All posts tagged: Richard Greene

Just Another Beautiful Day in Southern California

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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 …

Fine fiddling in Southern California

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When I signed up for family weekend at Claire’s college, I didn’t go expecting to have my bluegrass itch scratched.  Yes, Claremont has a wonderful Folk Music Center in the heart of the village*, but I generally have time for one quick stop to play an instrument or two between all the sessions lined up for the parents. So imagine my surprise when I was reading the events for family weekend, and there — on Friday night — was an evening of “Bluegrass and Old-Time Music” with fiddler Richard Greene. Wow!  Richard Greene is a fiddle god – one of those west coast players who paid his bluegrass dues in Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in the 1960s, yet expanded the genre with the help of David Grisman, Clarence White, and so many others. I’ve been listening to his music since the early 1970s, yet had never seen him live. So with Candice and Ella, one of Claire’s good friends at school who is — who knew — a bluegrass fan (her already high stock …