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Good Food, Good Friends

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Clancy'sI’m in Louisiana for work and took the opportunity to meet one of our volunteer leaders and his wife for an early dinner in New Orleans.  Jack and Mimi are incredible preservationists who enjoy life…and especially the part of life that involves good New Orleans food.  What could be better?

They took me to a neighborhood restaurant named Clancy’s.  It has been a favorite of Mimi’s family for decades and Jack sent along the following review to let me know where we were headed:

Classic New Orleans restaurants fall into three basic categories: Originators, Innovators and Upholders. Originators have been around as long as the trees and specialize in dishes of the same vintage. Stimulated by the originators’ example, innovators create food that in some instances barely resembles its inspiration. Upholders are the bridge between the two. They are created by restaurateurs and chefs who express their passion for traditional New Orleans cuisine by giving diners another outlet for enjoying it. In the process, these restaurants develop specialties. Some are personalized versions of established regional classics — shrimp and grits, say, or crawfish etouffee. Some are house originals such as fried oysters draped in melted brie or cold-smoked fried soft-shell crabs. All are dishes you can find at Clancy’s, an Upholder whose central premise is described above. The restaurant is essentially the sum of the personalities you find in it, from the loosened-up establishment crowd and tuxedoed floor staff to institutional fixtures like long-tenured chef Steve Manning, owner-vinophile Brad Hollingsworth and maitre d’ Nash Laurent, a man whose hand seems to be permanently clasped around that of a good customer. There is no official timeline that marks the spot where a great New Orleans restaurant becomes a classic. Whatever the line is, Clancy’s has crossed it.

Upon Mimi’s recommendation I had the fried oysters covered with melted brie cheese for an appetizer.  Oh my!  How can you describe delicious?  But then it got even better, with a fried soft shelled crab covered with lump crab meat. 

My Southern roots are kicking in.  Thanks to friends like Jack and Mimi for sharing such special places.

More to come…

DJB

Five albums for a desert island: The Circle Album

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I still remember coming home sometime in 1972 — I was a junior or senior in high school — and putting Will the Circle be Unbroken on my stereo. I had started focusing on acoustic music (such as James Taylor) a year or two before, but I was soon exploring more of the roots of folk, which led me to the record bin on that fateful day when I found this record with the funny looking cover by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band — a country-rock ensemble I had recently seen in concert. There was a little patter to start the record, which was unusual in and of itself in that era of over-produced rock albums, with Jimmy Martin commenting on John McEuen’s banjo kick-off by saying, “Earl never did do that….”  But then Martin, the Dirt Band, and their musical guests were off with a rollicking version of The Grand Ole Opry Song. Decades before O Brother Where Art Thou?, there was Will the Circle Be Unbroken when some long-haired hippies and rockers took country, bluegrass, and mountain music on its own terms and showed how wonderful it could be.

Mother Maybelle Carter was next after Martin, singing the classic Keep on the Sunny Side. Then Earl Scruggs (who invented three-finger-style bluegrass banjo in the 1940s) and the Dirt Band’s McEuen played a terrific double-banjo version of Scruggs’ Nashville Blues. With each song, and the informal talk captured between takes, I was drawn in further and further. I know that it didn’t take all six sides of this 3-disc LP to hook me as a life-long lover of this music.

In fact, I suspect that the first two songs on side two clinched the deal. I had heard a bit of the blind singer and guitarist Doc Watson over the previous year or two, but no one — before or since — quite captures the beauty of Doc’s guitar and the wonderfulness of his spirit the way producer William McEuen did on the Circle album. Side Two opens with Doc doing a terrific version of Tennessee Stud that became a signature piece for him for many years. Then he follows it with a version of Black Mountain Rag, where Doc flatpicks the old-time fiddle tune on guitar and shares the solo spotlight with master fiddler Vassar Clements. By the end of that track my jaw had dropped and I was hooked.

Doc and Vassar were just two of the stellar musicians who were introduced to a much larger audience through the Circle album. Norman Blake, Merle Travis, Bashful Brother Oswald and more were either stars (Travis) or guests sidemen (Blake and Oswald) who were part of the project.

I could go on and on about this album (since it does cover six album sides and was reissued as a double CD set), but just a few highlights in an album that the Allmusic review rightly notes, “Doesn’t have a strained or false note anywhere among its 37 songs”:

  • Lonesome Fiddle Blues by Vassar Clements has been covered a million times, but it has never sounded better than the original version here on the Circle album.
  • Merle Travis sings Dark as a Dungeon with all the depth and understanding of one who came out of the coal fields of Kentucky. Many years later at a workshop, I heard songwriter extraordinaire Guy Clark play this tune in a session entitled, “Songs I Wish I’d Written.” It is a classic that never grows old.
  • Doc, John McEuen, and Vassar tear up an instrumental called Down Yonder that begins with Doc saying, “How does it go, Vassar?” and then we all find out.
  • Allmusic says that the conversation between Doc and Merle Travis, where Travis tells Doc his guitar “rings like a bell” and Doc replies, “It’s a pretty good old box — a Mr. Gallagher down in Wartrace, Tennessee made it” is worth the price of the album alone. I have a 1977 Gallagher guitar that I bought from J.W. Gallagher and his son Don as a new guitar. I’ll see Don in a few weeks at Merlefest and we’ll pick right up on our conversation although it has been a couple of years.  “Nuff said.
  • Jimmy Martin — the King of Bluegrass — knocks ’em dead on both Sunny Side of the Mountain and My Walking Shoes Don’t Fit Me Anymore. 
  • Scruggs and McEuen, along with bass player Junior Huskey, fingerpick and clawhamer respectively a definitive version of Soldier’s Joy.

The album was all recorded on the first or second take, and there’s a freshness and presence that is impossible to recreate with multiple takes and overdubs.

This video from YouTube is actually just the audio of Nashville Blues, but you can hear the great production work by William McEuen and the musicianship of players that many would dismiss simply as “country.” No less an authority than John Hiatt once listed Will the Circle Be Unbroken as one of five albums he’d take to a desert island. It landed him a guest slot on Circle II and simply confirmed that the man knows great music.

Enjoy.

(For Part I in this series, see yesterday’s post)

More to come…

DJB

Five albums for a desert island

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Facebook is full of lists – 25 Random Things About Me just being the best known of a recent flurry.  When I was on Facebook tonight, I saw a friend’s posting of Five Favorite Albums and thought, “Now that’s a list I could enjoy compiling.

It took me less than 3 minutes to come up with five albums that I’d want on my iPod if I were stuck on a desert island.  But the Facebook application doesn’t let you say much about the choices.  So I’ll turn to More to Come… and over the next few nights will tell you about:

  • The David Grisman Quintet
  • Will the Circle Be Unbroken
  • Time Out
  • Sgt. Peppers
  • Aereo-Plain

The David Grisman Quintet’s self-titled debut album blew me away the first time I put needle to vinyl back in the mid-70s and I still love to listen to the amazing musicianship of Grisman, Tony Rice, Darol Anger, Todd Phillips, and Bill Amatneek.  The cover of the album (see above) told you this record was all about the instruments and their players.  It looked like a bluegrass-influenced album, but from the opening notes of E.M.D. the listener was quickly dispelled of that notion.  Grisman, Rice, and Anger – taking the leads – were playing a type of string jazz influenced by gypsy, blues, and bluegrass  music that had a beauty and clarity I certainly hadn’t heard before.  At the time it was so unique that it was jaw dropping in its inspiration.  Now, 30+ years later every acoustic musician worth his or her salt can work their way through similar tunes, but the originality of Grisman’s vision in the 1970s reminds me of the breakthrough of bluegrass when Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs joined Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys in the 1940s and a whole new American music was created.

CD Universe actually has a pretty good review of the album and its impact:

“David Grisman’s first album as a bandleader comes flying out of the speakers from the word go, crackling with the excitement of a group of musicians heading somewhere nobody has ever quite been before. Grisman’s band may have looked something like a bluegrass group but was modeled on Stephane Grapelli and Django Reinhardt’s Quintet of the Hot Club of France. Just as Reinhardt hired one or two other guitarists to beef up a drummer-less rhythm section, Grisman has Todd Philips here on second mandolin to add snap to the grooves.

Guitarist Tony Rice had been around for a while, as had Grisman himself (most notoriously as member as member of Old And In The Way alongside Jerry Garcia). But this record was as much a coming-out for Rice as it was for Grisman. Rice’s application of flawless bluegrass technique to more jazz–inflected material sets high standards for the “new acoustic” guitarists who inevitably entered his slipstream over the next decade. Most of the tunes here are Grisman’s, and they are noteworthy for their balance of detail and simplicity. He makes elegant ensemble statements yet leaves room at times for everyone to just play.

The following video is of E.M.D., the opening track of The David Grisman Quintet.  This version is not played by the original Quintet, but instead is a quartet.  Grisman and Rice handle the mandolin and guitar respectively, but Mark O’Connor who played both guitar and violin at various times in The DGQ is featured here in a truly hideous outfit playing some very nice violin.  The bass player in this version is long-time Grisman bassist Rob Wasserman.  Enjoy!

More to come…

DJB

A Night of Baseball Geekdom

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Tonight I put everything on the back burner and wallowed in a night of baseball geekdom.  Yes, it was the annual pre-season visit to Politics & Prose bookstore by the editors of Baseball Prospectus.  And it was a night of VORP (Value Over Replacement Player), BQS (Blown Quality Starts), BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) and other incomprehensible acronyms and statistics.  It was also a night for a long soliloquy by co-editor Steven Goldman on why the Yankees will be facing a huge decision in 2010 on Derek Jeter, when they predict his bad glove, age, slumping hitting, and a chase for 3,000 hits will all come together the year his contract expires.  As they note,

…famous-player milestones sell tickets and merchandise, but as veterans of the Astros’ “Biggioquest ’07” can tell you, subjugating team goals to the greater glory of a fading star isn’t conducive to winning.  By 2010, Jeter’s glove won’t play in the infield and his bat won’t play anywhere else.  His 3,000th hit will have zero benefit to the winning effort.

As you can see, these guys aren’t afraid to make a prediction.  In fact, its what they do very well.  As the book cover screams, Baseball Prospectus ’08 correctly predicted the Rays franchise-wide reversal of fortune, the tumble of veterans like Tom Glavine, and the house of cards that was the 2007 Florida Marlins.  As much as I enjoy reading the predictions, what I really love is the writing.  Let’s give an example from our home-standing Washington Nationals:

Like the crystal egg from “Risky Business,” the leg lamp from “A Christmas Story,” the tablets in “The Ten Commandments,” or wind in a Kevin Smith movie, Nick Johnson always gets broken.

Priceless.

When I spoke afterwards with editor Clay Johnson and asked if there was anything to like about the Nationals, he said, “Well, I do like Jordan Zimmermann.”  But everyone around me agreed that the Nats could blow it by making this pitching prospect throw 220+ innings.  Given the Baseball Prospectus’ bashing of former Nats General Manager Jim Bowden (printed before his resignation), I suspect the editors would add that his replacement is likely to be an upgrade.  And they like Manager Manny Acta (as do I) but worry that the Nats will never give him a team worthy of his skills.  Let’s hope that the Lerners and Stan Katzan are reading Baseball Prospectus and are determined to prove the editors wrong.  I hope so.

Check out the Baseball Prospectus website for stats, stats, and more stats throughout the year, and enjoy.

More to come…

DJB

Searching the Internet and Finding…The Music’s Over

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This is another of those “look what I found on the Internet” postings. The other day I was searching for information on Clarence White and found this cool blog called The Music’s Over…but the Songs Live On.  What a labor of love.  The blogger writes about musical artists who passed away on that day in history, and he’s putting together a great archive of American music in the process.  He’s also covering just about every musical genre imaginable.  So you’ll find your bluegrass guys right up there with the punk rockers.

On this date – March 16th – in 1975 the great blues guitarist T-Bone Walker passed away.  As noted in The Music’s Over:

Electric Blues starts with T-Bone Walker. No T-Bone Walker? Then possibly no B.B. King, Pee Wee Crayton, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown or Stevie Ray Vaughan. From his recording debut in 1929, to his passing from an earlier stroke in 1979, T-Bone Walker dazzled his audiences with a guitar style that was, well electrifying. And when he decided to actually “plug in” in the early 40s, the music world never looked back. Many more recordings and tours followed which likely led to the musical birth of a whole new generation of such young guitarists that included Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Keith Richards.

Here’s a great video that captures Walker’s style.

More to come…

DJB

Sweet Love

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Candice and I were out at a party on Capitol Hill last evening and had a nice time with friends old and new.  However, when I climbed into bed last evening I knew I’d best set our alarm or we’d miss our obligations at church this morning.

My iPod has a playlist I entitled “Quiet Time” which we listen to as we fall asleep and then which is what we hear as our morning alarm.  We may wake to a Gregorian Chant or Anonymous 4, some Miles Davis or Bill Evans jazz, or perhaps a quiet New Age guitar piece from Will Akerman or Al Petteway.

This Sunday morning we slept a little later, due to the party.  But the wake-up music set the tone for an introspective day that worked well with the gray and rainy weather.

The first thing out of my iPod this morning was John Gorka singing this wonderful Kate Wolf tune entitled Sweet Love.

John Gorka has one of the most distinctive voices in folk music.  I can listen to him sing anything.  But several years ago he took part in a compilation of songs by the late California folk singer/songwriter Kate Wolf entitled Treasures Left Behind that gave him material much better than the proverbial phone book.

Sweet love, don’t deny me just a hand to hold;  I may not always be the one who sees.  I find myself blinded from time to time, reaching out for someone who can take the lead.  And in my weariness I’ve tried to cry.  Although my eyes are dry, I’ve cried inside.

Sweet love, let me lay myself beside you and listen to your breathing ’til it slows.  Long enough to dream a vision of my life wrapped up in the gentle wind that blows.  A vision of a life lived long ago – I see it, though the lights are low.

Sweet love, like the leaves that fall; the scenes go drifting by my eyes.  And I remember holding you, telling you that it would be all right.  You know the road looked straight ahead from far away, but it turned into a blind curve and I’ve lost my way today.

That’s one of those songs I recommend for downloading.  And if you haven’t heard John Gorka, here’s a video from a number of years ago where he sings The Gypsy Life with Kathy Mattea.  A youthful Mark O’Connor adds the violin solo.

The original video posted on this page has been dropped from YouTube, but we’re fortunate in that there is a recent posting of the late Kate Wolf singing Sweet Love. So enjoy that instead.

More to come…

DJB

Clarence and Roland White featured in spring Fretboard Journal

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Clarence White

My favorite magazine showed up in the mail earlier this week, and I was delighted to see a cover story on flatpicking pioneer – and former Byrd – Clarence White. 

The Fretboard Journal is coffee table quality but with writers who have musical smarts.  The Spring 2009 cover article on Clarence White and his mandolin-playing brother Roland is a terrific example.  There are great pictures of White’s Telecaster and superb writing about the unique syncopation that Clarence employed.  (You can hear it in the video below.)  White was one of the most influential guitarists of all time (#41 on the Rolling Stone list of 100 Greatest Guitarists) and The Fretboard Journal connects all the dots of his impact.

Clarence White is that unique musician who had influence in multiple musical genres.  As a teenager he introduced the guitar as a lead instrument in bluegrass.  Then he moved to the Byrds where he played a key role in defining the sound of country-rock.  And much too soon – at age 29 – he was hit by a drunk driver while loading equipment after a White Brothers reunion gig and died the next day.  I’ll let writer Geoffrey Himes, who produces great musical reviews for the Washington Post and who wrote this cover story, take it from here:

“Nearly everyone in the California country-rock and bluegrass scene showed up for the July 19 funeral at a Catholic Church in Palmdale.  At the graveside, at the Joshua Memorial Park in Lancaster, the priest finished his homily, and an awkward silence fell over the cemetery.  The quiet was broken by two drunken voices rising in an a cappella hymn:  “Farther along, we’ll know more about it; farther along, we’ll understand why.”

The voices belonged to Gram Parsons and Bernie Leadon, who had sung the traditional hymn on the Flying Burrito Brothers’ second album, 1970’s Burrito Deluxe.  Clarence had recorded the song with the Byrds as the title track of an album released the following year. Soon, everyone – Chris Hillman, Chris Ethridge, Roland White, Eric White and the others – was singing along, and then they moved into “Amazing Grace.”

Parsons was so distraught…that he turned to his road manager, Phil Kaufman, and said, “Phil, if this happens to me, I don’t want them doing this to me.  You can take me to the desert and burn me.  I want to go out in a cloud of smoke.”  Just two months later, Kaufman had a chance to fulfill that promise.

Clarence’s death was as devastating to the roots-music community as Parsons’ was.  If Parsons, in his singing and songwriting, had demonstrated how country and rock could be combined, Clarence had done the same thing with his guitar picking.”

If you don’t know Gram Parsons, listen to Emmylou Harris sing Boulder to Birmingham – a song she wrote in memory of Parsons – to get a sense of his impact on great country singers.  And nobody but Clarence White could have Albert Lee, Vince Gill, Tony Rice, Norman Blake, and countless other guitar stars cite him as an influence.

The video below is from Clarence’s return to bluegrass picking just before his death.  Roland’s playing on mandolin.  On I Am A Pilgrim, watch how he mixes his flatpicking with his fingerpicking and check out the syncopation.  Then he launches into some straight-ahead flatpicking on Soldier’s Joy that sounds as fresh as the day he played it.

Enjoy!

More to come…

DJB

New National Dunn Looking Good at the World Baseball Classic

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It is exciting to hear that new Washington National Adam Dunn has had a great start at the World Baseball Classic.  Dunn had a home run in each of the first two victories, but it was his enthusiasm that led Ted Lilly, the starting pitcher for Team USA, to say,

“Adam Dunn is a lot of fun,” Lilly said…. “He’s got a lot of energy and he keeps things light. It hasn’t taken him long to kind of warm everybody up.”

Dunn has homered in both United States victories here. One home run was a line drive to left-center field, and one was a towering blast pulled to right. The United States manager, Davey Johnson, compared his power to that of Willie McCovey, a Hall of Famer.

“I’ve seen a lot of big guys that swing the bat hard,” Johnson said. “But he has a really good eye for a big, strong guy.”

A new National compared to Stretch McCovey, one of my heroes as a young boy.  Come on opening day!

Read the entire story at the New York Times.

More to come…

DJB

Missy Raines Brings New Hip to IMT

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Inside Out ThumbnailMy colleague John and I were among a small but appreciative audience to hear Missy Raines and The New Hip at the weekly Monday night concert of the Institute of Musical Traditions.   The band features Raines’ energetic bass lines as the foundation for jazzgrass and acoustic music, capped with some terrific solo work by a group of young Nashville-based musicians.

Instrumentals are the core of this band’s work, and they played most of the selections from Inside Out, their new CD on Alison Brown’s Compass Records.  The title track, Duke of Paducah, and a reworked Angeline the Baker entitled simply Angeline are among the highlights.   All the musicians were top notch, but Michael Witcher on dobro stood out throughout the evening.  Multi-instrumentalist Ethan Ballinger looks to be all of 16, but played beyond his years.  The band also broke in a new guitarist (on his second gig and so new he’s not listed on the web site) who carefully studied the chord charts but didn’t miss a beat.  At the end of a satisfying night of music, Raines and the band played a spirited Grismanesque tune titled Wiskerface Goes to Leningrad (or something like that), and then came back for an encore with a great version of Bill Monroe’s Old Ebeneezer Scrooge.

The crowd was small, but included some impressive bluegrass royalty.  Raines recognized one of the pioneers of women in bluegrass, Lynn Morris, and later she thanked Tom Gray, one of the founders of the Seldom Scene, for inspiring her as a young bass player.

For friends in the Shenandoah Valley, Missy Raines and The New Hip will be playing in Harrisonburg and Charlottesville at the end of March.  Then the following month they’ll be at Merlefest.

In the meantime, enjoy this video of another of the highlights of the concert, the jazzy Stop Drop & Wiggle.

More to come…

DJB

46 Days Until…

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Jerry Douglas at MerlefestJust ordered my tickets to Merlefest 2009 – Happy Birthday indeed!

I love this music festival because it is four days in the North Carolina mountains surrounded by the best Americana and roots music in the land.  The shot at the top of the blog is Dobro god Jerry Douglas playing at the 2006 festival. 

The 2009 festival has another strong lineup.  Doc Watson is, of course, the host at this festival named after his late son Merle, who died more than 20 years ago in a tragic late-night tractor accident.  And Doc – the 86-year old blind singer and guitarist extraordinaire – is also the magnet that draws all these wonderful musicians.

As I type this I’m listening to Darrell Scott’s River Take Me, also from the 2006 festival.  Scott is one of those relatively unknown musicians that I regularly discover at Merlefest.  He’s a terrific songwriter (perhaps you’ve heard of Long Time Gone by some band called the Dixie Chicks) but is also an incredible musician.

Regulars such as Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and The Waybacks will be joined by David Bromberg, Del McCoury, and many others.  The final acts on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon?  Emmylou Harris (on Saturday) and Linda Ronstadt (on Sunday).  Be still my heart!  Ronstadt’s set will be with Los Camperos de Nati Cano and will be sung entirely in Spanish. 

For those who like their music in English, here’s a great video of Harris, Ronstadt, and Dolly Parton from their Trio days.  Enjoy, and look for those posts from Merlefest in 46 days!

More to come…

DJB