All posts filed under: Acoustic Music

Few things are better than the sound of acoustic instruments

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 …

NEA Heritage Fellows Bring Back Memories

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On Friday, September 19th, the National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowships free concert will be held at Bethesda’s Strathmore Music Hall.  Each year the NEA awards one-time-only awards to traditional and folk artists, and I have special memories of the music of two of this year’s recipients. Bluegrass master Mac Wiseman has one of the great voices in bluegrass music.  Back in the early 1970s, I had stopped listening to rock and pop and was acquainting myself with all types of acoustic and traditional music.  I decided to attend a bluegrass festival, and the one I chose was Mac Wiseman’s Bluegrass Festival in Renfro Valley, Kentucky.  This was a time before the huge festivals and the Wiseman affair was definitely small scale.  However, it was very friendly to a young college student eager to soak up the music.  I remember hearing Wiseman, Martha and Eddie Adcock (they were also doing the sound), the Lewis Family, and more.  Mac Wiseman’s tenor and Adcock’s innovative banjo playing stuck with me through the years, and when I hear Wiseman …

A Cappella Singing

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Many family and friends know that our son Andrew is the real singer of the family.  After a stellar career as a cathedral chorister (assuming you can have a career that ends at age 13), he began singing in high school last year with his new baritone voice.  Candice and I were so pleased last evening to hear Andrew’s first performance with the five-boy a cappella group at his school.  They got a great reception and Andrew was pleased with this first performance.  We expect to hear a lot of a cappella singing around our house over the next three years… …And that thought led us to think about what happens to people who get too deep into a cappella singing.  Fortunately, there’s an institute for "A Cappella Recovery."  Watch this video…and pray this isn’t in Andrew’s future. 🙂 More to come… DJB

Searching the Internet and Finding Miss Music Nerd

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One of the unexpected joys of starting a blog is that as you move around the Internet to find information or connect links, you stumble across interesting blogs that catch your fancy.  These blogs may or may not be connected to your topic(s), but you find the writing or subject so compelling you want to share with others. So every now and then I’ll share a discovery with you.  And the first such find is Miss Music Nerd!…because nerd is the new cool .  Last evening after posting a story on the new Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile CD, I clicked on the tag I established for Edgar Meyer and was taken to Miss Music Nerd’s blog.  There I found a wonderful posting entitled Music Vocab:  Catching Some Bass .  Here was a witty take on the "lowest instrument or voice part in an ensemble, whose name is spelled like a fish but pronounced like a foundation: the bass."  Miss Music Nerd is classically trained, but lest you think she’s boring (or too nerdy), read some more from Catching Some Bass …

Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile To Release First CD Together

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Double-bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolin phenom Chris Thile are set to release their first CD together on September 23rd on Nonesuch Records.  Entitled – appropriately enough – Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile , the new release brings together two of the most amazing instrumentalists of their respective generations of acoustic musicians.  My friend Scott Gerloff and I had the chance to see Meyer earlier this year when he played in Washington with Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas.  The show was terrific and Meyer was phenomenal.  We were both slack-jawed.  And I’ve written to countless friends through the years following Nickel Creek concerts with accounts of some amazing piece of musicianship from Thile.  Needless to say I’m looking forward to this collaboration. The Nonesuch site provides a good background on both musicians: Throughout a lifetime of performing and composing, Edgar Meyer has turned the double bass into a modern virtuoso instrument that is equally at home in classical music and in the American vernacular. In 1994, Meyer became the first bassist to win the Avery Fisher Prize. …

How do those bluegrass guys (and gals) play so fast? The true story!

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(NOTE from 2021: Since I wrote this post way back in 2008, the website referenced is no longer active. Nonetheless, since it saw some recent traffic, I decided to keep it here as I think you can get the gist of the report from this now-departed Onion-like online site.) Thanks to a heads up from The Bluegrass Blog, I was introduced to the perfect post-convention antidote that puts all the postings from The Daily Kos (or insert your favorite right-wing blog) in perspective. Want to know how all those bluegrass phenoms play so darn fast?  Steroids!  Check out this stunning revelation from the incredibly funny Bluegrass Intelligencer which reports on the government-funded study to uncover rampant performance enhancing drug use among all the major bluegrass bands, including Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder (see photo at top).  As one “fan” put it, “I mean, when you go to a festival and you see Cody Kilby playing those guitar solos with Kentucky Thunder, you know that it’s not naturally possible, yet everyone just looks the other way,” …

Tom Dews Concert

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My friend Tom Dews has a concert coming up this month at the historic Athenaeum in Alexandria, Virginia.  This is a nice venue in the heart of Old Town.  Tom’s concert is set for next Thursday, September 11th, at 7 p.m.  Tickets are $10/person and The Athenaeum is located at 201 Prince Street. If you aren’t familiar with Tom’s music, let me quote from the website: Tom Dews soaked up roots rhythms and fished the great rivers of the southeast growing up in south Georgia and central Florida. After sojourns in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, he resides in Northern Virginia, still churning out his brand of original guitar with simultaneous harmonica and vocals from a lived-in and karma-buffeted voice. His three CDs, EPIPHANIES & EPITAPHS, BUTTONS BALLADS BLUES, and the new DRIVING DREAMS are available at CDBaby.com. Dews holds an endorsement from the M. Hohner Co. for harmonica studio work, and has contributed as a sideman to the work of a number of other artists. Hear Tom Dews @ tomdews.com For his day job, Tom …

Irish Band Solas Plays in Arlington This Week – Recommended!

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One of the great Irish bands of the past decade will be playing twice in Arlington, Virginia this weekend.  The band is Solas and since the late 1990s they have been hailed as the best Irish band to ever emerge from the United States.  I agree.  Led by the terrific Seamus Egen, they exhibit superb musicianship that is infectious, and their new album also includes duet work with the Canadian band The Duhks.  Solas will play at a CD-release party on Friday evening, and then will follow that the next day with a concert as part of Planet Arlington’s World Music Festival. Solas is a great live band – which you can see in Arlington and (for those outside Washington) on the joint CD/DVD album SOLAS:  Reunion – A Decade of Solas.   A great concert and a great band.  More to come… DJB

Pandora Radio and Ben’s Chili Bowl

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A couple of random topics about unique institutions that you may find of interest… Pandora Radio – My friend and colleague Scott Gerloff introduced me to Pandora Radio, the Internet radio station that allows you to program your own music.  If you’ve never tried Pandora, I recommend you pay it a visit.  No matter your musical taste, you’ll enjoy it…because you get to program it! In a posting today on the Bluegrass Blog, there’s a story about the difficulties Pandora is facing due to royalty issues with the music industry.  Check out the blog, learn more about Pandora, and become a listener.  Let’s hope we can all enjoy it for a long time to come. Ben’s Chili Bowl – There’s a Washington institution celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and the blog at PreservationNation captured the celebration at Ben’s Chili Bowl on historic U Street in a posting today.  The Washington Post also had a terrific article earlier this week that covers the history – and future – of Ben’s.  After coming back from two weeks …