150-year-old Kansas family band to make debut in Winfield

KANSAS (KSNT) - The Lost Keys has been maintaining the family musical tradition for more than 150 years, and this year they will be making their debut at the Walnut Valley Festival.

The Lost Keys is a family band based in Lawrence headed by renowned fiddlers, artists and multi-instrumentalists Tricia Spencer and Howard Rains. Although based in Kansas, they play all over the nation on a regular basis.

The group plays traditional old-time American fiddle music, which can be anything from country, swing, blues, roots music and more. They are joined by their kids Isaiah on guitar and fiddle, Orion on banjo-uke and Ru on bass.

"There were times growing up where we weren't sold on playing music," Orion said. "They were always trying to get me to play, so of course I had to rebel. But I started guitar and eventually focused on the banjo-uke around 2013."

The Spencer family has been playing traditional fiddle music in Kansas since 1857. They even still have their historic property in Big Springs, nestled between Lawrence and Topeka.

"We've been playing instruments since I was about three or four-years-old," Spencer and Rains said. "We all play on passed down instruments and both our families have a history of music going back many generations."

The band is inspired by all kinds of music, but they are particularly mesmerized by groups like The Horseflies and old lost fiddlers.

Old lost fiddlers are sort of an American tradition in and of itself. Between the 1930s and 1990s, the Library of Congress conducted field recordings across the U.S. and beyond to document traditional song, music, dance and body movement. The recordings feature more than 6400 audio collections that have now become our main source for traditional folk music in the Americas and beyond.

"It's the most underground form of music around," Rains said. "It's so non-commercially viable that it remains underground today."

Although the history of The Lost Keys goes back generations, they've also had a great deal of recent successes. In 2024, the group played second in the band contest at the Appalachian String Band Festival in West Virginia, and the same year they took home first place in the Kansas State Fiddling and Picking Championships.

"We have been privileged to be surrounded with this music all our lives," Isaiah said.

If you're planning on attending the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield this year, you can find The Lost Keys here:

• 6:30 p.m. at stage one and 9:15 p.m. on stage three on Sept. 18.
• 12:25 p.m. on stage three and 11 p.m. on stage four on Sept. 19.
• 11 a.m. on stage one, 1:30 p.m. on stage six and 3:15 p.m. on stage three on Sept. 20.
• 1 p.m. on stage three Sept. 21.

Locally, you can tune in to 90.1 FM KJHK on Oct. 30 to hear the band live on the airways, as well as on Oct. 31 at the Oddball Hoedown in Kansas City.

If you're interested in learning more about traditional American fiddle music, both Spencer and Rains are hosting a class at the Lawrence Arts Center from Oct. 21 to Nov. 18. Spencer also teaches a free fiddle fundamentals class every Saturday over zoom that you can sign up for on her website.

"We love to help people get going with this music," Spencer and Rains said. "It's a social music. It's meant to be played and danced to."

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