Strolling Piano

Fair | Clip
Aug 15, 2022 | 4 min

Meet a performer who can play the piano, sing, and cruise around the Iowa State Fair...all at the same time.

Transcript

♪♪ 

JIM RIPP: Got to help me out with the words. I tend to forget them. 

♪ Just a small town girl ♪♪ 

You sing it. ♪ 

CROWD: Living in a lonely world ♪ 

JIM: My name is Jim Ripp from Madison, Wisconsin. Through dueling pianos and the circuit there, I hooked up with Strolling Pianos and have been doing it ever since. 

♪ Why do you build me up, butter cup baby ♪  ♪ Just to let me down and mess me around ♪  ♪ And then worst of all you never call baby when you say you will ♪  ♪ But I love you still I need you ♪  ♪ More than anything darling ♪  ♪ You know that I have from the start ♪  ♪ So build me up, butter cup don't break my heart ♪

Oh, I absolutely love it. As soon as I start or pull out, the phones are out. Everybody's -- big smile on their face and grabbing their friends, having everybody look. I just love it. I get more entertainment out of it probably than they do. 

 ♪ Brown-eyed girl ♪  ♪ You my brown-eyed girl ♪ 

THEODORE NELSON: So I am a technician with The Strolling Piano. I supervise while we're out here on site and when we're back home in Florida. I help build and maintain our multiple units that we have now 

♪ Brown-eyed girl ♪

THEODORE: Without giving away too much, obviously, it's a lot of electronic components. Obviously you can see a microphone, speakers, keyboard. So yeah, that's a big thing figure out we have a TV on the front so if we need to do bulletins or a sponsorship, we can do that too. She lights up really pretty at night. 

♪ Life goes on, la la la la life goes on ♪ 

JIM: It's a lot of getting the crowd to interact with you. Definitely get some requests. I ask them to sing along when they can, take over the lyrics. 

♪♪ ♪♪ 

PRODUCER: $1 million question I keep getting, how does it steer? 

JIM: That's something — that's kind of the secret sauce that makes it magical to everybody, and that's the question that literally everybody wants to know. But it's like any secret sauce. We keep it to ourselves.

♪♪

THEODORE: We're here at the fair every single day from start to finish. We are currently starting about 4:00 and we end at around 8:00, 8:30, so feel free to come on down any evening and check us out. 

♪ And you don't mess around with Jim do do do ♪ 

JIM: Iowa State Fair, we've never been here. Strolling Pianos have seen never been here. Love it, absolutely love it so far. I've done several state fairs. This is beautiful here. It's fun, everybody is in a good mood, smiles everywhere, great people, beautiful place.