All posts filed under: Acoustic Music

Few things are better than the sound of acoustic instruments

Take Me Home Down Route 66

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Just arrived home after a week in Tulsa for the National Preservation Conference.  National Trust staff posted some great updates throughout the week on the PreservationNation.org blog which I recommend.  I did see some great art deco architecture and thought the Gilcrease Museum was a real treasure (check out the amazing Ansel Adams exhibit).  But since I spent the better part of the week in partner and board meetings, I’m not the best judge of all the city had to offer.  So I’ll just post this picture from last evening’s terrific closing party with Asleep at the Wheel and say thanks to Marty, Marcia, Cliff and all our hosts from Oklahoma for a great week. We’ll let Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel take us home with a great version of Route 66! More to come… DJB

Asleep at the Wheel and Cain’s Ballroom – Can It Get Any Better?

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Tulsa’s historic Cain’s Ballroom – the home of Bob Wills – was the perfect setting to hear Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel.  We were there for the final party of the 2008 National Preservation Conference, and Benson used the occasion for a history lesson of western swing.  With his beautiful bass voice, fluid guitar lines, and expert showmanship, Benson had the crowd in his hand from the opening notes of Take Me Back to Tulsa.  The tight band worked through song after song in the western swing catalog (“Western Swing Ain’t Dead…It’s Asleep at the Wheel!)  We danced to Choo Choo Boogie, Faded Love, and so much more. It was great to hear this band with so many friends and colleagues.  Kaye told me they are her favorite band and she cleans the house while listening to their CDs.  Ed told me he saw them once in New York, but “they’re much better here.”  Must be that cultural context.  Newcomers to the music kept saying, “what a terrific band.”  Indeed.  Great way to …

There’s at least one good story in today’s Wall Street Journal

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On the day the stock market fell another 678 points, the only good story I could find in today’s Wall Street Journal was on Dobro God Jerry Douglas.  Entitled:  Jerry Douglas:  Irreplaceable Instrumentalist, it is a nice feature on how Douglas thinks like a vocalist when he plays.  The article also has Douglas’ take on why so many young bluegrassers expand their playing into more jazz-oriented music:  Bluegrass is such a chops-oriented music. It builds stamina and strength in your hands because it’s such a physical music, so hard-driving. And you have to stay up; you can’t just play half the song. Sometimes it seems like it’s an endurance test to see who can play fastest the longest! And with that training, you can go just about anywhere else, because you’ve already played all those notes in rapid succession. Thanks to the irreplaceable Bluegrass Blog for highlighting this story on an otherwise dreary news day. More to come… DJB

In Praise of Tracker Organs

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While traveling on work today in North Carolina, I had an unexpected treat: the chance to hear Bach on a beautiful historic tracker organ that had been restored by some dear friends. First, a bit of background.  As Wikipedia notes, tracker action is a term used in reference to pipe organs that “indicates a mechanical linkage between keys or pedals pressed by the organist and the valve that allows air to flow into pipe(s) of the corresponding note. This is in contrast to electrical or electro-pneumatic actions, which connect the key to the valve through an electrical link or an electrically assisted pneumatic system respectively.” Tracker organs are built the same today as they have been for hundreds of years.  I came to love tracker action organs while living in the Shenandoah Valley and becoming friends with George Taylor and John Boody.  George and John are the founders and principals of the world-renown Taylor & Boody Organbuilders located just outside Staunton, Virginia.   These two men and a small group of craftsmen build and restore some of …

Searching the Internet and Finding…October Belongs to Baseball

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This is another one of my “I was searching the Internet and found something I had to share” posts.  On the InterSportsWire (motto:  “Because there aren’t enough sports blogs”) there’s this beautiful post entitled October Belongs to Baseball which has a “great sports folk song about the mystical aura of baseball.”  The song is by Sam Baker.  Click on the link to October Belongs to Baseball to see this video and give yourself a treat. More to come… DJB

David Lindley featured in new Fretboard Journal

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Regular readers of More to Come… will know that one of my favorite magazines is The Fretboard Journal, which bills itself as “Not Just Another Guitar Magazine.”  The Fall 2008 issue showed up in the mailbox the other day, and it contains more great articles and photos of the world’s most beautiful acoustic guitars.  Multi-instrumentalist David Lindley is featured in an extensive interview with Ben Harper, while banjoist Tony Trischka talks about the banjo as the great antidepressant.  That article begins with a great quote from Pete Stampfel, banjoist in the Holy Modal Rounders, the anarchist folk group from the 1960s: “The real reason the Great Depression happened was that people quit playing the banjo.” An interesting thought for the day when the Stock Market dropped 777 points. More to come… DJB

John Work, III: Recording Black Culture

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My father recently sent along a copy of a new CD from Spring Fed Records entitled John Work, III:  Recording Black Culture.  This is a recording of great interest for anyone who cares about African American culture in the South in the mid-20th century.  A Fisk University professor, Work helped the better-known folklorist Alan Lomax collect songs in the African American community, but he also collected songs on his own.  Late last year, the New York Times published a terrific article on this CD and Work’s efforts to record African-Americans. Where Mr. Lomax tended to treat black vernacular music as an artifact in need of preservation, Mr. Work sought to document it as it was unfolding.  Thus on “Recording Black Culture,” instead of spirituals harking back to the 19th century, we hear febrile gospel shouting set to the cadences of what soon would become rhythm and blues and rock ’n’ roll. Bruce Nemerov, who won a Grammy Award for the liner notes to Recording Black Culture, spoke at the Rutherford County Historical Society, which was …

Two Months of Great Acoustic Music Coming Up

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For all lovers of traditional and acoustic music in the Washington, DC area, there are some terrific concerts coming up over the next two months. Monday, September 29 – The Carolina Chocolate Drops at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage (Free!).  A terrific band playing in the African American string band tradition of the Southern mountains.  Check out the video below. Monday, September 29 – Kevin Burke and Cal Scott for the Institute of Musical Traditions.  Yes, this day brings an embarrassment of riches, as just about the best Irish fiddler on the planet plays at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church on Old Georgetown Road in Rockville. Monday, October 6 – Nightingale, a great contra band, for IMT at St. Mark’s in Rockville. Saturday, November 1 – The Infamous Stringdusters play for the DC Bluegrass Union’s fall concert in Falls Church.  Catch one of the hot young bands in bluegrass. Monday, November 24 – David Grier, one of the great guitar flatpickers of his generation, plays for the Monday night IMT concert at St. Mark’s. Use the comments …

Modernism, ribs, and Wynonna

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I’m in Memphis for a talk sponsored by AIA Memphis and Memphis Heritage and I soon discovered that this is a city that surprises. Nothing catches your eye so quickly as the wealth of historic buildings that remain throughout the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods.  In fact, according to Memphis Heritage the city ranks sixth in the nation in the number of properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The day began with a tour of a terrific preservation project at the Lincoln American Tower.  In the past ten years, the downtown has seen a number of buildings brought back online by enterprising developers such as Willie Chandler and architect Chooch Pickard.  (The “Chooch” is a high-school nickname for “Choo Choo Charlie.”)  Willie and Chooch gave me a top to bottom tour of the Tower and adjacent Lowenstein Building (see photo at right) which is under renovation right on Main Street.  This mixed-use development has incredible views of the downtown, Court Square Park, and – of course – the Mississippi River.  Downtown housing units …