All about that bass
When it comes to underpinning traditional and new acoustic music, it’s all about that bass.
All posts tagged: Tom Gray
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. …
How College Students Can Lead to a Wonderful Holiday Weekend
When a colleague asked about our plans for the upcoming holiday weekend, I told her that Andrew and Claire each had friends from college who were in town and would be staying with us. I assumed our role was “To stay out of the way.” Thankfully, I was wrong. Jason, Jordi, Jackie, Kelsey, Claire, and Andrew were delightful guests and hosts, sharing some of their time with us and also giving Candice and me the space to enjoy our weekend with each other. We began with our “traditional” July 4th celebrations – and all the twins’ friends joined us (rather enthusiastically, I think). While the Takoma Park July 4th parade didn’t have quite the pizzazz of a presidential year (I miss the “Mutts for Mitt” floats with dog puppets on top of cars and there wasn’t anything to reach the level of last year’s “precision grill team”), we still had a great time laughing at the floats and enjoying the world music you always hear at our little slice of Haight-Ashbury here in DC. Afterwards, …
The (Musical) Circle Never Ends
This is a post about music. But it begins with swimming. Earlier this summer, I wrote that I was going to savor the last swim team season. And I did just that, up to and including adding an extra meet onto the calendar to watch Andrew and his relay mates set a new team record in the All-Star meet. We were thrilled he got to compete in that best-of-the-best meet in a hotbed of swimming! But this past Saturday got off to a great start, helped by the fact that I didn’t have to be at the pool at 7 a.m. for the first time this summer! So here are a few remembrances from a nice summer weekend that kept bringing thoughts (and connections) back to music. Candice and I were at the local farmer’s market on Saturday, looking to get some great Evensong Farm eggs from our friend Julie. (Quick aside: I didn’t realize how tasteless store-bought eggs are until we missed our Evensong eggs for six straight weeks!) Julie’s father is bluegrass bass …
Bluegrass in the Barn
There are many great places to hear bluegrass – heck, just about any place will do. But Candice and I have found a spot that’s become a favorite: the barn at Evensong Farm. Which is how we came to listen to live bluegrass on 10.10.10. Evensong is a farm we support at the Silver Spring farmers market. Here’s how owner Julie Stinar describes their work: Heritage. Health. Harmony. These are the chords of Evensong Farm in historic Sharpsburg, Maryland, growing natural foods that sustain our land, our neighbors and our souls. Healthful, heritage foods cultivated at nature’s pace without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or genetically modified inputs. Heirloom vegetables and herbs, pasture-fresh eggs, grass-raised poultry, pork and beef – healthful food grown to the rhythms of the seasons, to the patient melody of time. We’re just glad that part of the rhythms of the season includes hearing great bluegrass by Darren Beachley and Legends of the Potomac on the Columbus Day weekend in Evensong’s historic wooden barn. Beachley is a fine tenor singer who has played …
Summer Saturdays are the Best
The joyful photograph at the top of the post – which comes from the wonderful photo/blog Real People Eat Local (check it out for their delicious pictures) – is a perfect encapsulation of our day. Summer Saturdays really are the best! Today started relatively early (by Saturday standards) as Andrew had to be at the Cathedral for a choral practice at 8 a.m. Our car is in the shop this weekend waiting for a leaky fuel pump to be repaired (one never wants to smell gasoline in your home garage), so Candice, Andrew and I had to juggle our schedules around the availability of Zipcars – the wonderful car sharing service we swear by. Because we have some 25 Zipcars within about 3 blocks of our house, we picked one up (a little Honda) and were on our way by 7:30. Urban living is great! Swim team meets the past six weeks have their own charm, but they have disrupted the Saturday morning ritual Candice and I established this year. So we were pleased to …
Missy Raines Brings New Hip to IMT
My colleague John and I were among a small but appreciative audience to hear Missy Raines and The New Hip at the weekly Monday night concert of the Institute of Musical Traditions. The band features Raines’ energetic bass lines as the foundation for jazzgrass and acoustic music, capped with some terrific solo work by a group of young Nashville-based musicians. Instrumentals are the core of this band’s work, and they played most of the selections from Inside Out, their new CD on Alison Brown’s Compass Records. The title track, Duke of Paducah, and a reworked Angeline the Baker entitled simply Angeline are among the highlights. All the musicians were top notch, but Michael Witcher on dobro stood out throughout the evening. Multi-instrumentalist Ethan Ballinger looks to be all of 16, but played beyond his years. The band also broke in a new guitarist (on his second gig and so new he’s not listed on the web site) who carefully studied the chord charts but didn’t miss a beat. At the end of a satisfying night …
More to Come... 