan.

Karl Stalnaker, an Albuquerque musician and, until recently, a host of KUNM's long-running music program "The Home of Happy Feet," performed often with Claude.

"I played in some different bands with him," Stalnaker, 76, said. "I played a lot of pick-up gigs with him. We had an Irish band. We had a band — Dos Equis — with just the two of us. We did a variety of music, from rock 'n' roll to folk music to country music. We worked a regular job at a bar on Central, across from UNM."

Stalnaker said there really was no one else like Claude.

"He was a very good musician, an extraordinary mandolin player," he said. "But he could play anything he picked up if he wanted to. And he was over the top, just full of personality."

Stalnaker remembers the time Claude was playing drums with a popular New Mexico act when the bass drum pedal broke.

"Most drummers would have probably just left the stage and gone outside to smoke," Stalnaker said. "But not Claude. The show must go on. He never missed a beat. He got down on his knees and was beating the bass with one hand and playing the snare and cymbals with his other.

"Claude was never interested in being the coolest dude in the room. He didn't worry about his image that way. He would do off-the-wall stuff if it was needed."

A wonderful lifeStarting in the late '70s, Claude worked on KUNM radio shows such as "Only the Radio," "Live Variety Show," and from 1983, "Folk Routes." Zoe remembers him driving from Santa Fe through a snow storm to get to the UNM campus in time to go on the air at 9 a.m.

"He wanted to get local live music on the radio," she said. "That was where his heart was."

Claude was New Mexico's folklorist from 1991 to 2014, traveling all over the state attending bluegrass festivals, cowboy gatherings, American Indian ceremonies, Matachines dances and much more.

"He loved that work," Zoe said. "He was really proud of a bunch of things he did. He developed folk scouts, a way for people to do folklore research in their own culture, do their own histories."

"He played a really big role as state folklorist," Stalnaker said. "He made a lot of difference in getting people grants to do projects."

Thomson said that in his later years, Claude became a great mentor for young musicians.

"His earliest contribution was as a musician and band leader," he said. "But later on he was a mentor and folklorist. He lived a wonderful life. He was a treasure."