Mike Berst

Dulcimer Artist and Story Teller

The College Fight Song Project — Free Downloads

I was digging around in the archives and found some strange recordings we did. Our bass player back in the day had played clarinet in the University of Michigan in the 60's, and was always talking about how great the band was then, and about this great arranger they had, Jerry Billup. We thought he was just waxing nostalgic and didn't think much of it.

Then one day I saw a CD in the store "the greatest marching band ever, the U of M band under Dr. William T. Revelli" so picked it up, and then listened to it on a road trip soon after and was blown away. Pretty soon all of the guys in the band got enthusiastic about it, and we got the wacky idea to record the tunes.

Howard listened to the various obligatto parts and transcribed them and it evolved into this totally out of control project LOL. David M. worked out mandolin and guitar parts, David R. played flute and winds, Howard played bass guitar and keyboards, Bud played acoustic bass. Eventually we had dulcimer, guitars, mandolins, bass, flutes, horns, winds, glockenspiel, triangles, etc., etc., some sampled, some live. Everyone kept adding parts and the project went on and on. We eventually recorded about 25 marches and fight songs.

We had too much fun with this project. I can't stop laughing listening to them and thinking back...

Here are the recordings I've been able to find so far. I re-formatted these as MP3 files. You should be able to download them with no problem. Enjoy!

— Mike Berst