New York City is not the place where you’d expect to hear great country music, but on a Tuesday night in Gotham, in the middle of Times Square, B.B. King’s was filled with the music and wisdom of Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, and Butch Hancock: The Flatlanders.
A business colleague, her college friend and I ventured out on a beautiful night in the city to catch the Zen Cowboy and his companions play a rollicking set of Texas country music. The tunes were great with all three stars taking turns showcasing their work. As they neared the end of the show, The Flatlanders worked in Gilmore’s Dallas – a wonderful song – and then rocked it out with the Townes Van Zandt tune White Freightliner before closing the show with Pay the Alligator.
The Fretboard Journal just posted this wonderful video on their Facebook page. It features mandolin phenom Chris Thile playing the Bach E Major Prelude on his Dudenbostel mandolin. I found the video compelling not only for the beautiful music but also because of the way it highlights Thile’s amazing right hand pick techniques.
If you have had it up to here with screaming right-wing talk show hosts or pontificating left-wing bloggers or just three days of rain, I have the perfect antidote: the Vintage Roadside 2009 Road Trip Slide Show.
Each year Jeff and Kelly from Vintage Roadside travel the back roads from Portland, Oregon to the host city of the National Preservation Conference and take pictures and blog about the experience. (Vintage Roadside makes great t-shirts that honor the wonderful mom-and-pop roadside attractions, motor courts, motels, tiki lounges, drive-in restaurants, bowling alleys and roller-skating rinks found along America’s back roads.) This year the trip took them to Nashville, Tennessee. You will laugh out loud, you will be amazed at the quirky attractions that still remain on America’s roadsides, and you’ll marvel at what a diverse country we live in. So take my recommendation – visit their slide show and spend a few minutes with this great country.
Thanks Jeff and Kelly. It was wonderful to spend a bit of time with you in Nashville. Thanks for what you do to support the National Trust for Historic Preservation. I’ll see you in March in Portland and next October in Austin.
I’m reading Paul Goldberger’s new book Why Architecture Matters. As you would expect from Paul, it is a smart, well-written work that is designed to help the reader interested in buildings “come to grips with how things feel to us when we stand before them, with how architecture affects us emotionally as well as intellectually.”
I’ve already come across numerous passages and examples that resonate, but last evening I was reading his take on I.M. Pei and Henry Cobb’s John Hancock Tower on Copley Square in Boston and was reminded of my last impression of that building when Andrew, Claire and I were visiting the city in March 2008.
It was great fun to introduce Claire and Andrew to Copley Square when we visited Boston in 2008. We toured the great H.H. Richardson-designed Trinity Church, of course, and took numerous photographs – both color and black & white for Claire’s photography class. We wandered Copley Square to talk about the buildings, spaces and people. And we marveled at the Hancock Tower and talked about how it fit within that historic yet dynamic space.
Paul describes that fit within the context of Copley Square in his inimitable way, so I’ll quote from him liberally and then add a photo or two from our visit.
“This tower has an unusual shape, a slab sliced on the diagonal so that from some angles it appears like a thin wafer and from others, almost like a flat surface with nothing behind it at all. It is like a piece of abstract sculpture, beautiful but mute…The idea here is to minimize procession and to think of the building as an elegant, sculptural object set within the complex composition of Copley Square….
Once the new glass was put in, you could finally see that Hancock was designed to look as if it had been conceived as a pure abstraction, a cool, elegant piece of modern sculpture. It appears almost weightless, despite its size….
When you look at the Seagram Building or the General Motors Building or the Hancock Tower, you see not only an object but also a certain vision of the world. Architecture, among other things, seeks to establish order. Mies’ order (at the Seagram Building) is easy to see – subtle and understated, but powerful and self-assured….If the Seagram Building has a Zen simplicity to it, the General Motors Building suggests a more garish view of the world, one in which a few eye-grabbing gestures, like the white marble and the bay windows, are expected to create an aesthetic experience and to hide the fact that the building is, at the end of the day, a dressed-up box….
The vision Pei and Cobb suggest with the Hancock Tower is a more difficult and complex one – full of movement and lines of tension. They did not want to compete head-on with Mies van der Rohe in the category of boxlike high-rises, and they chose to make their skyscraper in another shape altogether, a shape that in its very sleekness suggests that it is pushing the art of skyscraper design forward….The General Motors Building has little to do with its surroundings, an indifference that its original, little-mourned sunken plaza made far worse than it is today, while the Seagram Building, despite being a structure of glass on a street that, at least in the 1950s, was made entirely of masonry buildings, was carefully aligned on a symmetrical axis opposite its classical neighbor, the Racquet and Tennis Club by McKim, Mead and White across Park Avenue….As for the Hancock Tower, paradoxically, even though its reflective glass would appear to signify the ultimate diffidence and aloofness – you can’t see in, and there is no sign of human activity from the outside – the reflected images of surrounding buildings, not to mention the general sense of energy of its crisp shape, make you feel a connection between the tower and its urban surroundings. The building feels right for its place, almost in spite of itself.“
Just what I would have said…if I had Paul’s depth of knowledge about architecture.
On this Veteran’s Day 2009, we honor those who have served and continue to serve in our armed forces. In my immediate family, that includes my father, a World War II Navy veteran, and my brother Joe, who served in the Navy on a helicopter carrier during the 1980s. I am always proud of their service, but don’t always remember to tell them so except on special days of honor such as this.
Both survived their time of service. But men and women join the military knowing that they may have to make the ultimate sacrifice. Most expect that if that happens, it will occur on a foreign battlefield. None expect it to happen on a United States military installation on U.S. soil.
This is a time of war. Yet these Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great state and the heart of this great American community. This is the fact that makes the tragedy even more painful, even more incomprehensible.
For those families who have lost a loved one, no words can fill the void that’s been left. We knew these men and women as soldiers and caregivers. You knew them as mothers and fathers; sons and daughters; sisters and brothers.
But here is what you must also know: Your loved ones endure through the life of our nation. Their memory will be honored in the places they lived and by the people they touched. Their life’s work is our security, and the freedom that we all too often take for granted. Every evening that the sun sets on a tranquil town; every dawn that a flag is unfurled; every moment that an American enjoys life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — that is their legacy.
Thank you Daddy. Thank you Joe. And thanks to all the men and women who have served to protect our freedom.
In his Washington Post column, Tom Boswell has a wonderful piece on how this has turned into an “Old School Series.” How right he is. And he nails the landing:
Once back in New York, Matsui and Posada will be back in the lineup. Pettitte will be set to pitch a game that might be Exhibit A on his Hall of Fame résumé someday. Utley will take aim at Reggie-Reggie-Reggie. A-Rod has a chance to be MVP and own New York for decades. Girardi won’t sleep for the next 48 hours. Martínez has a chance to reverse the “Daddy” chants for a day and bring baseball a Game 7 that would raise the hair on heads from coast to coast.
I am in Minneapolis/St. Paul for two days of meetings on saving Modernist and Recent Past places. Minnesota and the Great Lakes region has a strong collection of buildings and landscapes from the Modernist period, so we’re in town to work with and learn from our local partners.
Last evening’s opening session was held in a beautiful space: the Eliel Saarinen designed Christ Church Lutheran sanctuary. His son Eero designed the adjoining educational wing. This supreme example of the Modernist movement is Minnesota’s only National Historic Landmark listed for its architectural importance rather than as a site of historic significance.
The church – now working with a newly formed Friends of Christ Church Lutheran group – has done a wonderful job of preservation and stewardship of this place. I spent a great deal of time last evening with Pastor Kristine Carlson, who opened with a moving testimony as to why this place matters. As I said in my opening remarks, preservation generally happens when people – not necessarily professional preservationists – see the connection between place and life. No where is the connection between place, mission, and spirit more real than at Christ Church Lutheran.
I didn’t have my camera with me, but that’s okay, because the church’s website has a wonderful album of photographs by Pete Sieger. I recommend you visit the site and just enjoy his wonderful take on this special place. And if you are lucky enough to visit the church, make sure you see Sieger’s collection of photos taken of the altar every ten minutes from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. It is a treasure trove of the interplay of light and space.
An American treasure – Dr. Ralph Stanley – has just released a memoir entitled Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times. Many people came to know Stanley through his haunting rendition of O Death in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?. But longtime bluegrass and old-time music fans know of Stanley from his days with his late brother Carter when they performed some of the most moving music ever heard from the mountains of Virginia.
Mother Jones online has a good review of the book. Here’s an excerpt of Stanley talking about his childhood:
“There were no books I can recall, save for the family Bible,” he says of the home place. “There wasn’t much in the way of toys and playthings like children have today. My parents wouldn’t allow even a deck of playing cards in the house, because it could lead to gambling and all kinds of trouble. For Christmas, we’d get an orange, one for Carter and one for me, and a handful of rock candy. Maybe a cap-gun, too. It wasn’t ’til years later that I got a bicycle of my own and I had to trade a dog to get that bike.”
We’re into fall here in the Washington region and that means that the acoustic music scene is busy pointing toward those holiday concerts. But before December arrives, there are a few highlights for lovers of bluegrass, Americana, and roots music in the District of Columbia.
This Monday, the Blue Moon Cowgirls and flatpicking champion Orrin Star are featured at the Institute of Musical Traditions concert in Rockville. I’ve heard Star before, and he’s a treat for those who like the old flat top.
Country singer extraordinaire Patty Loveless will be at the Birchmere on November 1st. She’ll no doubt be featuring tunes from her new album, Mountain Soul II. The original Mountain Soul was a terrific album, and the follow-up begins with a great version of that old country classic, Busted. (Well the bills are all due and the babies need shoes, we’re busted…) Sure to be a great show.
For those who don’t mind a bit of a drive, folksinger John Gorka is playing on November 20th at the historic Avalon Theatre in beautiful Easton Maryland. Gorka has one of the most distinctive voices in folk music and I believe I could listen to him sing the phone book. (There’s also a nice Historic Hotel of America – the Tidewater Inn – in Easton for those who would like to make a weekend of it.)
The next evening, Saturday November 21st, the Del McCoury Band – just about the best traditional bluegrass band on the circuit today – will be at the Birchmere. They also have a new album, entitled Family Circle, out later this month. Del and the boys never disappoint.
Finally, Monday, December 7th, will pose a real dilemma, as both IMT and the Birchmere have top-notch Christmas shows. I’ve attended the IMT Celtic Christmasshow featuring guitarist Robin Bullock and husband/wife duo Al Petteway and Amy White for a number of years. With Bullock and Petteway, you have two terrific guitarists and this show is always a treat. But the same night, the Birchmere has booked my long-time favorite Jerry Douglas along with Irish singer and song interpreter Maura O’Connell for their own “Very Jerry Christmas.” Few people can interpret a song the way O’Connell can and her newest CD is a collection of acappella duets entitled Naked With Friends. (Click on the link and read the great review at Fiddlefreak.) The friends include Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss, Mary Black, Kate Rusby and more. I love hearing O’Connell live, so I expect I’ll be at the Birchmere on the 7th for that show.
To give you a hint of what you might hear on the 7th, I’ve included a video of Maura O’Connell in a duet with Nanci Griffith and with Jerry Douglas on Dobro playing the Griffith tune Trouble in the Field. Simply sublime.
If you have had it up to here with screaming right-wing talk show hosts or pontificating left-wing bloggers or just three days of rain, I have the perfect antidote: the 
I mentioned a week ago that singer/songwriter 
Game Five of the World Series was what we’ve been waiting for and, as a result, there’s more baseball to be played.
An American treasure – Dr. Ralph Stanley – has just released a memoir entitled 
MORE TO COME... 