BGS X 10: A celebration of women in bluegrass
BGS takes a look at women in bluegrass. Here’s a sampling to whet your appetite.
All posts tagged: Claire Lynch
Festival favorites
Fan favorites from music festivals I’ve loved through the years.
Memories
For the past two decades, New Year’s Day has had memories of loss mixed in with the anticipation of the coming year. Mother passed away on January 1, 1998, and while a day doesn’t go by when I don’t think of her, the memories are especially poignant on New Year’s Day. Thankfully, mother’s life left many legacies in her family, her church, and her community. Mom’s love of family never changed and was unconditional. She loved each one of us as individuals who had unique gifts and ways to serve. The lives lived by her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren (who she never met) and in-laws are part of her legacy. Her commitment to her faith and her church was just as strong. She was a life-long reader (as was my father) and she shared that love through her decades of service at church libraries in Tennessee. She also believed in the power of women in the church, and became the first female deacon at First Baptist in Murfreesboro. Mom served her communities in so many ways, …
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.
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. …
Claire Lynch Band at home at IMT
Monday evening’s Institute of Musical Traditions show at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church had the feeling of a “living room concert” as founder and emcee David Eisner put it. The Claire Lynch Band – in what has become an annual tradition – put on a musically adventurous yet still familiar and engaging show for a full house of family and appreciative fans. The 2 1/2 hour concert had all the elements of a Claire Lynch show: great singing by Claire and the band, sick guitar work from Matt Wingate, jazzy fiddle from Bryan McDowell, and lots of fantastic bass from the incomparable Mark Schatz. There were a number of swing tunes, which fit Claire’s voice to a T, tossed in with the bluegrass and folk. While performing songs from her most recent CD, the first-rate Dear Sister, Claire also reached back into her catalog, especially including tunes from the Watcha Gonna Do CD from 2009. The Mockingbird’s Voice and Barbed Wire Boys were two standouts among many. There’s so much to like in Claire’s work these …
Best bluegrass of 2013
This year brought us some very good bluegrass music – much of it coming out of Alison Brown’s Compass Records in Nashville. In looking at the different albums that came to my attention in 2013, three of my top five bluegrass releases of the year came from this eclectic roots music label which has been stretching boundaries and introducing the world to exciting new artists for almost two decades. First up in the More to Come… “Best of Bluegrass 2013” list is the wonderful Claire Lynch and her Dear Sister project (and not just because she signed my CD cover). This is a great group of songs that include tunes I began writing about almost two years ago. The title track comes from letters written before the Civil War battle of Stones River – fought near my hometown of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I’ll Be Alright Tomorrow is a new working of the Osborne Brothers classic, that sounds just right in the hands of the newly minted 2013 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Female Vocalist of the Year. …
Red Wing takes flight
Well, that certainly was a promising start. Day 1 of the 1st Annual Red Wing Roots Music Festival promised a talented and spirited mix of the roots and branches of American music. And in spite of gloomy skies and the occasional (and thankfully brief) rain shower, this brand new festival — located deep in the heart of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley — pretty much delivered. The festival is the brainchild of an energetic, talented, and amazingly entrepreneurial (for a bunch of roots music players) band The Steel Wheels, fronted by one of the great voices in Americana music, Trent Wagler. Candice and I arrived back in our old Valley stomping grounds (we lived for 15 years in nearby Staunton, Virginia) after the soggy drive down from Washington just in time to walk in on the 4 p.m. set of the hosts under the tent at the Carolina Old Time Family Stage. And given the weather, could The Steel Wheels really begin this festival with any song other than their iconic Rain in the Valley? This was …
All ages welcome – Merlefest 25
Merlefest has a multi-generational flavor built into its DNA. We saw that at Saturday’s festival, from patriarch Doc Watson to the teenage phenom Sierra Hull. Great music all around.
Merlefest at 25: Gifts in small packages
Sometimes the best gifts come in small packages. That’s how it felt for me on the opening evening of the 25th anniversary of Merlefest – the Americana music festival tucked away in the hills of North Carolina. Opening day at Merlefest is the easiest to navigate, because virtually all the music is centered around the main “Watson Stage” – named for the blind guitarist Doc Watson from nearby Deep Gap and his late son and musical partner Merle. (It was Merle’s tragic passing on October 23, 1985 that led to the first festival twenty-five years ago in 1988.) Juggling between the 14 venues and making tough decisions about which acts to see and which acts to miss only happens later in the weekend. So I arrived after my drive from Silver Spring in time to catch the first of the main acts on the Watson Stage – The Boxcars. Coming together after stints with Alison Krauss + Union Station, J.D. Crowe, and Blue Moon, this is a “new” band with a lot of experience. Even …
More to Come... 