Comments on 60 lessons from 60 years
60 lessons and broken arms (from an ambulance, no less!) – an outpouring of comments, affection, and kindness.
All posts filed under: Bluegrass Music
I grew up with Flatt & Scruggs and WSM’s Martha White show on the radio every morning, but truly went down the rabbit hole the first time I placed the needle on side 1 / track 1 of the “Circle” album
60 lessons from 60 years
A birthday list of 60 things I’ve learned in my (now) 60 years of life.
Just Another Beautiful Day in Southern California
Not even ten hours – TEN HOURS – stuck in the Phoenix Airport on Thursday was going to ruin our last Family Weekend at Pomona College with Claire. (Phoenix Airport motto: “And you think our city has sprawl – just wait until you have to go from concourse-to-concourse in our lovely airport. We’ll show you world-class sprawl!”) Yes, the time has come for the last of our family weekends during the college years. We’ve made 7 of 8 over the course of the four years between our twins and their two schools. Some parents poo-poo the Family Weekend, saying they are only for freshmen parents who miss their children. But we love them. Why? Well, beyond the obvious of getting to spend time with Claire and Andrew, we get to meet and hear great professors talk about fun things. In the fall at Brown, our favorite was Fundamentals of Healthy Aging. This year’s topic of choice at Pomona from Professor Joti Rockwell was entitled Sympathy for the Devil: The Meanings of Fiddle and Guitar Music …
My Turn on Music Row
I’ve often said I have one of the best jobs on earth. I work with amazing people to save some of the best places in the country. I get to see some amazing sites. I have the chance to explain why these places matter. Last Monday was one of those days. The National Trust designated Nashville’s Music Row as a National Treasure. Nashville is undergoing an amazing transformation, where growth is putting pressure on some of the most important places in the history of country music. When a threat arose last summer, Musician Ben Folds and several other Nashville insiders worked hard to save historic Studio A from demolition. We joined them in this fight and – in the process – expanded our reach to all of Music Row. Knowing of my Tennessee roots and my love for roots and country music, our team asked if I would help launch our campaign. It took me about 3 seconds to say yes. As you can see above, we had a great turnout from the media and …
Our year in photos – 2014
A cross-country trip and a visit to see Andrew in Copenhagen were part of our 2014 year in photos.
Beer and bluegrass
Beer and bluegrass. Betcha never thought of that combination before. Yeah, right. At a festival that took “parking lot picking” to its logical conclusion (i.e., it was held in a parking lot next to the Clarendon Courthouse Metro Station), Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen rode to the rescue when the organizers of the Clarendon Arts & Crafts Beer Festival’s Acoustic Music tent were struggling with a bad sound system and horrible logistics (the sets were almost an hour late in starting). When the Dirty Kitchen band finally began their set in the tent’s lengthening shadows, we were only ten minutes away from the festival’s posted closing hour. Somehow, with six Virginia Craft Brewers and about a dozen local food trucks to choose from, it didn’t seem to matter! The artist who was really shortchanged in the logistical and sound mess was Christie Lenee. This finger-style guitar tapper was new to me, but she has obviously been making waves in the acoustic music world for a while. Her inventive sound reminded me of Michael Hedges, but …
Cheerfulness
Cheerfulness is a choice, a habit, that we turn to each morning and “hang on to as long as possible.”
Congratulations 2014 International Bluegrass Award Winners
It took 10 months, but the 2014 International Bluegrass Awards caught up with my Best of Bluegrass 2013 post from December. Turns out, my picks were prescient. The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards were presented on Thursday evening in Raleigh, NC. Three of my five choices from the end of the year were winners at the IBMA showcase. Let’s begin with congratulations to Claire Lynch for winning the “Song of the Year” award for Dear Sister. I recognized this as a special song back in 2012, and have loved this tale taken from letters written before the Civil War Battle of Stones River in my hometown of Murfreesboro. Claire co-wrote this lovely tune with Louisa Branscomb. It is one of her best ever, and highly deserving of the award. Thursday was a big night for banjo phenom Noam Pikelny. His Noam Pikelny Plays Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe – one of my picks in December – won Album of the Year at IBMA. This is not just a terrific concept album, it is a terrific album period. …
Observations from the road: The “Thankfulness edition” at the end of our “Not all who wander are lost” tour
Tuesday, August 19th (and day #19) – is the last one of the cross-country Not All Who Wander Are Lost tour. Later this morning I’ll be flying home. I can’t wait to see Candice and Andrew (who leaves for his senior year in college on Friday morning). But I also want to put a wrap on the wonderful two-and-a-half weeks Claire and I had on our exploration of this amazing country we live in. It has been an experience I’ll never forget. I’ve had several parts of this series where I’ve thrown together random thoughts that I’ve entitled Observations from the Road. For those who want to see them in order, you can find them here as: The First Edition The Central Time Edition The Prairie Edition The Jeez, Montana is a Big State Edition The We Made It (Well, In One Sense) Edition The On the Edge Edition So this grouping of random thoughts wraps up the Observations From the Road posts as well as the series on our cross-country tour. I’ve entitled it …
Observations from the road: The “On the Edge” edition
At times, Wednesday’s ride seemed as long as a California redwood is tall. Claire and I were on Day 13 of the Not All Who Wander Are Lost tour (a.k.a., the “length of the country” portion), and perhaps it had to do with it being the 13th day, but there were some weird things happening along the way. We left Portland, Oregon at 8:30 a.m. and didn’t arrive in Eureka, California until around 6:30 p.m. for what was supposed to be a 7 hour trip. (Darn those Google maps algorithms.) The portions on the “straight and narrow” path of I-5 could give a guy and his daughter the blues. Rest areas that we really needed were closing up due to “bear activity.” Ah, but those crooked roads through the mountains, the redwoods, and along the beautiful California coast…now that’s when we felt we were alive and on the edge of the world. We had to take I-5 down to Grants Pass. The Oregon landscape is changing and beautiful through this part of the country, but …
MORE TO COME... 