Useful News
Bluegrass Bands and Dancers Descend on Iowa
LeMars, Iowa…..”It’s just the beginning of summer, and it’s also just the beginning of a huge number of bluegrass bands and dancers that are coming to Iowa this fall,” says Bob Everhart, the President of the National Traditional Country Music Assn., located in Anita, Iowa, and Director of the largest and oldest old-time acoustic music festival west of the Mississippi River.
“We have always had good participation with acoustic musicians at our event,” adds Everhart, “but we’ve never had so many bands before. It’s not uncommon at all to have well over 600 musicians, but 20 acoustic bands, some of them international, is a new one for us. Our celebrities this year are pretty amazing too, much of it having to do with our continued dedication to keeping the pioneer and homesteader music and spirit alive in the great state of Iowa. We’ve been doing this for 34 years now, and every year is a surprise to me. This is our only fundraiser of the year for our Pioneer Music Museum, and the Oak Tree Opry performance center, and the children’s music camp we hope to one day have open.”
The event, known as the “34th National Old Time Country, Bluegrass, and Folk Festival & Contest & Pioneer Exposition of Arts, Crafts, and Agricultural Lifestyle” is in itself a mouthful. According to Everhart, “We are looking forward to a big event at the Plymouth County Fairgrounds August 31-September 6, in LeMars, Iowa. It now has to be seven days long just to take care of the number of participants, and we utilize ten sound stages from 9am to midnight every day. Along with our local and regional performers, we’re expecting Patti Page. You might remember her recording of “How Much Is That Doggy In The Window.” She will be going into America’s Old Time Country Music Hall of Fame this year. At the age of 81, however there are no guarantees. Joining her will be the oldest and last living musician that played on Jimmie Rodgers recordings. Rodgers, known as the ‘father’ of country music, created an incredible public following for this kind of music. His guitarist, Slim Bryant, is still alive, living in Kentucky, and at the age of 100, still gives guitar lessons. He will be joining Juanita McMichen, the daugher of Clayton McMichen who wrote “In The Pines’ and directed a band called the “Skillet Lickers.” McMichen will be declared “Fiddler of the Century” by the Rural Roots Music Commission this year.”
Speaking of bands, Sheila Everhart, Bob’s wife, helps with the bookings. “We have a tremendous number of incredibly gifted acoustic bands coming this year. Valarie Smith and Liberty Pike (Tn); Jake Simpson Band (Ok); Bluegrass Playground (Or); Michelle Culpit (Tn); Dick Kimmel & Co. (Mn); Handpicked (Mo); Four Mile Creek (Ia); Johnny Riverboat (Canada); Goose River Boys (ND); Truck Stop Souvenir (Ia); One on the Mountain (WV): Kenaston Family (Ne); Jimmy Pearce (Ky); Outta Gas (Ne); Skinny & The Bootleggers (Ia); Triple L Band )NM); Muhm’s Git Fid Band (Ia); Ramblin’ Riversiders (England); and Robert Silvek Band from Slovakia. Along with these many performers, we are also looking forward to a band and dancers from Hungary that do their native heritage Greecian music and dance. We’re also expecting another large band and group of dancers from the rural areas of the Russian country of Georgia. So, we’re sure to have our hands full, but what an amazing variety of old-time acoustic rural music we will be able to present this year. We even have a hillbilly yodeler coming from South Korea.” Along with the 10 stages of music, there is also a Pioneer Expo of Arts, Crafts, and Agricultural Lifestyle activities going on in the Corps of Discovery Tipi Village. Add to that the “Old Town Busking Championship,” ‘jamming’ and ‘workshops’ wherever you go, and the Rural Roots Music Commission’s annual ” CD’s of the Year” awards, and it rounds out to be one of the most spectacular acoustic old-time music events in the upper midwest. “We’ve even added one additional stage without a sound system,” says Bob, “there’s an old log cabin on the grounds at LeMars, so we’ve turned the front porch into a stage featuring the softer side of country music, featuring autoharps, dulcimers, harmonicas, and even zithers.” (This article was sent to me for publishing.) More information at the NTCMA website: http://www.orgsites.com/ia/oldtimemusic
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Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and is a sub-genre of country music. It has its own roots in Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English traditional music. Bluegrass was inspired by the music of immigrants from the United Kingdom and Ireland (particularly the Scots-Irish immigrants in Appalachia), as well as jazz and blues. In bluegrass, as in jazz, each instrument takes its turn playing the melody and improvising around it, while the others perform accompaniment. This is in contrast to old-time music, in which all instruments play the melody together or one instrument carries the lead throughout while the others provide accompaniment. Traditional bluegrass is typically based around acoustic stringed instruments, such as mandolin, acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle, and upright bass, with or without vocals. Bluegrass is said to be a mixture of respect, talent, knowledge, and soul; that, along with 6 musical instruments. Play the bass, guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and dobro and you have a bluegrass band. With its unique, distinct, toe-tapping style, bluegrass music goes back to basic roots of rural mountain flavor. At times it’s too sophisticated to be corny and too corny to be sophisticated. Most songs and its people lie somewhere in the middle.
The Man Who Saved Celtic Music by: Joey Robichaux (edited for pickin-jammin-bluegrass)
Familiar with the name “Francis O’Neill”? The current wave of interest in Celtic music (from which an abundance of bluegrass emanates) owes him a great debt — he’s the person who collected and published the music for thousands of Celtic tunes, making them available to musicians all over the world. O’Neill was born in 1848 in Ireland. When he was 16, he immigrated to the United States. During his life, he was a rancher, a teacher, a Chicago policeman, and fathered ten children. He also played the flute! O’Neill (also known as “Chief O’Neill”) loved Celtic music. At that time, the music was passed down tune at a time from one musician to another. Little had been written transcribed in written form. O’Neill did not read music — he played by ear — but he became convinced of the value of saving Celtic tunes for prosperity by transcribing them into musical notation for future generations. With the help of a fiddling sergeant in the Chicago police department who did read music, he managed to do so. He would play the tunes he had learned from other musicians; the sergeant would transcribe them into musical notation. By the time O’Neill died in 1936, he had collected and transcribed nearly 3,500 tunes — many of them dating back hundreds and hundreds of years! He eventually published eight books — including the now classic “The Music of Ireland”. This book is still easily available in most bookstores. This book alone provides notation for 1,850 tunes! (Note: You can find these transcriptions for free at http://www.freesheetmusic.net !) Noel Rice offers this comment that illustrates O’Neill’s contribution: “He recalled reading about some boys who would sit at the feet of an old musician, thinking they were learning the music the way generations before them had. “And this old man,” he said, “was playing these lovely Irish tunes right out of O’Neill’s book.”
The Origins and Magic of Slide Guitar
by: Dennis Tryon
It’s a hot sultry night on the Mississippi delta. The full moon casts its translucent light on the fields and swamp oak trees. The lingering smell of barbecue and wisteria mix with honeysuckle and tobacco smoke. Folks are sitting on the front porch trying to beat the heat. Someone picks up an old guitar and begins to play a familiar tune.
The sound is unmistakable, cutting right to your heart, and emotions. It’s distinctive voice, almost human-like, hangs in the night air like a soulful cry. That is the signature sound of the slide guitar.
Where did this style get its start? The prevailing wisdom attributes its birth to the old single string instrument called the jitterbug, used by black musicians around the turn of the 20th century. This instrument was simply a length of thin wire stretched between two nails on a post and played using an old bone or heavy nail. Some used a bottle or other smooth objects as well. One could play a lead line or improvise an accompaniment to folk, blues, and spiritual songs. The jitterbug was essentially one of the first blues instruments.
There are ancient African instruments much like the jitterbug but using a gourd resonator with the single string. It, also, was played with a bone sliding up and down a neck to change pitches.
As guitars became more available, a lot of the early blues and folk players adopted them. These guitars had terrible action and strings were scarce. Using a slide allowed playing on some really horrible guitars yet produced a very appealing sound. Using a glass or metal slide would also save the fingers!
Guitars were very popular in the early part of the 20th century. Frequently, rural musicians got inexpensive guitars from a mail order catalogs. Banjos were very expensive at the time, but there is little evidence that players ever used a slide on a banjo.
Some musicologists suggest that Hawaiian music was the greatest influence in popularizing slide guitar. This was about the time (early thirties) when steel bodied guitars were becoming available. This music was played in “slack-key” or an open tuning as it is called today. The guitar is tuned to an “open” or major chord, such as a Gmajor or Dmajor. There are many variations in these tunings, but most tunes are played in one of the three main open tunings.
Hawaiian music was very influential in spreading the slide guitar craze throughout the country. This gave rise to a great demand for slide style guitars from manufacturers. The Hawaiian lap steel guitars were more popular than standard guitars all through the 1930’s. All of the major manufacturers had offerings: Gibson; National; Dopera Brothers; (Dobro) Regal, just to mention a few. Hawaiian slide guitar was incorporated into every style of music from Jazz to Mountain Music. This has continued on to the present. The list of today’s accomplished slide players is large and ever growing.
The adaptation of slide guitar techniques by early blues musicians is, perhaps, the ultimate marriage and is instantly recognizable. Some of the great masters of the past include: Son House; Tampa Red; Robert Johnson; and Muddy Waters, to name a few. These magical and soul filled sounds have captivated musicians and listeners alike.
The voice like quality of a glass bottleneck or brass pipe sliding up and down a guitar string has a created musical tradition worthy of it longevity. It resonates with our emotions and has found a permanent home in our hearts. God bless those who aspire to the sound of the slide guitar.