All posts tagged: Acoustic Music

Playing my Running Dog

Finding my new Running Dog guitar

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I’ve been thinking about a smaller guitar for some time, to take my music in different directions and to help move beyond what has been a rather long plateau of musical mediocrity when it comes to playing.  But the time was never right, the funds were always tight, and I had other priorities. A couple of months ago I broke through a personal logjam, and in the process started focusing more on enjoying my music.  (I am good enough to know that I’m not that good, but I decided not to worry about it anymore.)  Candice and I talked, and I told her my dream of getting a new guitar.  She said, “Let’s go for it.” Of course I had a plan and even discussed it with some friends.  I had a builder in mind and even sought out some of their guitars to test drive. But then I stumbled across a beautiful Running Dog guitar and decided to seize the day. Two weeks ago we were in New England with our twins for college …

Rockland, ME

Eating our way through New England

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From Blue State Coffee in Providence, where Claire and I are enjoying a couple hours relaxation after an early morning wake-up and drive, here are some reflections on the good food found in New England on our trip. Sorry Blue State, but the best coffee we found — hands down — was at Bard Coffee in Portland, Maine.  (That’s not really fair to Blue State, since neither Claire nor I are actually having coffee here…she’s into a great blueberry smoothie and I’m having a delicious iced tea, so we’ll rate them best smoothies and tea…but I digress.) We had breakfast at Bard two days in a row and our various cups of coffee and pastries were terrific.  Everything is fresh and the staff is incredibly friendly.  Plus, when I came in on Thursday, they had Nickel Creek’s The Fox coming out of the speakers, and on Friday, it was Old Crow Medicine Show followed by Alison Krauss and Union Station playing the great Jerry Douglas tune We Hide and Seek.  How can you not love …

The most ignored building on campus (tours)

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Quick Quiz:  Name the most beautiful building on any college campus that student tour guides do their best to ignore. Answer:  The College Chapel.  (I know, the picture at the top gave it away.) Based on my experience now with 17 campus tours in the past year,  colleges are doing everything possible to ignore their chapels when selling their schools to prospective students and their parents. We’ve seen it time and time again on our most recent northeast tour as we visit some of the most beautiful and well-maintained campuses this country has to offer.  These schools just ooze heritage.  We’ve toured an amazing adaptation of an old swimming pool into a state-of-the-art concert hall.  We’ve seen an old field house turned into a lively student union.  Two historic structures on one campus are under complete renovation as they become 21st century academic buildings.  In every instance – no matter the school – we’re given the full fire hose of information about the reuse of these older buildings. But when we pass arguably the loveliest …

The people and places on Main Street

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There are few things I like better than walking along a great Main Street. For the past two days, I’ve been lucky enough to walk around four terrific Main Streets:  Middletown, Connecticut; Amherst and Northampton, Massachusetts; and tiny Red Hook, NY. You can pick up life lessons on Main Street – like the bumper sticker I saw on a car parked along Northampton’s Main Street this morning:  Just say NO to Negativity. You can also meet very interesting people.  While taking photos around Northampton, I was approached by a resident of the streets of the city.  He must have seen my inner preservationist (sometimes people who look at the world a little differently have great powers of observation), because he told me he liked to work for the “hysterical society.”  He then proceeded to point out the historical courthouse (where Calvin Coolidge first practiced law) – a very nice 1885 building seen in the photo above. My new friend then pointed in the opposite direction and identified the Northampton City Hall.  “See those turrets?” he …

A Crooked Road

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One of Nashville’s best songwriters begins his newest album with the following words: “I walk a crooked road to get to where I’m going, to get to where I’m going I walk a crooked road and only when I’m looking back I see the straight & narrow I see the straight & narrow when I walk a crooked road.“ Darrell Scott has written great tunes for the Dixie Chicks (Long Time Gone), Patty Loveless (You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive) and dozens more.  His last album, a gem entitled Modern Hymns, showcased “Songs and artists/songwriters whose music shook me as a kid (with ears nearly as big as my heart). They guided the way to my own path as a singer-songwriter . . . These songs speak to the human condition . . . in all of our aching and beautiful glory . . . These songs are the truth . . .“ Scott has a wonderful gravelly voice and is a masterful musician.  I love his work. So I eagerly snapped up the album when …

Economic meltdown, transitions, and roots music: Recent books on the nightstand

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My last post said More to Come… was going on sabbatical, but in cleaning up the  nightstand today I realized I’d been holding four recent books that I planned to review on the blog.  These represent my eclectic interests (which is what More to Come… is all about) as well as priorities in my life at the moment.  So in the hope that I can now hold to my promise to take the blog on sabbatical,  I’ll pass along thumbnail reviews of the four and put them in my mental “checked off” category. The first is Michael Lewis’ terrific (as in well-written) and sobering (as in scary) The Big Short:  Inside the Doomsday Machine. This is, by far, the best known of the four and much has been written about the story of three small hedge fund managers and a bond salesman who knew what was coming before the economic meltdown of 2008. I don’t need to elaborate because Steven Pearlstein said it all in a Washington Post review I highly recommend.  As Pearlstein  writes, …

Lena Horne, RIP

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One of my father’s favorite singers, Lena Horne, passed away yesterday at age 92.  My father can’t carry a tune in a bucket and he can play only two songs on the piano – St. Louis Blues and Teddy Wilson’s Body and Soul – but my father had a great collection of 78s from the pre-war era and he knows his jazz singers.  TB was so right about Lena Horne. As the web site The Music’s Over but the Songs Live On noted, Lena Horne was a popular and influential jazz vocalist and actress who broke many color barriers over a career that spanned nearly seven decades, and her 1943 recording of “Stormy Weather” is arguably the most recognized song of its era.  Horne was not only a multi-Grammy award-winning singer, she was also an award-winning star of stage, screen and television. She was also an activist during the Civil Rights era, which is where I encountered her after the introduction by my father.  The New York Times obituary recalled the difficulties she faced as …

Harp Guitar

More harp guitar

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After writing the post last evening on the harp guitar article in the Spring 2010 issue of  The Fretboard Journal, I kept looking around on YouTube for other players mentioned in the article…and I came across this wonderful video of Muriel Anderson that I had to share. Anderson’s harp guitar is a classical-style model which has a beautiful sound.  I hope you’re able to listen to these videos on a computer that has a good bass speaker, because the sound of those ringing bass strings turns a beautiful tune into a magical tune. (As an aside, check out all those beautiful harp guitars on the stage behind Muriel at the opening of the video.  Guitar eye candy indeed!) Here’s “Lady Pamela” by Muriel Anderson.  Enjoy. More to come… DJB

More strings make beautiful music

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Several weeks ago the Spring 2010 issue of The Fretboard Journal showed up in my mailbox.  I was traveling a great deal at the time, so I popped in it my briefcase and caught up on all the news from the world of beautiful instruments in airplanes and hotel rooms. Ricky Skaggs, the young acoustic band Bearfoot (which I caught at last year’s Merlefest), and Bedford County, Virginia luthier James Jones are all featured in this issue.  But my eye was immediately taken to an article on harp guitars. I had never seen a harp guitar until I attended the Shenandoah Valley’s Oak Grove Music Festival one year and Stephen Bennett pulled out the strangest instrument imaginable.  But then he began playing the most beautiful music, and I was transfixed.  I’ve since met Stephen through my friends the Pearsons and Harringtons, and I’m always amazed at how someone can play such lovely music on such an awkward looking guitar. Stephen Bennett and Gregg Miner (whose guitar photo from harpguitars.net leads off this post) are featured …