What I'm Working On

"Old Mother Logo" from Uncle Buck Williams, Chirps Smith, Bryan Smyth, and Janet Oriatti
"Yellow Barber" from Buddy Thomas, Geoff Seitz and Gerry Milnes
"Rush and the Pepper" again, from Chirps Smith and probably a bunch of other midwesterners I'm not thinking of right now

And I'm eyeing "Fine Times at Our House" from the Hammons Family through Chirps Smith and Rayna Gellert.

Should be enough to keep me busy the next week or so while I'm away from the office (stinkin' day job!) for a holiday.

Old Mother Logo

While playing at the Folk School jam session yesterday, we dredged up a tune that I used to play with Janet Oriatti a lot before children and family began demanding so much of her time. Iam looking forward to a time 18 years from now when Helen and Vince will be all grown up and Janet and I can sit down and play "Old Mother Logo" again.

At any rate, someone called for this tune and while we stumbled through it, I remembered how much I liked playing it. Of course, now I have to learn it all over again since I used to play it on guitar with Janet while she fiddled and these days I'm either fiddling or playing mandolin depending n how my shoulder feels -- better and better all the time, thanks for asking. So I went in search of a recording of the tune to relearn it from and found this gem:


Old Mother Logo


It's the now defunct Yellow Dog String Band from here in St. Louis playing "Old Mother Logo" at the Folk School's 2nd or 3rd annual benefit concert at the Sheldon Auditorium. The band from left to right on your screen is Dave Landreth, Rob White, Bryan Smyth, and Andy Gribble. Yellow Dog was one of the best old time string bands to come out of St. Louis and they are missed.

Anyway, here's the tune for me to relearn it. Hope you enjoy it, too.

Special Request

Played a set at the new space for Craft Alliance over in Grand Center last night. Bill had a real good time.

So, I assume did Colleen and Jim. I know I did.

Bloggity Blog

Okay, so how lame is this...

I'm blogging about someone else's blog. Go there anyway. It's pretty entertaining if you like banjo music. From Mary Z. Cox: http://banjoquest.blogspot.com/

Odetta Dead At Seventy-Seven

Here's a link to the NY Times Obit: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/arts/music/03odetta.html?_r=1&hp

Though I never met Odetta, her huge voice, her music and her politics were more influential on the way I hear and play music and the way I live my life than I can say. I first encountered this amazing woman, as I did many of my musical heroes, in the Folk Music section of the Webster Groves Public Library. I was probably about eleven years old and was checking out everything I could from that slim selection of LPs; most of them on Vanguard or Smithsonian Folkways. Now remember, this was around 1966 and my parents thought it was strange enough me bringing home records and holing up in my room with the "weird" sounds of Roscoe Holcomb and The New Lost City Ramblers seeping out under the door. When I brought home a collection of folk songs and spirituals with a picture of a black woman (Odetta) on the cover, that was almost more than my poor dad could take. There was a tense moment or two over whether I'd be allowed to play the record in the house.

But, eventually it worked out. I listened to Odetta's big southern voice singing songs and playing the guitar in a distinctive way. And once again it turned my head around and I've never been the same since.

In the NY Times article referenced above, Odetta is quoted as saying, “School taught me how to count and taught me how to put a sentence together. But as far as the human spirit goes, I learned through folk music.” This goes for me, too. And so many people I call friends and have known through the years.

Thanks, Odetta, for being a part of the folk music that shaped so many lives.

Coffee and Dance This Weekend

In addition to this being the last chance for people to see the play that I've directed for West End Players, I'm also playing a dance on Sunday night with the Mound City Slickers for The Childgrove Dancers. Details on time, place and cost can be found at their website via the blue clicky letters in the previous sentence. Come on out and getin on the contra dancing fun. The Slickers always have a blast when we play for Childgrove, and this promises to be no different.

I should also mention that my other band, The Hot Baloney Boys will be playing this Sunday morning at The Hartford Coffee Company at the corner of Hartford and Roger St. Louis' south side. Colleen, Dan, and I will be playing old-time tunes and singing some songs while folks open their eyes with cups of joe and breakfast.

And then I'm on vacation!

Good News!

My life these days is one hugely busy blur! I'm spending time putting the finishing touches on A Perfect Ganesh which opens tomorrow night. My day job has decided that this would be a good week to kick my butt with thirty-four absolute-top-priority-number-one-have-to-get-done-right-now things every day. Dentist and physical therapy appointments keep popping up. And so on and so forth.

But in spite of all of this nonsense, I've been able to find a few spare minutes to sit down and play some tunes. And the really good news is that I got the fiddle down off the wall after not being able to play for a good long while due to a persistent shoulder injury. Hot dog! I found that I can reach all of the strings in a reasonably comfortable way and can play the low notes that have been eluding me for a couple of months. Now I just need to spend some quality time working on getting my bowing back (geez, I sound scratchy and screechy!) and I should be back up to snuff in no time.

Even when all of the other noise in my day is seeming completely out of hand, I can remember that I'm able to play the fiddle again and most of the annoying stuff kind of fades to the background.

It's a good thing.

WA-HOO!

What a happy day this is!

As I drove home last night from rehearsal, about ten minutes after Sen. McCain had conceded the race, I could hear shouts and cheering all around me. I stood on my porch and listened for a while, then went in, turned on the TV, sat on the futon with Amy, and watched President Elect Obama's speech.

It struck both of us that when we were small children, African Americans could not attend the same schools as white children. We visited places on family vacations where we could not all drink from the same water fountain or use the same public rest rooms. And now there is an African American elected by the people to lead the nation.

It really is a new day.

Election Day Fiddle!

Get out there and Vote!

I got a couple of emails yesterday from people involved with the Obama campaign here in St. Louis asking if I'd be interested in playing tunes outside polling places to entertain the folks waiting in long lines to vote. They had also contacted the Folk School. Colleen, the Director of the place forwarded the request on to me and a bunch of others.

These Obama guys really have all this stuff figured out. What a great idea! Having live acoustic musicians play for people in line to entertain them and help keep them from getting bored and leaving.

I can't be out there today (stinkin' day job), but I know some of my friends will be.

I wonder which musicians McCain's folks contacted?

Get out there and Vote!

How's the shoulder?

I've been dealing with a shoulder injury for almost a year now. It's kept me from playing the fiddle for the better part of six months or so, and friends are rightly concerned, I guess.


So, for all who care, it's getting better. Each week I improve some, but it is happening more slowly than I'd like. I've been picking up the fiddle and playing a little bit the past month or so and can now play comfortably on three of the four strings. Just a little more gain in the rotation of the shoulder joint and I'll be able to get that low string. I'm hoping to be back playing fiddle full time with the Hot Baloney Boys pretty soon.




In the meantime, I'm happy playing the banjo uke, lap dulcimer, and mandolin.

Of course, the upside to this whole thing is that not playing the fiddle for so long has allowed my mandolin playing to get a lot better than it was a year ago. So, there's always a silver lining!

Old-Time for Obama

Those who know me know that I'm rooting for Barack Obama in my own socialist-lefty-leaning way in this upcoming election. Here're some other folks who feel the same way.



For those friends who aren't as familiar with the music, the tune they're playing is "John Brown's Dream". One of my all-time favorites.

Go Vote!

New Live Theater Adventure

Not a lot of time to post today, but I just got some publicity photos for a play I'm directing and wanted to get them out there. The play is Terrence McNally's A Perfect Ganesh and I'm pretty excited about it. The play is magical and funny. It tells the story of two American womens' journey through India led by the Hindu god Ganesha. On their way they discover themselves, each other, life, forgiveness, and how to be. The actors are working hard and things are shaping up. I hope you'll come see it.

The play opens on November 14 and runs for two weekends.



More information on dates, location, and ticket prices can be had here: West End Players web page.

Okay. I've already spent more time here today than I should. I'm gone.

Now That's A Good Tune

I happened across a notice on the Fiddle-L list a week or so ago saying that Voyager Records is re-issuing a recording and book of Missouri fiddlers and tunes called Now That's A Good Tune: Masters of Traditional Missouri Fiddling. It was originally released through the University of Missouri about 20 years ago and has been out of print for some years. Well, of course I ordered a copy ($30 post paid for a limited time).

The two CD and book set came in the mail yesterday and I'll tell you it's terrific stuff. I've not had time to read much of the book yet, but the CDs are full of plenty of good tunes. Fiddlers represented are Vesta Johnson, Gene Goforth, R.P. Christeson, Nile Wilson, Cyril Stinnet, Carol Hascall, Lyman Enloe, Pete McMahan, Bob Walsh, Howe Teague, Bill Eddy, and young upstart (well, 20 years ago anyway) Charlie Walden. The 52 tunes are top-notch every one.

If you're at all interested in Missouri fiddle styles and typical tunes played in the state, you'll have to have this on your shelves and the CDs in you player.

Now if someone would just re-issue I'm Old, But I'm Awfully Tough and R.P. Christeson's The Old-Time Fiddlers Repertory as CD and book sets. Well, we can wish.

Yeeowtch!

Beautiful fall weather, good music with friends, and delicious food all conspired to make for a pretty terrific time on Saturday last. I started out the day playing tunes for the Gateway Greening Harvest Fair, mentioned elswhere in these pages. About half a dozen of us showed up with banjos, fiddles, guitars, and mandolins in tow. A few people danced a little and all seemed to be having a great time. If it hadn't been for the bees getting their two-cents in, things would have been about perfect.

About the time that the pot-luck lunch started being served, the bees became very interested in what we humans were up to. Bill, our fiddler got a sting on his bow hand. Not enough of a problem to keep him from playing, but from all reports it stung pretty good for the rest of the day. Then I took a drink of home made cider. It tasted so good! Unfortunately, it had a little extra kick to it; a bee had been drinking out of the cup and took objection to my drinking him! Yeeowtch! A bee sting to the tongue! I don't recommend it.



My tongue hurt like heck for a few minutes, then swelled up to twice its normal size. I couldn't talk clearly, couldn't swallow. Then it got numb for a while. Then the pain came back even worse. Someone mentioned that Benedryl would reduce the swelling, so I traipsed over to the local drug store and picked some up. It did help, but made me so sleepy that I had to follow it with large doses of coffee and a really nasty tasting "energy drink" to stay awake.

Could have been worse, though I suppose. It didn't stop me from playing a real nice gig in the afternoon with the Mound City Slickers and special guests. We played for a church group out at a horse farm in far western St. Louis County. The people were all as nice as could be and they seemed to enjoy dancing. Mac McKeever called the dances. He's an expert at getting people up on their feet and calling dances that are fun and make them want to dance some more. We're always glad to play for a dance with Mac calling.

Again, the weather couldn't have been nicer; sunny, cool, crisp, but not too cold to play comfortably. Here's hoping for a lot more days like this and a lot more time to play fiddle tunes.

Music and Pie

This Saturday, October 18, I'll be playing old-time tunes with some friends at the Gateway Greening Harvest Fair and Garlic Day. The event takes place from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM at their Bell Garden at 3871 Bell Avenue, just a few blocks north of the Fox Theater neighborhood. As well as our jam session, there'll be activities for the kids and free garlic cloves for planting. They also have a pie contest that has to be tasted to be believed! You can also walk around the Bell Garden and see what's been growing there this year. Very impressive!

Gateway Greening is a terrific organization that works within the St. Louis Metro community to set up community gardens, introduce gardening and green living to city school students, and other gardening/self-sufficiency projects. They're good folks and are doing good work.

A bunch of us from the Folk School of St. Louis played at this event last year and had great fun. The music was good, the people were a lot of fun, and the pot luck and pie contest were amazing.

Come on down and join us this year for what promises to be a real big time.

Musical Earmarks - Updated 2008-10-10

We hear so much lately about earmarks attached to government spending bills and wasteful use of tax dollars. So, I thought I’d take a quick turn around that new-fangled interweb and see if I could find out where all of that money goes.

A Google search got me to the government Office of Management and Budget website and the section on Earmarks . I looked at a few pages for the U.S.’s FY2009 budget and found the following programs, among many others, that got earmark money. You may think differently, of course, but I thought these were pretty good buys for the price.

$99,000 for the Community Music School of Collegeville, Trappe, PA for music education

$248,000 for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Nashville, Tennessee to support community programs

$72,000 for the Music Maker Foundation, Inc. for acquisition, renovation, and buildout of a facility in Orange County, North Carolina. (These folks are a not-for-profit organization that helps support elderly blues and old-time musicians who have fallen on hard times.)

$99,000 for the Settlement Music School, Philadelphia, PA, to support arts education

$148,000 for the First Congregational Church for conservation of Henderson American Music Archive.

$347,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum for music education programs

$306,000 for the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), NY for juvenile-based services for prevention, control, or reduction of juvenile delinquency

$99,000 for the Mountain Arts Center, Prestonsburg, KY, for expansion of its Music and Arts Development Program

$992,000 for the Yonkers Public Schools, Yonkers, NY, for after school and Saturday academic and enrichment activities, literacy services, music and arts education, and parent involvement activities

$472,000 for an Oral History Program Experience Music Project, Seattle, WA

$887,000 for the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area to celebrate the region's natural landscape, abundance of nationally significant places, cultural contributions of the Cherokee Nation, and mountain culture that shaped the area's distinctive music and crafts.

And don’t forget that some of our tax dollars go to support and maintain the old-time and country music collections (like the the Henry Reed Collection) at the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution (curators of Smithsonian Folkways records). Update 2008-10-10: Per a comment posted by David Horgan of Smithsonian Folkways, they're not actually supported by tax revenues as I had thought. They are instead "based in the national museum, but rely on revenues, grants, private donations, and good will to survive and to carry out [their] mission." Thanks for the correction, David! Keep up the great work.

I don’t care what Sarah Palin and her oil-drilling, ocean-fishing, Alaska-seceding husband say; if my taxes go to pay for the above items as well as maintaining roads & bridges, libraries, Medicare, police & fire protection, public schools for all children, NASA, and scientific research that leads to healthier and longer lives, then I believe that paying them is plenty patriotic.

It was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who said, "I like paying taxes. With them, I buy civilization."

Carter Family Comics

A pretty interesting blog about getting a graphic novel biography together on the Carter Family. Nice pictures.

Here's hoping that Tommy Jarrell, Roscoe Holcomb, and Mississippi John Hurt are next!

Fall Weather / Contra Weekend

Well, it was a real dance filled weekend. The Childgrove Dancers here in St. Louis and their dance-caller-in-training program teamed up with the Mound City Slickers to hold contra dances at St. Louis Gateway Arch and over in the Grand Center Arts District on Saturday. It kept me and the rest of the band busy running from one place to another to play tunes for the dancers, but was a lot of fun. The weather couldn’t have been more beautiful and it’s always a blast playing with these guys for dancers.

Then Sunday night, there was a reunion of Slickers fiddler, Bill’s old band, The Road Kill Ramblers for Childgrove’s regular weekly dance out in Webster Groves. I headed on out there from stately R-B Manor to listen to the music and watch the dancers (I’m on the injured reserve list for dancing until this shoulder of mine gets stronger). What a good band! They haven’t played together for 20 years and they still sound great.

At a point somewhere in the middle of the evening, I was sitting just outside the contra line with a big grin on my face, tapping my foot and really enjoying the music and the energy and the swirling round of the dancers. One of the women dancing leaned out, smiling, right into my face and shouted, “It doesn’t get better than this!” I couldn’t agree more.

Upcoming Dates:

You can catch me playing with the Mound City Slickers here:

• 9/27/08 @ 10:00 AM - Parkapalooza at the St. Louis Gateway Arch
• 9/27/08 @ 1:00PM - Dancing in the Street at Grand Center in St. Louis (we'll be playing for an all ages contra dance at the Grandel stage in front of the Grandel Theater)
• 10/11/08 @ 4:00 PM - Hanley House in Clayton, MO for a Civil War historical event
• 10/8/08 10:00AM 'til 1:00 PM - Gateway Greening Fall Harvest Pot Luck - This is a great bunch of people and a good time. The food is great, too!
• 10/25/08 - Private party
• 11/23/2008 @ 7:00 PM - Childgrove Contra Dance in Webster Groves, MO

I'll be holding down the mandolin spot with (and maybe a little fiddle) with the Hot Baloney Boys every other Sunday morning from 10 until noon at the Hartford Coffee Company, corner of Roger & Hartford. Upcoming dates are:

• 9/28
• 10/12
• 10/26
• 11/2 and
• 11/16

Hope to see some of you at one of these dates/locations. They'll all be a lot of fun!

In Their Natural Element

Here's a picture of the Hot Baloney Boys at the Indiana Fiddlers' Gathering a couple of weeks ago. We had a great time. Played a lot of tunes, listened to a lot of amazing musicians, and relaxed in the beautiful Indiana countryside.

Foreground left to right: Dan, Sean, & Colleen

Background: some Nosey Parker

Photo courtesy Dan H. Taken by Alice S.

A Really Good Old Time

Had a great time last night at friend and fellow Mound City Slicker Bob’s house. For the last couple of years, Bob and his wife Andrea have opened their house once a week for what is advertised as a band practice for the Slickers, but is really an old-time jam session for the band and friends and a great opportunity to spend time with a lot of good musicians and good folks.

I don’t know why, but last night both felt and sounded so good! The bunch of us hit a groove that we sometimes don’t get to. The fiddles were playing remarkably well together and the rhythm section was darned good and tight. My shoulder and arm were acting up, so I didn’t play as much as usual -- maybe why we sounded better! -- and got to listen without being quite so much in the thick of the playing. I was really impressed with the two banjo players: above mentioned Bob and Dan’l, who plays with me in the Hot Baloney Boys. Both of them were playing some terrific licks and supporting what the fiddles were doing. It made me smile a lot to hear it.

Another unusually nice thing about the evening was that Jesse, who plays Irish accordion and played with the band in an early incarnation, had a night off from his usual Morris Team playing and stopped by. It’s always good to see Jesse and his presence prompted us to play a half-dozen or so tunes that we haven’t visited in too long a time; “Far From Home”, “Flowers of Edinborough”, “Temperance Reel”, “Genevieve’s Waltz”. All good tunes that we ought to play more often. Good to be reminded of them.

As fiddler David said a few weeks ago, “I just feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t play old-time music.”

Where I've Been & An Arm/Shoulder Update

Okay. Right off the bat, I'll say I pretty well stink at keeping current on this blog thing. No question. I get busy with other stuff and I forget to write anything here for weeks on end. That's life. Hopefully when I do post something, it's at least mildly interesting reading.

Since the last time I wrote here, I took a weekend trip up to Chicago with Amy, our daughter China, and her boyfriend/partner/whatever-the-heck-you-call-a-guy-you've-been-living-with-for-something-like-five-years, Tom. We had a great time. Saw the sights, took in a show at Second City, ate great food, and generally enjoyed ourselves a whole bunch. I'll post belated pictures here soon.

Last week, Amy and I took off for Memphis and further south for a few days. Again, a great time. We stayed downtown in Memphis about two blocks from Beale Street. Spent a day at the Memphis Zoo, which isn't as good as St. Louis' zoo, but is darned nice. They have some outstanding displays. They also have a pair of giant pandas that we stared at for a long time. You always hear how cute these creatures are, and the pictures seem to confirm it. But there's just nothing like standing a few feet away from a panda and watching it play. No wonder people are working so hard to save them from extinction.

We also toured Graceland. If you're in Memphis, you have to do it. And let me tell you: it's everything you would imagine it to be. I walked through the mansion and grounds with a constant mix of feelings of awe, irony, sorrow, and thinking "this guy was just nuts". The jungle room alone is worth the trip.

Had barbecue at the Rendevous. I don't know if it's the best slab of ribs I've ever eaten, but it was as close as counts.

We also drove down to Clarksdale, MS and visited the Delta Blues Museum. Pretty cool stuff. I spent a lot of time drooling over the guitars in the display cases. Amy liiked all of the flashy suits and dresses they had from blues notables. Then we drove around the delta for a couple of hours. It's beautiful country. And seeing a lot of the old farm houses, falling-down barns and shacks against the trees and green fields was like stepping into a time machine. Of course, there's some crushing poverty, too in that part of the rural south, and we saw that, too.

**********

Wow. This is getting longer than I'd expected. So, wrapping up....

I haven't been playing the fiddle much lately. I wrote in an earlier post that I have a messed up left shoulder. Well, it's gotten worse in the last couple of weeks. I don't know if I was being too aggressive with the exercises from my physical therapist, or if it's just a continuum that the injury has to go through on it's way to recovery. But it's quite a bit worse. Fortunately, playing the mandolin and uke are still doable for short periods of time. So, I'm not losing my mind completely.

I'll be seeing a new orthopedic surgeon next week to talk about new treatment strategies and will let you all know what happens with that. I'm hoping that he'll recommend a cortizone shot or two and I'll be well on my way. We'll see. I'm also thinking about acupuncture as a possibility. But, I'm keeping as positive an attitude as possible and am sure this is going to be fine soon.

Friday Night Plans

The weather is finally looking like it's going to be nice for a couple of days in a row. So this Friday evening The Hot Baloney Boys

(me on fiddle, Dan on banjo, and Colleen on guitar) will be out busking in the U. City Loop. Look for us between about 7:30 and 9:30 PM; usually in front of the Star Clipper Comic Shop (Hi, Ben & AJ!) . Come on by and hang out on the street for a while.

Bring cash dollars, please.

Fiddling Pioneers

On this day in 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, set out from St. Louis on their expedition up the Missouri River to explore the Pacific Northwest. Jefferson wrote to them,

"The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, and such principal stream of it as by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river may offer the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent for the purposes of commerce."

They took along with them fiddler Pierre Cruzatte who entertained both crew and Native Americans they encountered on the way. Apparently, he wasn't much of a hunter though:

"I was in the act of firing on the Elk ... when a ball struck my left thye about an inch below my hip joint... I instantly supposed that Cruzatte had shot me in mistake for an Elk as I was dressed in brown leather and he cannot see very well..."- Meriwether Lewis, August 11, 1806.

Makes me proud to be a fiddler somehow!

MySpace Boy

Well, I've taken the leap into the new century with both feet. I've set up a MySpace page. I have no earthly idea what the purpose of these things is supposed to be, but it I had some time on my hands and seemed like the thing to do at the moment.

You can go there now: myspace.com/seanrb

I was amazed by the number of people, organizations and bands that already have pages on MySpace. Some of them pretty entertaining. Looks like I'll have to re-think my belief that this is just a spot for junior high school kids to post embarrassing photos. It's a place for everyone to post embarrassing photos!

Great Saturday!

I got to spend Saturday afternoon with my Mound City Slickers pals celebrating our fiddler, David's birthday. That's him in the picture. David's wife Donna set it up as a suprise for him. And a nicer afternoon you couldn't ask for.

Three of us old boinkers drove out from the city to David and Donna's place in Jefferson County; a beautiful spring day on their large back deck off the side of a ridge. Birds chirping, turkey buzzard flying over head, nuthatches flitting around.Mostly blue, sunny skies and pleasant temperature.

David came strolling in about fifteen minutes after we got there. The smile on his face was priceless. Donna provided cold beers and sandwiches and left us to our own devices.

We spent the afternoon playing tunes, swapping stories, and laughing a lot. I even got my first sunburn of the season!

I can't imagine a better Saturday afternoon!

Fiddling Monkeys!

Today is Clarence Darrow’s birthday. He defended both John Scopes in the famed Tennessee Monkey Trial and successfully kept Leopold and Loeb from getting the death penalty.

I laughed out loud this morning when I read this quote from Darrow: "I never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with a lot of pleasure."

Some days I know how he felt.

Our Town

Today is the birthday of novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder, born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1897 and died in 1975. He's best known for writing Our Town (1938), a play about a woman who grows up in a small New England town, dies, and gets a chance to look back on her life and realize how much she failed to notice. How good that small life really was.

Our Town been my favorite play script for many years. I get it off of the shelf and read it every couple of years and always laugh and cry at the same spots. I've always wanted to play the role of the stage manager. One of the great roles in American theater.

I've also wondered for years why productions of this play, or at least any I've heard of, don't use live New England contra dance music for their background music. It seems like that music would do so much to reinforce the small-town "American-ness" of the script.

Maybe someday.

Why Computers Are Tools Of The Devil

Despite my best efforts at spyware-defeating software, virus scans, and firewalls, my computer at home got a virus or something and is now at the repair shop doing its impression of a door stop. I'm writing this on my work issued laptop before starting my wonderful and fulfilling work day.

At first I was pretty bothered by the home computer crash, since all of my lesson plans and tab for both my dulcimer students as well as some notes for a new dulcimer book I'm working on are all on the hard drive. Fortunately, I've got most of that stuff backed up on CDs, so it's not a total loss.

On the positive side, it was a beautiful weekend! And since I didn't have any reason to sit in front of the computer I spent time bicycling and sitting outside playing music.

Dan, Colleen W. and I spent time working on some new material for the Hot Baloney Boys on the porch over at her place and drew a nice crowd of neighbors.

All in all, I think my life was better this weekend without the computer. Maybe I'll keep it that way.

It's Muddy Waters' Birthday!

Born April 4, 1913 (or 15) in Issaquena County, Mississippi

Passed April 30, 1983

Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield) was instrumental in bringing the sound of the delta to Chicago and transforming it into the electric blues that we know today. I can't imagine my teenage years without Muddy's music.

When others of my peers were listening to Led Zepplin, or the Rolling Stones, I was being called by the sources of the music.

Even today, twenty-five years after his passing and forty years or so since I first heard this stuff, when I hear Muddy's recordings of "Mannish Boy" or "I Can't Be Satisfied" I get a chill.

Get your mojo workin'!

Best Joke I've Heard This Week

Thanks to Rich Hibbs for this at last nights' old-time session:

Fork says to Spoon, "Who was that ladle I saw you with last night?"
Spoon: "That was no ladle, that was my knife!"

It's been that kind of week.

Great Weekend for Music

As some of you reading this may already know (and some probably don’t, or don’t much care), I’m out of commission for playing the fiddle for a while. The result of some messed up muscles in my shoulder is making holding the fiddle is pretty painful. My doctor and physical therapist have recommended I lay off of it for a while. I’m not, of course, obeying the medical establishment completely; still playing at the Hartford Coffee Company on alternate Sundays and when I have a previously scheduled job with the Baloney Boys. But mostly, I’m being good.

In the meantime, I’m getting out and hearing music.

This weekend I got over to The Folk School of St. Louis on Friday evening to hear Skip Gorman play a concert of cowboy songs and fiddle tunes. He was in town to do some school programs, mandolin and fiddle workshops, and this concert. Much thanks to Colleen, Don, and Ellen over at the school for putting this weekend of events together.

I wasn’t familiar with Skip before Friday night, but was glad I heard him. He played and sang for a couple of hours and it couldn’t have been nicer. The Folk School is a small, intimate space for a concert. I hope the shows there are successful enough to continue since it’s such a good place for this kind of music. The space comfortably holds about 50 people. No sound equipment needed, so no microphones to get between the singer and the audience.

Skip’s a fine fiddle player and played some fine tunes, even getting guitarist Jim Nelson up out of the audience to back him on a few of them including a pretty rendition of “Midnight on the Water” as a last waltz for the evening. His singing of cowboy songs is just right. Among the songs were a few I hadn’t heard in a long time; “Blue Mountain”, "Tom Sherman’s Bar Room”, “Spanish is the Loving Tongue” and others. All of them sung with a smooth style, good humor, and an obvious love and knowledge of the songs, history, and life.

Then Sunday afternoon I headed over to the The Schlafly Tap Room where a benefit for two local musicians was held. Both Fred Gumaer and Bob Breidenbach lost their wives in the last several months and the St. Louis music community came together Sunday to raise money to help them out with medical and other exepenses. It was so good to see so many people crammed into the room to support these guys. Some of the best musicians and bands in town all performing short sets and some of the best music fans in the world there to enjoy it all. I’m sure that a fair amount of money was raised. But even better was the amount of good will that was contained in that upstairs room at the St. Louis Brewery. It’s a great thing to know that I belong to this musical community that is so talented and so generous.

Seminal Fiddlers and Tunes?

This morning I ran across a blog entry a blog entry over on the Fiddle Hangout site that got me to thinking about essential fiddle tunes and seminal recordings and whatnot. I think the list at this link is a good one for anyone who is interested in highly influential fiddlers and their playing. As you'd expect with any kind of list like this, I have some disagreements with the author. For instance, I’d have picked other tunes than “Rattlesnake” to represent Bob Holt. And maybe would have picked a couple of other fiddlers to represent the Ozark style. But anyone who thinks so highly of Pete McMahan’s playing is okay in my book. (If you don’t have the 2005 (?)collection of McMahan’s recordings, 50 Old Time Fiddle Gems on Voyager Records, you need to pick it up. It’s some of the prettiest fiddling you’ll ever hear.)

My one big gripe about the above list is that it omits some Mississippi fiddlers/bands that I think have been highly influential on current old-time fiddling. Guys like The Mississippi Possum Hunters, Floyd Ming’s Pepsteppers, and Willie Narmour of Narmour and Smith. G. B. Grayson -- though he was from North Carolina and Virginia, not from Mississppi --also comes to mind.

Another take on this (sort of, but well worth taking a look at) is Charlie Walden’s list of 100 Essential Missouri Fiddle Tunes. As the title suggests, it’s tune-oriented rather than player-oriented. And the list is pretty limited by geography and Walden’s preferences. But it’s a good starting point for discussion.

And now.... back to stinkin' work.

Banjo Conversation

I recently had a woman acquaintance tell me that hearing the banjo really turns her on. And has since she was young.

I've never had anyone tell me that about the fiddle.

I think I need to start playing the banjo in public more often.

New Ink

Pictures of the latest addition. I had this done by Melissa at Cheap Trx last Sunday, 12/30. Right shoulder. She did a fine job on the lap dulcimer, I thought, seeing as she didn't know what one is. And the color turned out well, too. You'll have to forgive the poor photo quality as I took it myself.

Next up will be the peg head and neck of my Ramsey banjo along the right side of my back to go with the fiddle peg head and neck that's there now.

Eureka! We've found Bluegrass!

Friday evening saw Uncle Dan'l and me out at the MABC Bluegrass festival in the Eureka, MO Holiday Inn. We had a pretty good time hanging out at the fiddle and banjo contests and jamming in and around the bar/swimming pool area.

There were several Folk School of St. Louis teachers and students roaming the halls and jamming.

We hadn't known that Hot Baloney Boys bandmate Colleen and her sister were going to be there, but ran into them anyway. The were having a great time as seen in the photo below.

The Bluegrass Party Twins!

Colleen had her mandolin with her and was trying it out on all kinds of new tunes. It was the first time she'd let Dan and me hear her play it. Here's hoping we can get her to play it a lot more often! She sounded pretty good.

Later on, we ran into Steve and Crystal Craig and Mike Hall of Miss Crystal and the Codgers. They invited us to jam with them and we spend a couple of hours sharing tunes, including a spirited (and we had the spirits to prove it!) "Booth Shot Lincoln", "Grasshopper Sittin' on a Sweet Potato Vine", and a zen-like "Sandy Boys" that went on for quite a while. Old-Time trance music: my favorite!

UncleDan'l and Colleen with her new mandolin

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Steve and Crystal Craig with Dan

It was the first time I've had chance to play tunes with Mike Hall, though I've heard him play a few times. It was a terrific experience. He's a good player and a heck of a nice guy.

Mike Hall cools his fingers after a hot fiddle tune!

All in all a good night. Dan and I drove home around midnight with that pleasant buzz one gets from playing tunes (and a helping or two of Budweiser's finest).

First Night Four Days Later

Had a real good time playing for First Night in St. Louis New Year's Eve. We had a big crowd and a whole lot of dancers. The band (Mound City Slickers) sounded great and Mac did yeoman's work calling the contras for a bunch of folks who'd never danced before.

If you're wondering what you missed, we'll be playing for another dance on Sunday evening, January 27 for Childgrove Dancers at the Monday Club in Webster Groves, MO. For more info, click on the Childgrove link in the previous sentence.