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Well...

while you are checking out the alien on your front lawn...i'll tell you a little about the show.

keb mo' (i want to thank you personally for introducing him to me John).

Keb Mo'...what a sweet delight he was. He played about 10 different guitars throughout the whole show... and he was so warm and feeling with the audience.

the pièce de résistance was when he got bonnie out on his encore to perform with him. they sat there ... and just enjoyed being together on stage.

it's just such a delight to watch musicians who are not 'all about themselves'. I took some good pictures ... but they were on my 35 mm.

sorry : (

bonnie was wonderful... she was so humbled to have been asked to perform at the jazz festival. she said... you know i'm more of a blues player really. but actually a good friend of mine said that all music is blues.

gospel is just blues gone to church

jazz is just blues gone to college

and life is just blues put to music

she is a slide queen and wears finger picks most of the time.

also, her ability to sweet talk an audience is utmost amazing. she said that is what her mother and father gave her 'the joy of performing' and that is truly what she is ... a performer. she loves to interact with her audiences and is so freaken' humble. she kept saying how thankful she was that she didn't have to deal with flies in this beautiful concert hall because most concerts they play all summer are outdoors.

and then... she sang one of my favourites... Let's Give em' Something to Talk About'...and she dedicated it to the girl who wrote the song Shirley Eikhart... who is a canadian...

now... Shirley Eikhard grew up 3 houses down from my street. she went to school with my hubby and played in the folk club with him. when my family moved up north to Timmins for one year... the Eikhart's rented our house.

it was delightful... and at the end.. a whole group of us were up dancing :dance: on the sides .. we just couldn't sit down ... in this beautiful posh auditorium...ya... you can dress her up but you certainly can't take her out!!! This was the same place we saw Winton Marsalis last October.

so that's my little claim to fame and i'm sticking to it... :P

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...I think there was one more that I remember now ... I think it was Rock & Roll is blues on drugs...but don't quote me.hee hee

Makes sense to me...........I wonder if bluegrass is blues on grass... :spy:

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alrighty then! Yes, dmiller, break it out. Or down. It would be a pleasure!

A la, the concert sounds wonderful. I'm glad you enjoy Keb Mo. He's really interesting, diverse. Simple and straightforward at the same time. And Bonnie, you said it all. She's a keeper.

Blues and jazz are often cited as our country's "only" native musics, born and bred in America. I would agree, with the addition of "bluegrass" as it's called. (Native American music wasn't pulled directly into the mix early on, for a whole range of reasons, probably due mostly to the politics of the early American culture).

I think blues and bluegrass form the first layer and jazz and rock and roll build on that. Rock just takes the simplest aspects of blues and expounds on it, jazz takes it somewhere else entirely, incorporating other forms of music in the process - different classical genres, Eurppean musics, Latin, etc. etc. and rhythmic and harmonic development.

Some of the best rock pulls from both blues and bluegrass and cuts over into the "jazz" category by virtue of using other cultural influences. Hendrix is a classic example. He's blues based and at first hearing doesn't sound like "jazz" but the incorporation of other sounds and structures moves it in that direction. His music carries some Native American influences, the airy horizontal sound of some of the major scales he played on one string. Some of his signature chord forms, the little 2 and 3 string hammer-ons and offs, work in both bluegrass and blues music. The Wind Cries Mary, Little Wing, the solo section of Purple Haze, Spanish Castle Magic, where he plays the major and harmonic minor against each other - stuff like that draws from a lot of different sources. And to me, 'S all good. :)

Edited by socks
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Iv'e always found it curious that when I listen to music from the early 20TH century, I can't tell if it is blues, country , jazz or what. It's a good thing Best-Buy wasn't around. They might not have had a slot to put it in.------sidenote to dmiller; Have you ever been to homespuntapes.com? They have tons of excellent instruction tapes/dvd's by the likes of Bill Monroe, John Hartford, Ralph Stanley,Vassar Clements and on and on. They are very professionally produced.

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Very true, waysider! :) I find the same thing true. It's really incredible what radio did, allowing people to hear news, music, other people and their ideas - all from other parts of the country they were completely unfamiliar with. It really brought the world together, all around that little speaker cone. Back in the late 50's when I started listening to local radio stations, there were stations that played a much wider range of music than we get today on a single station. Hearing things for the first time that I'd never heard before or even imagined was really incredible.

Locally we have 1 24X7 jazz station that covers a lot of ground. There's a couple NPR stations that have some interesting stuff. Throughout a day I like to hear different stuff and thankfully with a little knob tweedling I can do it. There's also a couple "smooth jazz" stations that play some decent music now and then, but most if it's the R n B stuff with sax and guitar soloes that's popular. I like it too, and I'm glad that format is there so more musicians can make a living with some degree of dignity, and occasionally stretch.

Some musicians really have what I think of as an "American" sounding sound, where there's a lot of influences mixed in. In it's day, The Band was like that. Bob Dylan still is. Bruce Hornsby. A lot o fhe "alterntive adult-some or other-artists like Lucinda William, Nora Jones. They all have or had great musicians and guitarists in their bands too.

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sidenote to dmiller; Have you ever been to homespuntapes.com? They have tons of excellent instruction tapes/dvd's by the likes of Bill Monroe, John Hartford, Ralph Stanley,Vassar Clements and on and on. They are very professionally produced.

Hiya Waysider. :) Yes Homespun is EXCELLENT.

I have some of their teaching series here for fiddle, flat-picked guitar, dobro, and banjo.

Some are legit, and some are boot-leg copies, but all are good.

I have the cassette versions, but the videos they offer are far superior.

The videos (that I have seen), have a split screen that shows on your tv.

One screen has a close-up of the *picking hand* and the strings played;

and the other is a closeup of the *fingering hand* and the frets played.

They put both side by side, so you can see a close up of what is going on.

Very nice indeed!! :B)

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Mr. Music Man,

Will we ever have the honour of hearing you play?

Could you post something here???

I'm sure a few of us would be MORE than delighted to hear your beautiful music.

please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please...

Awwww -- Ala. Thanks. :redface2:

I can't do that, because I've never recorded my stuff.

I have some things on cassette tape, but that's it.

I did go to a studio about 5 years ago, but all work from there is incomplete;

(I had problems with my left hand -- and finally wrote it off -- had to quit).

I was doing gospel stuff I had written, and never finished the CD.

Lately -- have been practicing more, and finished writing a new fiddle tune tonight.

It's some *ramblings* in the key of D, that suddenly got *birthed* this evening. :dance:

(It was on my front porch -- great acoustics, and a lovely place to pick!)

FYI -- my left hand is still out of sync, but feeling better (these days).

I'm able to practice for an hour a day now, and am re-gaining the dexterity I used to have.

If things continue to improve, I'll go back to the studio,

and put down some of the fiddle tunes I've written.

Then I will need someone to show me how to put them here. :)

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Like Chas, I have a lot of catching up to do. But I wanted to tell you all about the blues festival I went to yesterday.

It was the Mohican Blues Festival at Mohican State Park. I used to live in that area and did a lot of camping and canoeing (is canoeing a word? and...did I spell it right? :) ) but that was 24 years ago and the blues festival is, I guess, only 8 years old. So anyway, if you look at the link, you will see that there was a LOT of music for 25 bucks a ticket. Well, we got ours for 15 cause before we got in the gate, a dude walked up and said he had purchased tickets for family members that decided at the last minute to not show up. Woo hoo! Saved 10 bucks per ticket!

The line-up was great, even though most of the bands, I had never heard of. There were 2 that I thought really stood out among the rest though. Willie Pooch was great but unfortunetly, had no CD's for sale. And right after that was Mississippi Heat with Lurrie Bell. Awsome doesn't even begin to describe them! Lurrie played a Strat but it had this REAL BIG phat sound even though all the p'ups looked like single coil's. He was solid, right in the zone on everything! He's a minimalist type of blues player, doesn't try to cram a million licks into each phrase, but what he plays is right on! They had a female singer that really reminded a a LOT of Koko Taylor. After checking them out on the net this morning, come to find that Lurrie toured with Koko for 4 years. Now it makes sense! :) The absolute BEST thing about the band however, was the harp player, Pierre Lacocque, who is also the front man for the band. I won't even try to describe his playing...just listen to THIS!

OK, to wrap this all up, the biggest highlight of the day was my first college roomate from back in 1978, who I havent seen in 24 years met us there and spent the day partying with us! We have stayed in touch over the phone, but it was the first time we saw each other in 24 years! Poor guy, he went and got old. Glad I didn't do that. :wink2::biglaugh:

Rick

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Bluzeman & Chatty Kathy--------- From your posts it sounds like you may be within driving distance of the Granville Hotlicks Blues Fest. It will be from noon til 10pm on Sept. 16 in downtown granville, just west of "Nirk". There are 5 or 6 acts lined up but off the top of my head the only ones I can remember are Magic Slim and the Teardrops, Bigtime Sarah, and Blues At Last. It's kid friendly and proceeds from concessions help local charity. Lots of fun, tons of good blues and best of all it's----------FREE!! ---(as usual, it's a good idea to bring your own chair.)

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Tell me about it! Chatty! My remaining strands group together by color, black, dark brown, gray and white, like the hardy warriors that they are, straight and strong even to this day! That sound you hear in the distance is the playing of "Taps" in the far right southernmost quadrant as another proud soldier goes none-too-quietly to his final reward. A moment of silence please....

Anyone taking or giving lessons? I've given my first lesson in quite awhile, yesterday. Went very well, we're starting out with the basics. Had their guitar action adjusted and new strings put on. I'm switching them out to Super Light acoustics, .009 for the first few months, then will move to .010's once we're off and running. They know a little but we're starting from scratch with the "G" chords and they did very well. Covered some basic maintenance, tuners, and have introduced them to musiciansfriend.com. :) I'm looking to have 3 students a week, over time. We'll see how it goes.

They've got a Takamine Jasmine acoustic. Nice guitar, with a good sound and solid neck. I'd played a couple in a nearby store that had bad action, but this one's playing pretty well so it will be good for awhile.

Edited by socks
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