I video’d the whole thing from a stationary camera below us and here are a few of them I posted to YouTube.

Red Rocking Chair

In the Pines

Red Haired Boy

Make Me a Pallet on the Floor

We’re playing out about 2-4 times a month, so check out the web site for more info about when and where.

Chris

http://splintersmusic.com

Back then, the first one I learned was Judy – I still play it occasionally. I also took on “A Day at the Seaside”, “Debbie Anne”, and “Ladye Nothynges Toye Puffe”. A lot of them are in the English Renaissance style he is known for, but there are a couple of the folkie ones.

Anyway…I have never seen this book anywhere else and it is certainly out of print now. Early on, I made a copy and bound it and used that for my main book. Recently, I figured I should find the original again in my stuff and scan it. If you want the hard copy, real book, there are a couple available on Amazon…used, of course. My book has the binding apart, which makes it easier to scan page by page.

I’ll post the book here for all, because I love Renbourn’s music and more people should be able to play it. He has other books on his own site and there are various tab books from records he did with Stefan Grossman (I have some of those too.)

John Renbourn – Guitar Pieces (25M PDF).

Enjoy,

Chris

We arrived Wed about 6. J and Jennifer had already staked out a campsite cuz they got their earlier. We were next to 20+ year GF veterans, who had an bunch of campers and giant tents. They drank, swore, and were generally loud, but seemed to settle down over the week perhaps as they became more hungover and subdued. In the Picker’s Paradise, there is always a low hum of banjo and fiddle it seems.

Here’s the list of folks I was able to see:

Creekside Stage

• Michael Daves Workshop (with Chris Thile)
• Della Mae
• Jessie McReynolds
• Last part of Tim O’Brien cuz I was at the main stage watching Tony Trischka
• Frank Sollivan
• Dixie Bee-liners
• David Bromberg (he was late and the sound on his guitar was horrible, so left)

Main Stage

• Thurs: Dixie Beeliners; Thile-Daves; Bromberg Band
• Fri: Deadly Gentlemen; Noam Pilkeny; Tribute to Scruggs, Watson; Del McCoury; David Grisman Sextet; Punch Brothers
• Sat: Tony Trischka; Hot Rize

I posted some pics on my tumblr page.

When not attending concerts or workshops, J and I jammed, mostly in our campsite area, once with some friends we knew there. The whole idea was to play as much as possible, so we did that.

The food at the midway was excellent. I didn’t feel that compelled to cook at the campsite – who wants to do dishes and whatnot?

That’s it for now. Sorry I can’t review every concert we went to…no time, gotta practice!

Chris

Here’s the set list:

Set 1
Long Journey Home
Bluegrass Breakdown
In the Pines
I’m Blue, I’m Lonesome
Groundspeed
Tony Rice Intro by Peter(21:30)
The First Whippoorwill
Used to Be (Uncle Jerry singing)
Uncle Pen
The Old Old House(George Jones hit)
Live and Let Live
Cheyenne (‘here that now, that’s the Indian sound’ Also where The Land of the Navajo originated, a song by Rowan)

Set 2
Blue Moon of Kentucky (in 3, then 4)
I Hear a Sweet Voice Calling
Walls of Time
Kentucky Mandolin
Beautiful Life (quartet singing, Pete and Tony accompany)
Blue Night (Jerry lead vocal)
This Land – bass/banjo duet
Molly and Tenbrooks
Footprints in the Snow (audience request – “you’re in New England, play Footprints!”)
With Body and Soul
Salt Creek
Muleskinner Blues – Encore

The concert started simply with just Peter Rowan(guitar, vocals) and Ronnie McCoury (mandolin, vocals) singing Long Journey Home before the band strolled on stage to kick it into high gear. Peter Rowan has a great voice and is still going strong from the looks of things. The rest of the band members were: Rob McCoury (banjo), Jason Carter (fiddle), and Jerry McCoury (bass). Jerry was apparently subbing for the regular bass player who had to be back home waiting for a baby delivery. This was some high caliber bluegrass!

The next song was “the first bluegrass instrumental ever recorded” with Earl Scruggs on banjo: Bluegrass Breakdown. This gave everyone a chance to blister the strings on a quick one. The band was tight! Of course, they were playing all these bluegrass standards, which they’ve probably played a million times, so even if they never rehearsed before, it’s okay! In fact, Peter noted that ‘we don’t have tuners on our instruments’ and that they also didn’t have a set list (at least one that was written down). He claimed that they never knew what Bill Monroe was going to play or what key it was going to be in – Monroe would just chop a chord and you better get goin’!

There were certainly a few tributes to Earl Scruggs, since he contributed mightily to the bluegrass sound, along with Bill Monroe. A tune written by Scruggs, Groundspeed, was led by Rob McCoury. Both Ronnie and Jason Carter had amazing solos on this with good support from the band.

“The most influential guitar player in the history of bluegrass…” came on the stage after that – Tony Rice! I had never seen him play before (that I recall, anyway). I was getting goosebumps just watching him, and the guitar is legendary. Even while he was tuning up, you could hear its power. As Peter said while Tony was tuning on stage, “It doesn’t cost a thing, but I’d pay to hear that.” It took about the first set for Tony to warm up. He does not look in the peak of health, even though he’s only 60 yrs old. A couple of times you could hear him talk on stage from where we were and he sounded like Miles Davis with the croaky voice. I was surprised watching him that he actually flubbed a few notes! Others around me were speculating about arthritis – at times it looked like he was telling his fingers to do something but they were not cooperating the same way as in the past. What people may not notice immediately was that the rhythm playing added another dimension on top of what Peter was playing. There were times when he added these jazzy chords to the progression that caused everyone to smile. Over the course of the night the solos got better and better. In particular, Walls of Time and Kentucky Mandolin, Cheyenne, and Salt Creek, were highlights. It looked like the rest of the band was enjoying listening to Tony, too, almost in reverence.

Other highlights included the singing and bass playing of “Uncle Jerry” McCoury. The bass was solid throughout and he has one of those good country voices with a little bit of twang. Jason Carter on fiddle was inspirational in his playing, either as a lead or accompanying. I really enjoyed the song, Beautiful Life, which had a simple guitar accompaniment but the feature was the quartet singing around the microphone. And did I mention the awesome banjo and bass duet on This Land?

I guess there wasn’t anything I didn’t like about this concert. The sound could have been better from where we were sitting, that’s my only complaint.

Here’s Salt Creek from that night – Enjoy. Salt Creek.mp3

I hope they make another visit up to New England soon!

Chris

At 1 pm I headed for the workshops. These are my favorite part because the rooms are small and you get an informal lesson from these great performers. I went to the Geoff Bartley/Howie Tarnower guitar/mandolin blues workshop first. They basically were winging it, calling tunes they both knew and played before together. Geoff did a good job of providing some background on them before they played their version. Some of the tunes they played were:

• My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It
• Wine Boy Blues
• Careless Love
• Sittin on Top of the World
• Laurie Lewis song re: Prohibition
• Rolling Spencer? in Bb…

It was fun to hear them play. J and I had been to Geoff’s open mike at the Cantab, and he is very nice and welcoming there, too.

Charlie Lawson workshop

Next I went to see Charlie Lawson, who plays rhythm guitar for Michael Cleveland. It also appears that they are good friends because Michael was there with him, but on mandolin instead of fiddle! The workshop was on rhythm guitar, of course, and Charlie said he’d never really done one of these before, but he was really good at explaining his thought process. Key to playing these fast tunes is certainly to stretch beforehand and to try to relax. If you’ve ever heard Michael Cleveland you know he plays fast! Charlie was influenced by Jimmy Martin and Jimmy Rodgers. I always notice that these performers always have a strong sense of the history of their instrument and can reach back for the most obscure records to listen to. They demo’d some things on Big Country, Sweet Dixie, and Waitin’ for a Train. Another interesting guitar-playing tidbit was that he uses a fairly flexible pick (maybe .8?), so he really only plays rhythm (and has a great voice, so he’s the lead singer in the band, too). Also, that’s Michael Cleveland’s 1944 Martin D-28 he’s playing and that sucker was loud.

Around 3 is when J, my fellow Splinter, showed up and we got our instruments to play in the hallway a bit. I was a bit shy about it, so we went in one of those business centers on the bottom floor, where people could see us playing and hear us if they walked past. Just like outdoor bluegrass festivals, there is a tradition at Joe Val to jam, only you have to play in the hallways and rooms of the hotel. More on that later…

Ashby Frank, Mandolin

4 pm we went to the mandolin workshop led by Ashby Frank, again from M. Cleveland band. I think he said he was in his late 20′s, but boy could he play. Both Charlie and Ashby talked about various ailments they were suffering from – life on the road ain’t all roses, people. Ashby was more of a feel player and he said, ‘don’t do it like I do it, cuz it’s probably wrong’. The lesson is to find out what works for you by playing and listening. He demo’d a few techniques on Steel Guitar Rag (in E), Dailey’s Reel (Bb), and Roanoke. I think J came away with some to-do’s to work on.

At 5 pm was the man himself, Michael Cleveland with a fiddle workshop. Again, Charlie Lawson accompanied him. He basically just took questions from the audience. First up was about his fiddle, which has 5 strings. It’s made by John Silakowski who’s out of Indiana, where Cleveland is from. The story goes that he somehow played this particular instrument and wanted it, but it was promised to someone else. That other person “didn’t like it” so it came back and end up in Michael’s hands. He’s another one with a strong knowledge of the fiddle tradition. Someone asked him about what to listen to and he reeled off a string of obscure old records you probably couldn’t find anywhere. Tunes they played: Lost Indian, Orange Blossom Special!, Hear that Lonesome Whistle Bow, and Black Mountain Rag.

Now we were inspired to play some more, so we went out in the hallway to jam. It was 6 pm, so a lot of people were going to get some food. A big group showed up near us to jam also, so we went over to join them. They let J call the first tune, which was Temperance Reel. They weren’t really a fiddle tune crowd, but one of the fiddlers got on board with it. After that, it was a lot of Hank Williams and other standard bluegrass tunes. People came and went. J had to leave about 7:30 but I stayed and played until about 9, when my arm was going to fall off. At one point 4 fiddlers joined in and called some fast ones. Phew! Here’s a link to some stealth video of the jam that someone took and posted. It was fun.

By that time it was 9 pm and food options were limited. I hadn’t eaten all day, so I roamed the hallways and checked out the various jam sessions that were going on. I got myself some doritos in the hotel lobby to hold me over. I checked out the Claire Lynch band a bit, but I didn’t like them, so I wandered the halls again. There were some good players out there, for sure. Here are some photos I took.

At 10:30 the Michael Cleveland and Flamekeepers was set to start. What a band! I think the Flame Keepers reference is about how much they light the place on fire! (or to say it properly, “faar”). The repertoire is straight ahead bluegrass and country, in the tradition. And they don’t mess around with silly slow tunes, except for maybe the waltzes. I didn’t write down the set list this time, but they pulled from their albums, so go check them out if you haven’t already. They played until about 12:15 or so. Of course, the fiddle tunes they are known for, Orange Blossom Special and Jerusalem Ridge, came out and were administered to. I did manage to turn on my iPhone sound recorder for Jerusalem Ridge and it came out enough to enjoy. This is typically just a duet with Ashby and Michael on mandolin and fiddle.

Jerusalem Ridge

After that concert, I wondered the halls again and the jams were still going strong. I stopped by one near the lobby where Josh Williams was playing with the folks from Flatt Lonesome, a.k.a. kids with braces! It was good pickin’ and singin’ however.

Josh Williams at Joe Val Festival

Mandolin Case

I got home about 1:30 that night, tired and hungry, but had a great day of bluegrass at the festival.

Chris

Other handy links:

Second Cousin Curly posts a lot of bluegrass video and was at Joe Val. Some good stuff here.

(I don’t know why WordPress doesn’t display youtube videos sometimes, so here’s the link to it.)

Oh Susanna

We also played 2 medleys:

Cold Frosty Morning > Old Grey Cat – this one we played 2 choruses of each tune and switched back and forth. The first one is in Am and the second in Em, gives it a cool effect.

Blackberry Blossom > Kitchen Girl. Blackberry we did medium tempo 3 times through, then pick it up a notch for Kitchen Girl. It’s high energy.

Chris

http://splintersmusic.com

The pair were in fine form on this second night of two at the Wilbur Theatre, which is a great venue for them. We were in the mezzanine about 5 rows up and the sound and sight-lines were excellent. This was a “standing room on the floor” gig, which I think is a stupid way to enjoy a concert, but whatever…we had seats. Much better than the House of Blues when we saw Dave Rawlings Machine with Old Crow Medicine show and others, where the seats are too far back and the crowd was too noisy during the Rawlings/Welch set.

The stage setting is very sparse, with only mikes on stage for the 2 guitars and 2 vocalists – no plugging in here, and they have the luxury of getting the sound just right with the microphones. The other notable stage prop is “The Box” which sits between them and contains everything they might need on stage, from strings to picks to harmonicas. The other noteworthy item was they had to stand on a rubber mat so they wouldn’t get shocked by the microphones!

The music itself is just what I expected, and more. Welch typically will crouch down away from the mics and start getting into the right groove before beginning the song. It was a real lesson in focus and intimacy. While Welch holds down the rhythm, Rawlings weaves his magic in and around the vocals. Their voices blend so well, it is sometimes hard to tell who is singing without looking at them. They started with Scarlett Town, off of the new album, “The Harrow and the Harvest”. This gives plenty of room for both of them and got us ready for what was to come.

Highlights for me were Scarlett Town (a great song, strong start), Make Me a Palette, 6 White Horses (with the dance – “I usually do this in private only…”), I Hear Them Alland the encores were just perfect, I’ll Fly Away with the audience singing along and ending with White Rabbit. I think they worked in all of the tunes from the new album and they sound like timeless classics, well-integrated with the older songs.

Gillian posted the handwritten set list to her twitter feed (@gillianwelch, but not much tweeting there). The concert started at 8:20 (I think they were late getting dinner at Legal!). The first set ended at 9:10. After a 20 min break, the second set was from 9:30-10:15 with the encores extending the show to 10:50.

Here it is in text form…and more accurate, in my opinion.

1. Scarlett Town
2. Make me a Pallete on the floor – ref. Doc Watson
3. Rock of ages
4. The Way It Will Be
5. Annabelle
6. I Want to Sing that Rock and Roll
7. That’s the Way it Goes
8. Silver Dagger
9. Red Clay

Second set:

1. Hard Times
2. Down Along The Dixie Line
3. Elvis Presley Blues
4. Ms Ohio – ‘she wants to do right, but not right now’ << classic line.
5. 6 White Horses – with G doin a dance and Dave on banjo
6. I Hear Them All/This Land medley – led by Dave
7. My Wrecking Ball
8. Caleb Meyer

Encore

1. Tennessee
2. I’ll Fly Away – audience sing-a-long!
3. Time the Revelator
4. The Way the Whole Thing Ends
5. White Rabbit – turn up the reverb!

Other reviews worth reading: Jambands (includes good pic).

Now, go buy the new album so they’ll make another one before 8 years passes by.

Your intrepid concert-goer,

Chris

As you can see from the picture I took, I got a table in the front row at Club Passim, aka my favorite music room. She only had one other musician on this gig (whose name escapes me, sorry) who switched among pedal steel, electric, and acoustic guitars. Carrie herself moved from fiddle to mandobird to tenor guitar. She can really play and her  style moves from down-home country fiddlin’ to indie singer-songwriter.

The set included new songs from her latest album (which I just bought on Amazon for only $4.99!) as well as some of hits from her past albums, like She Ain’t Me and Seven Angels on a Bicycle. I didn’t realize that the latter song was about a friend who had passed away and this story added some extra poignancy to the piece during the show.

She seems to be constantly touring, so next time she’s in your town, go see her and support live music – that’s how they make their money, people! I think the only disappointing part of the night was that the club was not completely full, perhaps due to the Tuesday night slot.

The Set List:

1. Keep your Words
2. Big Love
3. I Don’t Want to Play House Anymore
4. 50′s French
5. Absence
6. Got Your Name On It
7. Lake Harriet
8. Waterbound
9. She Ain’t Me
10. Seven Angels on a Bicycle
11. I am Not a Farmer -> Blackberry
12. When I Heard Gypsy Davy Sing
13. El Salvador
14. Today I Started Loving You
15. Never Gonna Be Your Bride
16. La Punalada Trapera
17. Encores – I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry; Say Darlin’ Say

The traditional picture of the setlist.

quartet”, I knew I had to go. I had seen Julian Lage at Passim with his band and was looking forward to hearing him in this setting as well. Plus the band includes Antonio Sanchez, drums (also plays with Metheny) and Scott Colley, bass (also with Metheny). The story goes that Burton lined up his drummer first and then asked him to choose the best bass player to go along with them and he immediately said, Colley.

In addition, Gary Burton was one of my earliest introductions to jazz, having heard him in 1977 at an Arcosanti festival in Cordes Junction, AZ. I know I have the program book from that festival, but cannot locate it in all the usual places I’ve squirreled away mementos.

Back to the concert…

Since this was at Berklee, everyone seemed very comfortable on that stage, probably from having played many concerts there over the years as faculty and students. Gary did most of the talking, of course, as the leader. I like that he actually talked to the audience and explained some of their tune choices(Light Blue: “musicians can play these Monk tunes over and over”) and it’s background (Afro Blue: “the first tune written for the new latin jazz genre”).  Here’s the entire set list:

1. Afro Blue
2. Never the Same Way (Colley)
3. I Hear a Rhapsody
4. Last to Know
5. Etude (Lage)
6. Light Blue (Monk)
7. Common Ground
8. My Funny Valentine
9. Did You Get It?

They started with a quiet introduction to Afro Blue by Burton alone, before getting into the melody (doubled by Lage) and solos. Burton is certainly a master of rhythm and melodic improvisation and his bandmates kept up, supporting him throughout the ebbs and flows of a solo. I love how the really great improvisers (and the bands, in general) can move through a song from very quiet and mellow to building up intensity to a crescendo and then transition to the next phase of the tune. That is definitely a sign of both great musicianship and communication among the band members.

Never the Same Way, from the group’s album Common Ground, begins with a bass ostinato introduction before moving to the next section of the melody, a rhythmic vibes melody on top of a blues-y chord progression. This is an extended composition with plenty of room for solos and was actually the longest selection in the concert at over 12 minutes.

“I Hear a Rhapsody”, another standard tune, was a pretty straightforward rendering with solos by Burton, Lage, Sanchez, and Colley. It’s always good to throw in something familiar to keep the audience on your side, so you can expand their range elsewhere in the concert. Burton told a story about how Michael Brecker hated playing at Berklee because of all the musicians likely to be in the audience, Gary says, “but I don’t care…”.

Etude was written by Julian Lage as an exercise for his students (“I feel sorry for his students”, said Burton.), and you can find him playing it on youtube here. Burton said, “When I recorded this on the record, I promised myself I’d never play it again!” and “We started playing this live last week and I think I played it right the third time.” Yes, he even had a very long and wide score in front of him to read thru, which cracked the audience up as he unfolded it on the stands. It was kinda funny watching him shift the paper along as the song progressed. Of course, then they proceeded to play it in unison perfectly. The guitar and vibes have a nice blend to them, both being percussive in attack and in the same range.

Light Blue is an obscure Thelonius Monk tune that had the typical twists and turns of a Monk tune. “He wrote these short, simple, quirky songs that just stick with you.” Apparently he only ever played it once in a concert at Town Hall. I was searching through my iTunes library and turned up a version of Bill Frisell playing it in a live recording I downloaded from ‘who knows where’. I think people like playing these tunes because the melodies are so strong they force you into playing to the strengths of the melody when you solo.

My Funny Valentine opened with an extended intro by Lage, solo. This went on for 6 whole minutes of guitar brilliance, not having too much to do with My Funny Valentine. However, the ideas seemed to be endless! There were many different variations on a theme, ranging from folk music to classical until he finally hinted at the real tune the last time through, then passed it off to Burton to state the melody, more or less, with the band backing him.

The encore was “Did You Get It” which is on the Common Ground album. This was a fitting end to the concert and gave everyone a chance to stretch out on their solos. I went home and immediately bought the album. Highly recommended.

Chris

I used my little Canon Elf camera to record it and it came out pretty good, except for the annoying glare from the mirror. Maybe I’ll get the official video from the soundman instead. I’m going to try to replace the audio on these videos with the one from the sound board – we’ll see how that goes in iMovie.

Enjoy. Here’s June Apple, a traditional fiddle tune in A.

Ook Pik Waltz, by Frankie Rodgers.

Cluck Old Hen, traditional old time song.

Chris