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Radio: Roots and Wings is archived, and can be heard throughout the week at www.wmuc.umd.edu
After you get to the url click on "Show archives" in the left frame. Next click on "Fridays" (left option). Then choose "Roots and Wings" and there you are.
New Interview with Christine Lavin
March 5th, 2010, Featuring Interview with Lisa Null, Co-founder of Green Linnet Records.
July 15th Interview with Organ Grinder Lola and Master Bob.
Coming Soon.
Reviews |
Festival Coverage Philly's 45th Philly's 46th Anniversary Falcon Ridge Folk Festival 2007 |
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The House of Musical Traditions @ A.Salon…. Well, for the afternoon, anyway…
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Following up on the successful Mick Moloney St Patrick’s Day concert at A.Salon, David Eisner discussed with A.Salon the possibility of holding some banjo workshops in the gallery there, and in the large next-door studio.
So there we were, trooping out of Adam Hurt’s deft negotiation of Cumberland Gap tuning, to witness Cathy Fink sitting in the hallway, legs outstretched, working out a final tune or two with her 11-year old student, Adam Vesserling, as Tony Trischka stood, ears alert, watching the display of careful teaching for which Cathy and her partner, Marcy Marxer, have become known around Takoma Park an the DC area.
No wonder Jim O’Conner, down from Syracuse, NY’s NPR outlet, microphone in hand, was eagerly soaking up snatches of interview and music all around, from Cathy’s just-concluded clawhammer workshop for beginners in the A.Salon Art Gallery (G tuning, 3 chords, and some basic right-hand technique – banjos available for the borrowing). And then Tony’s students trooped into the next studio, assembled in a circle around him, and he walked them carefully through a bluegrass banjo workshop, “playing the syllables” up the neck, syncopation and melodic style, with an emphasis on the Earl Scruggs’ method.
It was a richly satisfying afternoon of workshops, and makes further collaborations between A.Salon and The House of Musical Traditions look all the more plausible. Look out for Tony’s new CD on Smithsonian-Folkways, in which, among other treasures, he plays a duet with Pete Seeger, on “Leatherwing Bat.” Between ol’ Pete and young Adam Vesserling, the banjo traditions appear in good hands for the present – and future. Thanks to Adam Hurt, Cathy Fink, and Tony Trischka for taking time from their busy concertizing and touring schedules to share their skills with a delighted circle – or three – of Takoma Park banjo-pickers.
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Out Among the Stars in Benton, PA
Out Among the Stars – isn’t that a great name for a bluegrass festival? – has been held annually for the past eleven years in Benton, PA, a sleepily lovely little town about midway between Scranton and Williamsport (Just south of Jamison City, PA – check The Digital Folk Life interview with Jim Downs on that small lumbering town, which is now making a kind of tourism-hunting-fishing comeback.)
For a start, there’s the lineup this year for Out Among the Stars, divided between local/Pennsylvania bluegrass bands and national bands. There’s Williamsport’s Stained Grass Window, lending their gospel harmonies from Thursday to Sunday. There’s guitarist/bandleader Louis Setzer and the Appalachian Mtn Boys, from Wind Gap, PA (home to its own excellent festival later in the Summer season). Affable Pete Pappalardo, from the Poconos, led pickers and singers in the jam tent. Thursday evening and Friday afternoon. Coleman Smith – more on him later – ran a fiddle workshop in Friday afternoon, with the Bluegrass Brothers leading one on “family harmonies” - -is there any better kind? – on Saturday. And there was a lovely gospel concert on Sunday, featuring Songs of the Spirit, with a Kids’ Academy Showcase, Painted Blue, Terminal 5, Hilltown, and of course the soaring bluegrass gospel music of Williamsport’s Stained Grass Window.
Time to catch your breath, stroll around the tree-fringed town park, pick up a nicely-folded green-and-white festival T-shirt from the OATS merchandise tent, the new CD from Some Assembly Required, Along with The Bluegrass Brothers’ “Live and on the Road.” The crowd is friendly, the coffee hot, the French fries well-drained, and there are white tents all over to shade people from the noonday sun, with all the self-toted lawn-chairs facing the Main Stage in an expectant semi-circle.
And it’s up on the Main Stage, on Saturday night, that you get to applaud none other than Dale Ann Bradley – 3 times IBMA female vocalist of the year – followed by the swooping harmonies of the great Gibson Brothers, and, later on Saturday night, the Bluegrass Brothers, with old-time festival favorites, The Grillbillies, closing out the concert at midnight, with the stars twinkling in the night sky and shining from the stage.
Hard to pick a personal favorite among such a lineup of talent, but for me, it had to be Dale Ann Bradley, backed by a tight band with equally close harmonies. She is, as they say, touring behind her latest CD, “Don’t Turn Your Back” (on Compass Records – produced by Alison Brown), and Ricky Skaggs is on record as saying, “I think Dale Ann Bradley is an awesome singer,” adding for emphasis, “It’s heart and soul with her” – plus, of course, one of the biggest, sweetest voices in bluegrass. The concert on Saturday night featured a number of songs from “Don’t Turn Your Back.” For me, the highlight was a fine version of the Carter Family’s “5 Miles of Elbow Room,” once a feature of the original Red Clay Ramblers’ concerts – a hard act to top, but I guess it did. Still, “Ghost Bound Train,” also on the new CD, ran it a close second as an appreciated encore, with the young fiddler, Coleman Smith, running it around the bends.
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Dale Ann Bradley Photo from tedlehmann.blogspot.com
The future – and the present – of bluegrass music are in good hands, building on clearly beloved roots.
Thank you, to all the musicians, to the knowledgeable audience – to Dale Ann Bradley, OK? – and to the organizers, OATS.org. Long may bluegrass flourish in Benton.
John McLaughlin, PhD
Vacationing on the 4th of July, 2010,
Village of Central, PA
www.thedigitalfolklife.org
john.mclaughlin4@verizon.net
“Roots & Wings” Radio Show,
WMUC-FM, UMD in College Park, MD
www.wmuc.umd.edu – Go to Show Archives, mp3, Fridays, Roots and Wings - Streaming Online
