All posts filed under: Acoustic Music

Pokey laps the field at Day I of Red Wing II

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The second annual Red Wing Roots Music Festival in spectacular Natural Chimneys Park began on Friday afternoon under a beautiful summer sky.  The promise of the inaugural festival – hosted by the Steel Wheels – brought out an even larger crowd this year.  And for the most part the music didn’t disappoint. My friend Oakley Pearson and I arrived in time to catch the full set of Furnace Mountain, a band from the Berryville, Virginia, area.  Comprised of Aimee Curl on bass and vocals, Danny Knicely on mandolin and fiddle, Dave Van Deventer on fiddle, and Morgan Morrison on bouzouki, guitar and vocals, Furnace Mountain is a first-rate roots music band.  Knicely is an especially inventive mandolin player, and he displayed some great chops and songwriting skills in today’s set. Caravan of Thieves was a band I wasn’t familiar with, but they grew on me very quickly.  Their web site has a catchy – yet pretty accurate – description of this group:: Driving gypsy jazz rhythms, acoustic guitars, upright bass and violin lay the foundation for …

A Weekend (and More) of Celebration

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  A pre-July 4th visit to Mount Rushmore, the annual craziness that is the Takoma Park July 4th parade, our traditional Independence Day picnic at the wonderful Franklin Knolls pool, Claire returns after six weeks in Vienna, Andrew knocks it out of the park with a National Anthem, Dad turns 89, and two days with dear friends to celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary and an 80th birthday…I can’t imagine a better July 4th weekend (and a bit more). My celebration of things Americana began last week.  While on a work trip, a colleague and I took a short detour in the Black Hills of South Dakota to visit Mt. Rushmore. It was my first trip there, and the monument is as awe-inspiring as advertised. I took the expected pictures of the monument — from the front, with the state flags, and from the perspective down at the sculptor’s studio. Then I did something out of character — and took my very first selfie.  I was actually pretty pleased that I knew how to do it …

Thomas Merton’s Revelation About Slack Key Guitar…

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…or how life on the road can become a bit confusing. Since the middle of May, I’ve traveled to Detroit, Honolulu, Chicago and Plano (twice), Seattle, Louisville, New York City (twice), and occasionally I’ve been here in Washington.  On Monday, I leave for Hot Spring, South Dakota. It has been a month where I’ve been with great friends and colleagues and have seen and experienced so many wonderful things…but they do have a tendency to get jumbled up when you spend so much time on planes and trains.  So forgive me if I have a famous monk playing some wonderful slack key guitar along the way. Here’s my grab-bag – in no particular order – of things sacred, wonderful and (perhaps) absurd from a month on the road. Cyril Pahinui is the Epitome of Cool I was in Honolulu to work with colleagues and partners to try to save the Natatorium, a beautiful if neglected saltwater pool and war memorial. While there, my colleague Brian Turner and I – both lovers of roots music – …

Frank Solivan at Cedar Lane

Frank Solivan stirs the pot

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If you had to be inside on a drop dead gorgeous Sunday afternoon in Washington, I couldn’t imagine a better place than sitting in the sun-drenched hall of Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church listening to the incredible musicianship of Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen. The Dirty Kitchen Band is on a roll.  Besides making the More to Come… Best of Bluegrass 2013 list (a high honor indeed!), banjoist Mike Munford is the 2013 International Bluegrass Music Association (IMBA) Banjo player of the year, while guitarist Christ Luquette is the IBMA Instrumentalist of the Year Momentum Award winner.  Bluegrass Today said that with their second release (On the Edge), “Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen could now be reaching the kind of name recognition that puts them into any conversation about the elite contemporary bands.”  And what other band is fronted by a chef who will whip up a special meal for you prior to the concert (and hence the name). Their two-hour show as part of the Concerts at Cedar Lane series showcased tunes old and …

Nikckel Creek Reunion Tour in Charlottesville

Haven’t missed a beat

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Seven years after their “Farewell for Now” tour in 2007, Nickel Creek – the precocious bluegrass child prodigies who’ve grown into some of the best progressive string band musicians of this or any generation – reunited this year for their 25th anniversary tour. You may ask how a band with players in their early-to-mid-30s has a 25th anniversary tour.  Well, mandolin mad man Chris Thile was nine when the band first formed, and neither of the Watkins siblings were teenagers back in 1989. It doesn’t really matter.  I’m just glad they’ve come back together for this tour.  And I was thrilled to see this group of talented musicians – anchored by veteran bass player Mark Schatz – last evening in Charlottesville. I was at the downtown mall pavilion for the 2007 farewell tour…and I was at the same place for the reunion last evening.  If you don’t believe me, I have the t-shirts to prove it! In addition to the reunion tour, Thile, fiddler Sara Watkins, guitarist Sean Watkins, and Schatz released a new CD …

Bare to the Bone

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Folksinger Carrie Newcomer played to a packed house at a “rare Monday night Institute of Musical Traditions concert on Saturday night” last evening in Rockville.  As emcee David Eisner pointed out, it wasn’t your usual IMT crowd, but those in attendance kept up the high bar for IMT audiences as they were both knowledgeable and appreciative. This was my first time to see Newcomer live, and I encouraged Candice to join me, given the singer’s bent for writing from a Quaker and progressive spiritual perspective.  As Newcomer says on her website, Every day we are living moments of grace and wonder, shadow and light. These are the moments I write about. Saturday evening didn’t disappoint.  Playing her beautiful Taylor guitar (with an inventive use of capos); singing with that expressive, lyrical, and deep voice;  and accompanied only by keyboardist Gary Walters, Newcomer didn’t hit a false note the entire evening.  Beginning with I Believe, she sang songs from her soon-to-be-released CD A Permeable Life (such as A Light in the Window) as well as old …

Claire Lynch Band at home at IMT

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Monday evening’s Institute of Musical Traditions show at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church had the feeling of a “living room concert” as founder and emcee David Eisner put it. The Claire Lynch Band – in what has become an annual tradition – put on a  musically adventurous yet still familiar and engaging show for a full house of family and appreciative fans. The 2 1/2 hour concert had all the elements of a Claire Lynch show:  great singing by Claire and the band, sick guitar work from Matt Wingate, jazzy fiddle from Bryan McDowell, and lots of fantastic bass from the incomparable Mark Schatz. There were a number of swing tunes, which fit Claire’s voice to a T, tossed in with the bluegrass and folk.  While performing songs from her most recent CD, the first-rate Dear Sister, Claire also reached back into her catalog, especially including tunes from the Watcha Gonna Do CD from 2009.  The Mockingbird’s Voice and Barbed Wire Boys were two standouts among many. There’s so much to like in Claire’s work these …

Happy Birthday, Del McCoury

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Happy 75th Birthday to Del McCoury, one of the finest voices in traditional bluegrass music. A winner of the National Heritage Fellowship lifetime achievement award and a member of the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, McCoury – at 75-years young – doesn’t rest on his laurels.  Just last Sunday the Del McCoury Band won a Grammy for The Streets of Baltimore and he continues to find new avenues to showcase his talent and new collaborators for his music. Vince Gill has said “I’d rather hear Del McCoury sing ‘Are You Teasing Me’ than just about anything.” It just so happens there’s a terrific “early morning” video version of a very casual Del McCoury Band performing Are You Teasing Me? posted by radio station WNCW.  For a group that generally appears on stage in the traditional suits and ties of the classic days of bluegrass, it is kind of fun seeing the McCoury boys in shorts (with Rob in flip-flops) and Del in his jeans. Are You Teasing Me? Me, I’d rather hear Del sing 1952 …

Pete Seeger, R.I.P.

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Pete Seeger, 1919 – 2014. A life well-lived and a perfect example of how a banjo and a man of his convictions can change the world. If I had a hammer I’d hammer in the morning I’d hammer in the evening all over this land I’d hammer out danger, I’d hammer out warning I’d hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters All over this land If I had a bell I’d ring it in the morning I’d ring it in the evening all over this land I’d ring our danger, I’d ring out warning I’d ring out love between my brothers and my sisters All over this land If I had a song I’d sing it in the morning I’d sing it in the evening all over this land I’d sing out danger, I’d sing out warning I’d sing out love between my sisters and my brothers All over this land When I’ve got a hammer, and I’ve got a bell And I’ve got a song to sing all over this land It’s …

Best bluegrass of 2013

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This year brought us some very good bluegrass music – much of it coming out of Alison Brown’s Compass Records in Nashville. In looking at the different albums that came to my attention in 2013, three of my top five bluegrass releases of the year came from this eclectic roots music label which has been stretching boundaries and introducing the world to exciting new artists for almost two decades. First up in the More to Come… “Best of Bluegrass 2013” list is the wonderful Claire Lynch and her Dear Sister project (and not just because she signed my CD cover).  This is a great group of songs that include tunes I began writing about almost two years ago.  The title track comes from letters written before the Civil War battle of Stones River – fought near my hometown of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I’ll Be Alright Tomorrow is a new working of the Osborne Brothers classic, that sounds just right in the hands of the newly minted 2013 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Female Vocalist of the Year. …