I am posting this on Labor Day 2007 which marks 7 years since I moved my custom cabinetry business to my own shop building on our premises here in the Willis area of Floyd County. Its been great to eliminate the 30 minute or more commute I had for 10 years previous to that. I have saved a lot of gas $ and wear and tear on my vehicles no doubt. Now my trips to the New River Valley are usually with a big load of products from the shop and/or with a very long list of stops to be made. It is absolutely the best job-related move I ever made. I haven't worn a watch in 3 years now either.
Our last music 'job' trip for a while was completed yesterday (9/2) when we got back safely from a wedding gig in Hopkiinsville, Kentucky. We provided background melodies for a wedding rehearsal supper to represent the mountain heritage of the groom who is from Floyd County originally. After viewing the terrible drought conditions in western Kentucky we found a deeper- than-ever appreciation for the mountains of our area of the Blue Ridge even though our rainfall is 9 inches below normal for the year at this time. Only 'brown grass' exists what we saw of that part of Kentucky right now.
Our trip in early August to Maine and Nova Scotia was wonderful except when the neck in my fiddle became un-glued to the body due in part to the beginnings of the August heat wave conditions which had reached all the way to the Canadian Border. I discovered this unfortunately 10 minutes before we were to play a dance for the reunion atendees at Camp Darrow on Grand Lake in Northern Maine. I was shocked and in a pickle and a jam simultaneously until it I was offered a fine 'violin' to use by a young woman who was the caller and didn't need to use it. I made do for that evening but wondered if I could get by without my fiddle for our next gig in Eastport. Our close friends Andy and Sharon Buckman (camp director and host) joined us for some hot tunes for the enthusiastic dancers. We felt like all had a great time and that we had visited a wonderful place in the boondocks of Maine that has meant so much to many outdoor enthsiast over its 50 year history.
Back to my fiddle, on close inspection I determined that with a clamp and glue that I could re-set the neck myself and have it playable thereafter. If nothing else perhaps a Cape Breton fiddler could help me out after all we had it in our plans to go there. Our first day in Canada was mostly traveling through New Brunswick and into nothern Nova Scotia. We looked up an old friend of Jenny's in the town of Antigonish who she hadn't seen or been in touch with for 29 years. Its never too late to reconnect with people from your past and it triggers the memories to come back although slowly for us in our middle/old age.
Through being in Nova Scotia we got a better understanding of the mix of European cultures that never blended as much as in the South. This area of Canada was
the original homeland of the Acadians (french colonist) who were banished by the British conquerors and forced to leave. They, as we know from history of American music evolution ended up in Lousiana and blended in Indian/Negro/Caribbean cultures to form what known as the Cajun culture. I sensed that our Appalachian fiddle style is somewhere in between Cape Breton's and Lousiana's similar to how our geographical location is.
Anyway, I reglued and clamped the fiddle neck back into place while on the road the next day and sucessfully recusitated my fiddle back to playable condition during the evening of our one night stay on Cape Breton Island : famous for its dance traditions and distinct music style. I feel like my old fiddle has yet another good blessing in its mysterious history since being found by happenstance by me at Floyd's local thrift store , Angels in the Attic, about a year ago.
We saw some awesome scenery in our short visit to Cape Breton and hope to return someday and finish the tour of the magnificent island. We'd of course like hear some of the local musicians play. We missed out as we were there on a Monday night and like most places, Monday evenings are low key. One needs at least a week there. We made our way back to Maine via the rocky north east coast cutting back across to come back down through New Brunswick to cross the border at St Stephens/ Calais checkpoint. We felt like we had been in a time warp in Cape Breton and Northeast coastal Nova Scotia as the lack of population explosion kept the pace of change to minimum.
Our Eastport, Maine experience was nice and laid back with fine weather, lobster rolls, fine hosts and a fine crowd for our
gig/concert in the Eastport Arts Center. The Eastport area is very beautiful with visitor friendly small town feel and plenty of support for musical unknowns from the South even if they have banjo in the performance. Go vist Eastport if you ever get a chance!
Check us out closer by for the near future. Thanks for stopping by.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
From Northwest to Northeast
I (Mac) am stuck in the Charlotte Airport awaiting my delayed flight to Houston, Texas to board 4 hours past when it was scheduled to leave. I agreed to do a solo gig at the 3rd annual Bayou Cities Music Festival. Jenny is staying on the farm this time. With the modern miracle of wireless internet and a laptop I am able to compose this post with no interuptions and with a large block of time that seems to get larger instead of smaller.
Since the last post we have traveled many miles and had our best experience to date as semi professional musicians. We were part of the staff of the prestigious Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend Washington in it's 31st year northeast of Seattle. We visited the festival at its location known as Fort Worden State Park briefly one evening last summer. We at that time met and jammed with some great area old-time musicians as part of our visit to Jenny's sister Polly who lives and works in Seattle. To be asked to come and be a part of the teaching and performing staff was a thrill in itself. Thanks to Dirk Powell who is the current artistic director.
We met so many nice people from all over the US and Canada. The enthusiam of the students and the supportiing staff was unmatched. In addition to various staff perfomances for the participants and for the general public , two dances with different style bands occurred in the main building every evening as well continuous jamming in the adjacent campground and rental houses. Students were free to roam about the morning classes and we were free to teach anything we wanted. We found a large turnout for our Old-time Country Harmony class held in a wonderful acoustic space of the Fort's Chapel. We had many folks clamoring for copies of the words to several songs from our repetoire that we taught for one morning session per day. These were some of the same folks who contributed to a record number of 70 of our CD's sold though the festival music shop.
During the afternoons each staff group was to hold a band 'lab' where it was our duty to coach a group folks who were interested in our style of music to want to subject themselves to our advice on how to play as a unit. This resulted in a stringband who dubbed themselves "The Trayned Country 'Hams. At one of the evening dances they performed 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain' for dancers to country two step to. And, on the last day on the theater stage, they performed a Stanley Brothers number called 'Darling Do You Know Who Loves You' and the favorite "Golden Slippers'. It got a high rating on the fun meter buttons that came from our band lab member from Fairbanks, Alaska. We reconnected with some old friends formerly from the East who we hadn't seen in 15 years or more. We met some more of the Seattle area's old-time musicians
The awesome beauty of the area about Fort Worden State Park (originally established to defend of the Straits of Juan De Luca) was truly remarkable with the snow-covered Cascade mountains in sight across the water while the beautiful Olympic mountains were just a little southwest of us.
We also celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary on July the 4th starting with our afternoon performance on the big Centrum stage before 1200 people who were there for the big variety of music as well as for the annual Fort Worden fireworks display just off the shore. A cool steady wind blew for nearly the whole time making us wonder if it was really July or not. Apparently summer is marked by the absence of the rainy cloudy weather that the Northwest is known for but the temperature is rarely considered 'hot'.
Returning to Seattle on Sunday July 8th, we went to Polly's place and celebrated Jenny's 50th birthday. Folks attending the
the special milestone supper included Jenny's older brother Rob and family from Yakima WA as well as Jenny's neice, Emily, from Toronto. Our Flight out on Tuesday was highlighted by a super awesome view of Mt Rainier ( we flew very near it and got some awesome phots of it) and also of Mt St Helens. We met nice people on our return flight as well marking the end of a BLAST!!!!!
Since the last post we have traveled many miles and had our best experience to date as semi professional musicians. We were part of the staff of the prestigious Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend Washington in it's 31st year northeast of Seattle. We visited the festival at its location known as Fort Worden State Park briefly one evening last summer. We at that time met and jammed with some great area old-time musicians as part of our visit to Jenny's sister Polly who lives and works in Seattle. To be asked to come and be a part of the teaching and performing staff was a thrill in itself. Thanks to Dirk Powell who is the current artistic director.
We met so many nice people from all over the US and Canada. The enthusiam of the students and the supportiing staff was unmatched. In addition to various staff perfomances for the participants and for the general public , two dances with different style bands occurred in the main building every evening as well continuous jamming in the adjacent campground and rental houses. Students were free to roam about the morning classes and we were free to teach anything we wanted. We found a large turnout for our Old-time Country Harmony class held in a wonderful acoustic space of the Fort's Chapel. We had many folks clamoring for copies of the words to several songs from our repetoire that we taught for one morning session per day. These were some of the same folks who contributed to a record number of 70 of our CD's sold though the festival music shop.
During the afternoons each staff group was to hold a band 'lab' where it was our duty to coach a group folks who were interested in our style of music to want to subject themselves to our advice on how to play as a unit. This resulted in a stringband who dubbed themselves "The Trayned Country 'Hams. At one of the evening dances they performed 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain' for dancers to country two step to. And, on the last day on the theater stage, they performed a Stanley Brothers number called 'Darling Do You Know Who Loves You' and the favorite "Golden Slippers'. It got a high rating on the fun meter buttons that came from our band lab member from Fairbanks, Alaska. We reconnected with some old friends formerly from the East who we hadn't seen in 15 years or more. We met some more of the Seattle area's old-time musicians
The awesome beauty of the area about Fort Worden State Park (originally established to defend of the Straits of Juan De Luca) was truly remarkable with the snow-covered Cascade mountains in sight across the water while the beautiful Olympic mountains were just a little southwest of us.
We also celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary on July the 4th starting with our afternoon performance on the big Centrum stage before 1200 people who were there for the big variety of music as well as for the annual Fort Worden fireworks display just off the shore. A cool steady wind blew for nearly the whole time making us wonder if it was really July or not. Apparently summer is marked by the absence of the rainy cloudy weather that the Northwest is known for but the temperature is rarely considered 'hot'.
Returning to Seattle on Sunday July 8th, we went to Polly's place and celebrated Jenny's 50th birthday. Folks attending the
the special milestone supper included Jenny's older brother Rob and family from Yakima WA as well as Jenny's neice, Emily, from Toronto. Our Flight out on Tuesday was highlighted by a super awesome view of Mt Rainier ( we flew very near it and got some awesome phots of it) and also of Mt St Helens. We met nice people on our return flight as well marking the end of a BLAST!!!!!
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