#Doc Watson

[folk-enjoyer]

Ralph Rinzler Collections , Smithsonian Institute

Hoot for peace! folk concert flier

[friday411]

To FruitViking For Saddled in Scarlet

There once was a pair from the Wild Old West A sleuth and the doc that he loved the best Their thrilling adventures Have horses and six-shooters, And stand head and shoulders above all the rest.

-=<+>=-

A man arrives on the noon train For quiet and peace he'll remain. Adventure soon beckons John Who didn't reckon on Sherlock Holmes, who's clearly insane.

-=<+>=-

"Saddled in Scarlet" kicks off the fun. Tracking a killer down on the run. An acquaintance was made With one Sheriff Lestrade And a beautiful friendship's begun!

-=<+>=-

Read the absolutely fabulous "Saddled in Scarlet" here!!

Thank you @fruitviking!

PLEASE let me know if you want off the list!! - for either just the reruns or everything.

@stellacartography @totallysilvergirl @calaisreno @keirgreeneyes @peanitbear

Tags also in the comments ...

[pierrotsoup]

Modern americans can make yearnful music all we want but no one is doin it like an Appalachian or new englander balladeer recorded in the early revival and that's just a fact of life #sorry

[upperswampmonkey]

Crawdad Song

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Tony Trischka’s Earl Jam - “Brown’s Ferry Blues” (Live)

Seeming to choose soloists on the spot and frequently delighting in the respective results, Tony Trischka’s Earl Jam turned “Brown’s Ferry Blues” into a quartet jamboree.

With room for fiddle, banjo, acoustic guitar and double bass solos baked in, the musicians were loose enough for ad libbed vocals about the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival at which they were playing and tight enough to have earned that spot.

Most of all, the players were having obvious fun. And that transfers easily to the resulting video.

Grade card: Tony Trischka’s Earl Jam - “Brown’s Ferry Blues” (Live) - A

9/27/24

[jadeseadragon]

Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson (1923-2012)

Flatpicking and fingerpicking legend

[culturevulturette]

And now she's gone And I don't' worry Lord, I'm sitting On top of the world...

[cosmogyros]

I'm an invalid and I was already productive today (went to the gynecologist and was informed that all my lady parts are in flawless condition) so now I'm doing absolutely nothing except lying on the sofa listening to vintage bluegrass all evening

[mywifeleftme]

273: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band // Will the Circle Be Unbroken

Will the Circle Be Unbroken The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band 1972, United Artists

Who can endure a sentimentalist music critic? Still, this morning anyway, my heart’s fit to weep over a one-hundred-and-ten minutes of exultant roots music and a beautiful idea executed to perfection. The notion behind Will the Circle Be Unbroken was to use the Dirt Band, a crew of talented longhairs from California, as a bridge between the trendy country rock of the day and the genre’s pantheon of avuncularly voiced pioneers. (And I guess in Maybelle Carter’s case ‘aunticularly voiced.’) Many of these sorts of intergenerational tribute projects give me queasy tasting notes of hapless arts council funding or the rap number from Walk Hard, but somehow this triple LP from the heart of rock’s imperial phase manages to be both reverent of traditional country and bluegrass history and present these genres as living organisms.

The Dirt Band are joined by a Field of Dreams cast of legends, plus an adjunct wing of ace players like fiddle genius Vassar Clements, and while the Dirties sneak in one original the focus is squarely on the standards. None of these takes supplant the originals, but the recording fidelity, superlative playing, and warm communal energy make for lovely alternatives. Merle Travis’s “Dark as a Dungeon,” one of the greatest folk and country songs of the century, has never sounded more lovely or doomed; Doc Watson gives Jimmie Driftwood’s “Tennessee Stud” a broad-shouldered boisterousness; Earl Scruggs and the Dirt Band’s John McEuen present the classic fiddle reel “Soldier’s Joy” as an infectious banjo duel. 

Many of the songs include snatches of studio chatter between the band and their guests: Mother Maybelle sounds like the sweetest old thing imaginable; Roy Acuff comes off like as much of a pompous Haven Hamilton-type as I’d always heard he was; Jimmy Martin gives elderly prospector cricket. The tapes are even rolling for the first meeting of guitar legends Travis and Watson, who have an adorably awkward little chat before declaring themselves “buddies.” These peeks into the process are part of Circle’s artifice, but it feels like an honest attempt to capture the historic nature of the summit. The album rounds off with nods to the deep past in the form of a number of Carter family cuts, an homage to bluegrass father “Uncle” Dave Macon, and a group singalong of the spiritual “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” But then, right there at the end, we get 17-year-old Randy Scruggs performing a solo instrumental take on Joni Mitchell’s 1968 “Both Sides, Now.” The symbolism of the teenaged son of Earl Scruggs playing such a recent (and aptly-named) tune is clear, quietly closing the circle between past and present, a pact sealed.

273/365

[lisamarie-vee]

[playlists-in-fall]

- folk adjacent songs

all the best debts - fever dolls

change and change and change and change - the airborne toxic event

cherry - morningsiders

civil war - the arcadian wild

cocaine and abel - the airborne toxic event

deep river blues - doc watson

ends of the earth - lord huron

fare the well (dink’s song) - oscar isaac

flowers - james spaite

from dusk to dawn - fever dolls

golden dandelions - barns courntey

graveclothes - birdtalker

hang me, oh hang me - oscar isaac

hey, runner! - the arcadian wild

i iv v - don mccloskey

kickin’ da leaves - judah & the lion

knockin’ - carolina chocolate drops

moonshine - hippo campus

not dead yet - lord huron

oh, sleeper - the arcadian wild

poor isaac - the airborne toxic event

starcrossed losers - the fratellis

stella - cereus bright

subterranean homesick blues - the lumineers

tell it like it is - the arcadian wild

there is a time - the dillards

wander. wonder. - the arcadian wild

[folk-enjoyer]

Folk concert, 1964

[ferylcheryl]

Autumnal trad(ish) folk

[sinceileftyoublog]

Billy Strings Live Show Review: 5/24, Allstate Arena, Rosemont

From left to right: Jarrod Walker, Royal Masat, Billy Strings, Billy Failing, Alex Hargreaves

BY JORDAN MAINZER

I would have been shocked to see the Allstate Arena full for some traditional bluegrass music. I wasn't surprised one lick to see it packed to the brim for Billy Strings. The prodigious guitar player competes in the bluegrass category at the Grammys--perhaps an American Roots nod here or a Country nod there, depending on the song and whether he's collaborating with anybody--but his brand of old-time string music is something more progressive and modern than what you associate with bluegrass. Not to say he doesn't have chops: If there was every anybody raised to appreciated music of the Appalachians, it's Strings, whose mother married amateur bluegrass musician Terry Barber when Strings was two years old. It was Barber who showed strings the likes of Bill Monroe and Doc Watson. Yet, it was Strings himself, a child of the early Internet age, who discovered rock and metal. Though his recorded music isn't loud, and his live performances aren't necessarily heavy, they exude the raw spirit of bluegrass, the virtuosity of rock and roll, and the jaw-dropping skill of both.

Walker, Masat, Strings, Failing, & Hargreaves

Having never seen Strings before, I didn't know what to expect last Friday at Allstate Arena. Walking in and scanning the tie dye-laden fans, it was clear he had a diehard following with a definite overlap with jam band culture. When he and his band took the stage (mandolinist Jarrod Walker, bassist Royal Masat, banjoist Billy Failing, fiddler Alex Hargreaves), I immediately understood why. Their performance of "Fire Line", a standout cut from 2017's Turmoil & Tinfoil, started out expected enough, Strings' breathtaking picking leading the way, but quickly gave way to something almost resembling improvisational jazz, with fiddle solos and guitar plucks sprinkled between the rhythms. Strings then put his complex pedal board to work to make his acoustic guitar distort like an electric guitar, a clear distinction from earlier in the song where he made it sound like, well, a banjo. That is, this was more Pink Floyd than Earl Scruggs.

Walker, Masat, Strings, Failing, & Hargreaves

And in the same way a few of the non-aggressive electronic music heads have embraced the loose ends of the Grateful Dead and Phish, I could see why they, too, might appreciate a Billy Strings concert. The way Strings intertwines traditional tunes and covers within his original material, often segueing between songs, is akin to a DJ set. During "Long Forgotten Dream", a highlight from Strings' 2019 breakout album Home, at one point, after a long period of ambiance with Strings' subtle guitars wincing above the mostly quiet band, the song's main refrain returned to flashing rainbow lights, the crowd going nuts like the beat had just dropped. Of course, Strings and his band are much more fun to watch than a DJ: Call me crazy, but at one point during a cover of Failing's "So Many Miles", he was picking so fast it looked like there was wind blowing his red mane.

Walker, Masat, Strings, Failing, Hargreaves, & Terry Barber

And for those bluegrass traditionalists, Friday treated them to an encore of Barber himself coming out to join the band, huddled around a microphone, to cover a couple Monroe classics and, fittingly, Charley Pride's "On the Southbound". "Well I woke up this morning when the cold Chicago wind / Blew my newspaper blanket off my back," sang Strings, of course hoping for that thing to happen where you name the city you're playing in or near and the crowd cheers. It didn't matter not only because the crowd was cheering anyway, but because many of them were already avid Strings followers, along for the journey from city to city, from song to song.

[upperswampmonkey]

Cripple Creek DOC WATSON and ARNOLD WATSON

[krispyweiss]

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Day No. 2, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Sept. 30, 2023

Leyla McCalla controls the weather.

An overcast day in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park suddenly turned sun-soaked when the former Carolina Chocolate Drop sang: My face to the sun as she performed Our Native Daughters’ “I Knew I Could Fly” during her Sept. 30 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass set on the Towers of Gold Stage.

“That’s awesome,” she said mid-verse as the Earth’s star emerged from the afternoon clouds.

Following the electric and steel guitar instrumentals of Hermanos Gutiérrez on the adjacent Swan stage and playing cello, banjo and electric guitar, backed with rhythm section and electric guitar, McCalla covered Kendrick Lamar’s “Crown” and offered a gumbo of New Orleanian, Haitian and American music delivered in English and Haitian Creole while showcasing her the Capitalist Blues and Breaking the Thermometer LPs.

The Sound Biteses’ day had begun in the pre-noon fog with the down-in-the-holler, old-time string music of Dry Branch Fire Squad playing the songs of Gillian Welch, Doc Watson and Bill Monroe on the Banjo stage. Later, it was gospel from the McCrary Sisters, who sung Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground,” “Amazing Grace” and other numbers backed by a full band during short, five- to 15-minute sets on the Rooster stage, where Brennan Leigh offered a lunchtime menu of traditional country music.

It was also on the Rooster that Emmylou Harris previewed her Sunday appearance by guesting with Shawn Camp and Verlon Thompson and closing their Doc Watson tribute set with Guy Clark’s “Old Friends.”

Shortly afterward, Bettye LaVette sauntered onstage to deliver her grinding version of Bob Dylan’s “Things Have Changed.” From here, it was an impassioned reading of songs from the Randall Bramblett-written LaVette! album as the singer prowled the stage and proved her 77 years have cost her nothing in vocal prowess and stage presence.

“If I could write, this is what I would have said,” LaVette said in introducing the new songs, which worked better on stage than on wax.

Rickie Lee Jones attracted a ginormous crowd to Banjo - “I haven’t seen so many people in front of me for so long,” she said, soaking it in - and their enthusiasm rubbed off. Jones, whose band included Vilray on guitar and vocals, plus accordion and bass, was animated as she danced around the stage and crooned like a lounge singer when she wasn’t playing guitar, banjo or piano.

Opening with a radically rearranged “Danny’s All-Star Joint” more suited for the streets of New Orleans than the fields of Golden Gate, Jones went on to perform “I Won’t Grow Up” - for the first time, she said - “Last Chance Texaco,” “We Belong Together” and a sinewy rendition of Steely Dan’s “Show Biz Kids” that found Jones lifting her orange sweater to sing of the Rickie Lee T-shirt beneath.

Give RLJ the MVP for turning in HSB No. 2’s No. 1 gig.

Faced with the quintessential festivalgoers’ dilemma, Mr. and Mrs. Sound Bites split the last hour between Steve Earle’s uncharacteristically sleepy solo-acoustic set on the Banjo and Irma Thomas’ barnburner R&B/soul revival at the Rooster.

At 82, Thomas played the day’s most rambunctious set, ripping into “Time is on My Side” and getting the audience bouncing and waving their handkerchiefs on her mashup of “I Done Got Over It” -> “Iko Iko” -> “Hey Pocky Way” -> “I Done Got Over It.” That one might be ringing through Golden Gate’s trees along with the birdsong for some time to come.

Read Sound Bites’ coverage of HSB Day One here.

10/1/23