by Summer Callahan
Tallahassee likes it hot, and Swamp Stomp is proof of that with the 47th year of this iconic music festival, where folk, blues, storytelling, and more come alive under a shady cypress canopy. This year, local favorites Hot Tamale will bring their signature harmonies to the stage at the Tallahassee Museum.
In 2008, Adrian Fogelin helped a friend sell pottery at the Tallahassee Downtown Market. From their tent, she watched a man sing and play guitar for the visitors passing by. Fogelin was already an accomplished artist; she had inherited her grandfather’s guitar, which she used to perform throughout high school and college, studying sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Afterward, she worked as an illustrator for the Baltimore Zoo and owned a gallery in the Florida Keys. She would eventually go on to publish nine novels by 2025. Yet, watching the performer that day at the market in 2008, she thought, I’d really like to sing some harmony with this guy.
“It took me a while to get up the courage,” Fogelin recalled. “I should have known Craig wouldn’t mind anything.”
The performer, Craig Reeder, had also taken a circuitous path. Like Fogelin, he had honed his skills on guitar and classical music. Later, he worked as an accountant in the oil industry, including spending nine years in China, before teaching at Florida A&M University’s School of Business and Industry until his retirement in 2015. A self-described “compulsive performer and compulsive ham,” Reeder loved playing in unique public places, a practice known as busking.
Fogelin sang with Reeder that day, then returned with her guitar. “One day, we said, ‘Do you think we should practice?’ Then Craig, being Craig, started lining up gigs for us.” And so, Hot Tamale — named in reference to iconic blues musician Robert Johnson — was born.
Since then, Hot Tamale has performed at a host of local and regional favorites, including Swamp Stomp, Springtime Tallahassee, First Friday, 621 Gallery, the annual Harmonica Festival, local demonstrations, and the Florida Folk Festival.
“Really, the sidewalk is the best possible place to play,” Reeder said. “If you want to get into the world of music, just play as often as you can.” The duo likes to joke that they are “world famous in Tallahassee,” though their music has recently gained attention from various international folk scenes.
“So really,” Reeder added, “we’re world famous in Tallahassee, Scotland, Ireland, and Turkey.”
Still, Fogelin believes they’re lucky to be amateurs. “We’re both creative artists,” Reeder explained. “Which means we want to create a special kind of music that is very personal to us, and that’s a luxury.”
Making music on the side allows Hot Tamale to evolve culturally and sonically, experimenting with genres and drawing from different artistic disciplines.
“One thing I’ve learned from (Fogelin),” said Reeder. “I call it novelistic writing, creating a character, dropping them into an emotionally charged situation, then letting them speak.”
Reeder “just wrote a song about Jimmy Carter,” said Fogelin. “Called ‘Country Boy from Plains’, featuring all the things he did, what a decent human being can do as president … and I’ve written two new protest songs. And when we perform it, everyone starts to sing.”
Read more on the Tallahassee Democrat.
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