All posts filed under: Acoustic Music

Observations from Home: The Silver Spring Day Off Edition

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If you don’t read anything else in this post, go to the bottom and watch the last video.  Morgan James is beautiful and has a wonderful voice, but you won’t be able to take your eyes off the Tambourine Man.  He’ll bring you up, no matter how down you are.  And you’ll thank me for it. Now, on to the rest of the post. I seldom take a weekday off where I’m at home in Silver Spring.  Yet after working about 20 weekends in a row (perhaps I exaggerate), I decided to take today off and make it  a three-day weekend.  It was interesting to be around downtown Silver Spring and see the following: Bikes are sprouting up everywhere one looks. First it was the Capital Bikeshare stations that arrived in downtown.  But in the last month, we’ve been inundated with the new dockless bikes, and today was the first time I walked around town and had the sense that they are EVERYWHERE!  (At least if you walk around the condo/apartment heavy downtown.)  They look …

The Immortal Irishman

Two unexpected books for these times

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It wasn’t until I was well into the second of two books I’ve devoured in the past few weeks that the timeliness of these very different works dawned on me.  Nothing in either the biography or novel – both released in 2016 – would have suggested that they were important books for our time, much less that there would be common threads. And as a bonus, both are terrific reads. Timothy Egan has produced a page-turning biography that captures the incredible saga of Thomas Francis Meagher (pronounced Mar), one of the most famous Irish Americans of all time.  Egan – one of my favorite writers (see the “Writers I Enjoy” list on the side of my blog page) – has previously written highly readable and well-researched histories on the Dust Bowl (The Worst Hard Time) and the founding of the U.S. Forest Service (The Big Burn).  In The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero, Egan bring Francis Meagher’s time and story to life. Meagher was born to comfort in Ireland, but …

Lovett Hiatt Tickets

The preferred Pre-Inaugural concert

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Earlier this evening, I joined a full house at Strathmore Music Hall as we made our choice for a different  pre-inaugural concert from that on the national mall. Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt are two of the best songwriters and (especially in Lovett’s case) song interpreters in the Americana field.  The beautiful sound and setting at Strathmore was perfect for their two-and-one-half hour acoustic set on Thursday evening. They played their hits.  They played unrecorded new songs.  They bantered.  They played songs by other songwriters. And they did it with such ease and obvious affection for each other that the time flew by. Hiatt’s voice is getting older and doesn’t hit the notes like he once did.  But that really didn’t matter in this setting. Here’s a video of a tune they played tonight, Lovett’s “She’s Not Lady.”  Enjoy! More to come… DJB Image: My ticket in the nose bleed section at Strathmore

T&B Opus 65

A bit of Shenandoah Valley musical magic in the Big Apple

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Even in New York City, it doesn’t take much to realize how small the world can be at times. Candice and I had a flashback to our wonderful 15 years of living in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia when we realized that Grace Church – just four blocks from our friends’ apartment in Greenwich Village – is home to one of the most astounding Taylor & Boody organs (Opus 65) I’ve seen.  (More on that in a minute.) George Taylor and John Boody are longtime friends as well as world-class organbuilders, and as soon as I found this on the Grace Church website, it was clear where we would be on Sunday morning. It all started coming back as we entered the church.  Candice and I had watched this organ being installed through John Boody’s Facebook page.  Kate Harrington – our friend and the wonderful daughter of dear friends Jim and Constance Harrington – was one of the pipe makers for this organ and helped with the installation.  Andrew, when he was at Brown University, …

Macon musical history

Not my average radio interview

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Folks in Macon, Georgia, take their musical roots seriously.  (Think Otis Redding, the Allman Brothers, Little Richard.)  So on Friday morning when I was booked for an interview on WNEX, The Creek — a new Macon radio station featuring Southern roots music and local issues — I assumed it would be different from the local NPR stations where I normally find myself talking about preservation. I was right.  And (with the possible exception of my time on the Honolulu public radio station), it turned out to be much more fun than my average NPR radio interview! We were in town to launch our National Treasures campaign for the Ocmulgee National Monument.  Lands affiliated with the Ocmulgee National Monument have been home to Native Americans for more than 17,000 years.  However, over recent decades the places with ties to the site have been threatened by urban sprawl, the subdivision of forested tracts, and ownership fragmentation. The National Trust and our partners are seeking to re-designate the monument as a historical park, expand the current boundaries, and …

Observations from the Road (Or “The Deer Isle’s Locally Sourced Food and Music” Edition)

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During our first week on Deer Isle in Maine, we have jumped enthusiastically into the local food and music scene.  Sometimes the outing was planned.  At other times the opportunities were serendipitous.  But isn’t that how we are to live? This is one long “Observations from the road…” post, which could be titled “My, Maine has so much to offer in locally sourced food and music.” Our first two encounters with food and live music were unplanned yet set the stage for our visit.  Upon our arrival at Pilgrim’s Inn last Sunday evening, we saw someone carrying a guitar into his cabin.  After meeting Richard Perlmutter and his wife Judy the next day and determining that he did – in fact – have a guitar with him, we agreed to meet up after dinner on Monday for an impromptu jam session. Serendipitously, we found that the Whale’s Rib Tavern was open for dinner at the Inn on Monday (we had mistakenly thought it was closed both Sunday and Monday evenings), so we quickly booked a …

And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on…

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A dear friend from our days in Staunton passed away yesterday.  Ted Jordan was much too young and vibrant, but an accident claimed his life and devastated both family and friends. A scholar, gifted writer, carpenter and general contractor, Ted would do anything for anyone.  The 17 trips he took to Honduras to build schools and churches are but one example of the person he was. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife Dana and his boys – Ben, Grayson, and Tim – and their families. I was fortunate to see and talk with Ted for a good while when I was in the Shenandoah Valley last month for the Red Wing Roots Music Festival.  He was at the festival with his granddaughter, Violet and his son, Ben.  I told Candice that evening that it was such a treat to see how much joy Ted’s family brought him at this new stage in life. There was a time where Ted and I played music together at least once a week for a decade …

Long Hot Summer Days

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This seemed like an appropriate tune to feature on a weekend when the temperatures have approached 100 degrees, and the heat index is off the charts. I’ve loved Sara Watkins’ version of this John Hartford tune since she released it on a solo album.  Here she plays it with her old band mates from Nickel Creek. If you want to hear Sara play this by herself, with a little Hartford-like foot-tapping rhythm thrown in, take a look here. Enjoy…and stay cool. More to come… DJB

Sierra Hull

Red Wing Roots Music Festival 2016 (Or “Thank God for Sierra Hull”)

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Everybody experiences growing pains.  Even music festivals. 2016 was the fourth year for the Red Wings Roots Music Festival held in the beautiful Natural Chimneys Park in Mt. Solon, Virginia.  Hosted by the Steel Wheels, this regional Americana and roots music gathering in the Shenandoah Valley has been eclectic from the beginning, and not all the musical acts have been of the same quality.  But the festival had maintained a nice balance between audiences that were there to party and have a good time and for those who came to listen to some of the country’s best acoustic musicians. (Chris Thile, Sam Bush, I’m With Her, Tim O’Brien, Jon Jorgenson, Claire Lynch, Sarah Jarosz, Del McCoury, and Darrell Scott all showed up over the first three years.) But with the ominous warning on the front page of this year’s festival guide that there would be more “plugged in and turned up” bands, a shift was clearly underway.  Friday’s lineup confirmed that approach…and the balance between the different audience shifted.  Not for the better. I can …

Christ Thile

Acoustic music is alive and well

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“When you go to heaven and hear singing, it will sound like these three women.” So opined Chris Thile after the Americana trio I’m With Her finished a short yet moving set in the first half of an incredible three hours of music last evening at the Kennedy Center.  The concert hall’s acoustics were ringing all evening as the sold out crowd not only enjoyed the beautiful harmonies from I’m With Her’s Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O’Donovan, but also the instrumental talents and music-making of mandolinist extraordinaire Thile and the Punch Brothers, along with Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyers, virtuosi of the banjo and upright bass respectively. The Kennedy’s Center policy against photography leaves me using old photos from other concerts, but that hardly matters. The music was the focus last evening. Thile was invited to curate a four-day American Acoustic Music Festival, and Friday evening’s show was clearly the headliner.  The Punch Brothers  opened the first half of the show with a tight set capped by the raucous Rye Whiskey.  I’m With Her followed, with …