Posted in captured sound, voice, tagged Call Me the Breeze, Lou Wilson, Lynryd Skynyrd, Russ Wilson, Tennessee on April 29, 2008 | No Comments »
Lou Wilson and her son Russ live in Speedwell, TN. I was fortunate to meet them both during my project in Campbell County, and made a special effort to visit with them a second time last week when Butch and I were up there for our New Harmonies gig. These are really special [...]
Posted in fiddle, hammered dulcimer, traditional music, voice, tagged Cork City, Emma Small, Ireland, Raar, Robin Turk, Stella Rodrigues, Tom Spackman, trad music on March 17, 2008 | No Comments »
We could call this my St. Paddy’s Day special. And this time I’m reaching even further back in time to Spring, 2002, when five non-Irish people formed an Irish traditional band, and called themselves, “Raar,” meaning “strange” in Dutch… of course.
The band was a palindrome. Same backwards and forwards. Tom Spackman (USA) [...]
Posted in captured sound, hammered dulcimer, traditional music, voice, tagged Cork City, Fintan Lucy, Ireland, John Barleycorn on March 16, 2008 | No Comments »
This is another one I had to fetch with my time machine. I did spend a lovely Sunday afternoon today playing music with my new friend Bryan, but unfortunately, all the tunes I’d recorded came out as duds, because silly me, I haven’t learned how to use the recording function on my iPod yet. Grrrr.
Anyway, [...]
Posted in captured sound, traditional music, voice, tagged Campbell County, jam, Jellico on March 3, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Well it sounded to me like they were all singin’ the blues tonight in Jellico. These sweet, slow songs (or maybe they just seemed slow because I was expecting bluegrass)… All these guys and a couple o’ gals sitting around in their circle in this medium-sized cream-colored cinderblock room with stacks of folding chairs for [...]
Posted in hammered dulcimer, original music, voice, tagged Into the Sky, Malcolm Dalglish, Ooodoo on March 1, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Earlier this week I decided to order myself a birthday gift, and with some luck it actually arrived on my birthday! It’s Malcolm Dalglish’s latest, “Into the Sky.” It’s under the ensemble’s name, Ooodoo, which is himself, Moira Smiley, Naomi Dalglish, and Joshua Kartes, plus N. Scott Robinson a’tappin’ on all kinds of percussion. I [...]
Posted in captured sound, improvisation, voice, tagged huggin' a'chalkin, victrola on February 19, 2008 | 1 Comment »
It’s something I’ve only heard about in oral history interviews about the 1930s. But golly, with luck like mine, I landed myself at my very own Victrola party tonight, where I got to pick out all the records and listen to them on an authentic RCA Victrola. I spent an hour [...]
Posted in traditional music, voice, tagged Balkan camp, brass band, mendocino, california on February 18, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Another one from the archives. I spent a glorious week at Balkan Camp in Mendocino, up on the green green coast of Northern California during the summer of 2001, where my two best friends were my minidisc recorder and my gaida (Bulgarian bagpipe). I had joined the dishwashing crew in order to attend [...]
Posted in original music, voice, tagged round on February 12, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I wrote a round in the shower last week. Or at least I was pretty sure it was a round. Couldn’t be 100% sure until I tried it out with some friends, which I finally did last night at Carla’s house in Memphis. So this is me, Adrian, Carla, and Butch all giving it a [...]
Posted in original music, voice, tagged Adrian Kosky, Jefferson Heights, mountain dulcimer on February 11, 2008 | No Comments »
I’m feeling like a doofus tonight for forgetting to set up my recorder at our house concert in Memphis. It’s not that I necessarily wanted to capture me and Butch, but we did something very special at the end with our Australian friend, Adrian Kosky. He had played a few of his own songs at [...]
Posted in hammered dulcimer, traditional music, voice, tagged Africa, Burkina Faso, ngoni on January 3, 2008 | No Comments »
Another unexpected musical encounter in Ireland, which I can only faintly remember… A guy named Trevor came into The Living Tradition, the music shop where I was working (working at making conversation with just about everyone, that is). He told me he played the ngoni, an instrument related to the west African kora. [...]
