All posts tagged: Bluegrass Music

Beauty in Metal

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About 15 years ago, my younger brother Joe left his corporate job to work full time as a blacksmith artist.  It was a gutsy move, but he’s loving life and never looked back.  Over that time, he’s matured as an artist and has received increasing publicity.  So I was pleased but not surprised when I was looking online and found this Nashville Public Television blog for the Tennessee Crossroads  program where my brother’s work was featured. For those in the Nashville area, the show airs on October 9th and 12th, but anyone can see the clip by watching the video at the NPT website.  It is a good piece, but any short television feature isn’t going to capture the fundamental niceness that’s at the core of Joe’s being.  He’s simply among the nicest people on the planet and he’d give you the shirt off his back.  I’m looking forward to seeing Joe and his family next month when I’m in Tennessee.  Maybe it will be warm enough to sit on that wonderful front porch of his and pick some …

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

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 …

Bang-Bang Plays

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With two bang-bang plays at the plate, I may have been an eyewitness to the week when we see the crowning of the Philadelphia Phillies as repeat NL East Champions amidst another historic Mets breakdown. Friends will know that a couple of years ago I started on a quest to visit every Major League ballpark.  And in the last week of the 2008 season, I was lucky enough to squeeze in my fourth new stadium visit of the year. Don and Nancy, friends and great preservationists from Philadelphia, read of my goal on More to Come.  Don called a week ago and said “I have three tickets – two for Nancy and me and one for you if you can make it.”  That was all I needed to hear, and I was on I-95 for the short two-hour drive to Philly yesterday afternoon. Citizens Bank Park is a beautiful stadium, opened a couple of years ago.  After a short walk around the park and picking up my free “Fightin’ Phils” rally towel, I joined Don and …

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 …

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,” …

Baseball and Bluegrass

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Oh my!  Major League Baseball has finally caught up with the key themes of More to Come…(a blog for family and friends about acoustic music, baseball, places that matter, and other random topics) with the post on MLB.com entitled Bound by Baseball and Bluegrass.  This is an article on the new Gibson Brothers CD Iron and Diamonds.  Who knew we were so cutting edge here at 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 …