March 2010 - Bluegrass Association of Southern California

March 2010
No. 2 Volume 3
This Month at BASC
The Official eNewsletter of the Bluegrass Association of Southern California
The
Bluegrass
Association
of Southern
California
PO Box 10885
Canoga Park,
CA 91309
(818) 221-4680
[email protected]
Board of
Directors
Harley Tarlitz
Jeffrey Fleck
Bob Cesarone
Ben Weinberg
Nanette Weinberg
Jim Silvers
Walden Dahl
Click Here to
Join BASC
On-Line
Bill Evans and
Megan Lynch
Come to the
Braemar
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
BASC Night at
the Braemar
Braemar Country Club
4001 Reseda Bl. Tarzana 91356
6:00 to 9:00 PM
her performances with country and
bluegrass luminaries Pam Tillis, 3 Fox
Drive, Due West, Dale Ann Bradley, Tony
Trischka, Chris Jones, Roland White and
Jim Hurst.
While virtuosic instrumental work is to be
expected from these musicians, it's the
outstanding lead singing of Megan and the
pair's rich duo vocal sound that is a
revelation. Drawing on singer-songwriter
and alternative rock sources as much as
traditional old-time and bluegrass music, the
duo creates music that's intensely intimate
but truly difficult to categorize. While rooted
in bluegrass tradition, Bill Evans and Megan
Lynch display a natural and unassuming
sophistication that reflects their wideranging interest in many kinds of
contemporary and popular music.
Since teaming up as a touring duo in 2008,
The new CD "Let's do something..." is
Albany, CA and Nashville, TN bluegrass
produced by Sam Bush Band guitar player
mainstays Bill Evans & Megan Lynch have
Steve Mougin and was recorded in Nashville
been performing all
in the summer of
around the United
2008. Featuring
States and in the
richly textured
United Kingdom
soundscapes of
and Ireland.
multiple fiddles
Spanning a thirtyand banjos
five year
matched to Megan
professional
and Bill's voices,
performing career,
the project
banjo player and
features new takes
Banjo For
on compositions
Dummies author
from Deb Tannen,
Bill Evans has
Nick Drake, John
performed with
Gorka, Mark
Dry Branch Fire
Knopfler, Van
Squad, Peter
Morrison, Teitur,
Rowan, David
and the rock bands
Grisman, Hazel
Editors and We
Dickens, Laurie
The Kings along
Lewis, Jody
with two new
Stecher, Kathy
instrumental tunes
Kallick, Bluegrass
written by Bill
Intentions and his
Evans. Live, Bill
own Bill Evans
plays acoustic and
String Summit.
electric banjo and
His two CDs
guitar while
Megan Lynch and Bill Evans
"Native and
Megan plays fiddle.
Fine" (Rounder Records) and "Bill Evans
$5.00 admission to the concert includes
Plays Banjo" (Native and Fine Records)
coffee, tea, and soft drinks. $15.00
topped critics' lists and the Bluegrass
admission includes the world famous
Unlimited charts. People know Nashville
Braemar Country Club pasta bar which
resident Megan Lynch from her National
opens at 6:00 PM.
Championship fiddling credentials and from
This Month at BASC
Jams Around
Town
The BASC Jam in the Park
CTMS Center for Folk Music
Encino Park
11953 Ventura Blvd.
Encino, CA 91316
Sundays, 1:00 to 5:00 PM
Jeff Fleck 310-390-4391
The Soup Jam
3240 Industry Dr,
Signal Hill, CA
Tuesdays 7:00 PM
Don Rowen 562-883-573
The New Westside Jam
Industry&Jazz Cafe
6039 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA
1st Monday 7:30 PM
Jeff Fleck 310-390-4391
The Altadena Jam
Coffee Gallery
2029 N. Lake
Altadena, CA
2nd Sunday 12:30 PM
Dave Naiditch
[email protected]
Blue Ridge Pickin’ Parlor
17828 Chatsworth St
Granada Hills, CA
1st Saturday 7:30 PM
(818) 282-9001
Orange County Archery
18792 Brookhurst St.
Fountain Valley CA
1st & 3rd Thursday, 6 PM
Shelah Spiegel
(714) 454-1976
Zoey’s Cafe
451 E. Main St.
Ventura, CA
2nd & 4th Mon., 6-10 PM
Gene Rubin
[email protected]
Viva Cantina
900 Riverside Drive
Burbank CA 91506
3rd Monday of Every
Jam Workshop: 6-7 PM
Jam: 7-10 PM
Matt Merritt (818) 669-9778
Editor
Jeff Fleck
(310) 390-4391
[email protected]
All comments,
suggestions, and
submissions will be gladly
considered.
Page 2
March 2010
The First Bluegrass Song
By Jeff Fleck
Pete Kuykendall, who was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Museum Hall
of Honor in 2006, has had an illustrious career in Bluegrass music. In the 1950s, he was a
prize winning banjoist, a Washington D.C. area disc jockey, and a member of the Country
Gentlemen. Since then he has been at various times a bluegrass discographer. songwriter,
engineer, producer, publisher, and publicist. He was a founding member of the
International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) and he helped found Bluegrass
Unlimited, which he continues to edit forty years later.
Still, it takes a certain amount of audacity to claim to identify the very first Bluegrass
song. But that’s the claim Pete made in a article he wrote for Disc Collector, a monthly
record collector’s bulletin that appeared in the early 1950s. As later recounted in Bill C.
Malone’s Country Music, U.S.A., Pete asserted that the first recorded songs to bear all the
elements of what would later be called Bluegrass music were Will You be Loving Another
Man and Blue Yodel No. 4. Both were recorded by Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys
for Columbia on September 1, 1946.
So what makes these the first full-fledged Bluegrass songs? What “elements” was Pete
talking about?
It doesn’t hurt, of
course, that the
songs were recorded
by Bill Monroe, the
universally
acknowledged
Father of Bluegrass
Music. But Bill was
hardly a newcomer
in 1946. The Monroe
Brothers (Bill and
brother Charlie)
achieved
considerable
regional success in
the mid-1930s and
recorded sixty songs
for RCA’s Bluebird
label. After the
brothers went their
Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, and Earl Scruggs in 1946
separate ways, Bill
formed the Blue Grass Boys (blue grass here is a reference to Bill’s home state; it was not
used to describe the music until the 1950s) which debuted on the Grand Ole Opry in 1939
with a rendition of the Jimmie Rodgers classic, Mule Skinner Blues (Blue Yodel No. 8).
The audience loved it and immediately sensed that here was something new and exciting.
For many, including Bill Monroe, this performance marks the start of Bluegrass music.
For Bill, the key “element” of the new sound was the rhythm, which was faster and much
more driving than the standard country beat at the time. Compare Bill’s performance with
the original Jimmie Rodgers recording and you will understand what Bill was talking
about.
But there was much more to come. Between 1939 and 1946, while the band went through
many personnel changes, Bill constantly experimented with instrumentation, repertoire,
and style. By 1946 he had assembled the group of musicians who were to establish a
sound and style that would be widely imitated and ultimately become a musical genre
with a name: Bluegrass music.
Lester Flatt joined the band in 1945. As a rhythm guitarist he built upon the styles of
Maybelle Carter and Charlie Monroe, but his playing was smoother and more syncopated
than theirs. He made ample use of bass runs, one of which he used so often to punctuate
verses that it came to be known as the “Lester Flatt G run.” Flatt was a great song writer
(Continued on Page 3)
This Month at BASC
The Festival &
Concert Watch
Ricky Skaggs
Cal State Northridge
March 13th, 8 PM
(818) 677-2488
Old Town Temecula
Bluegrass Festival
March 20-21 2010
Parkfield Bluegrass
Festival
May 6-9 2010
Topanga Banjo Fiddle
Contest
May 16, 2010
Huck Finn Jubilee
June 18-20, 2010
CBA’s 35th Annual
Father’s Day Weekend
Bluegrass Festival
June 17-20, 2010
SoCal
Bluegrass
Resources
Southwest Bluegrass
Association
Calliforna Traditional
Music Society
San Diego Bluegrass
Association
California Bluegrass
Association
International Bluegrass
Music Association
Folkworks
Alive and Picking
Blue Ridge Pickin’ Parlor
Boulevard Music
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First Song
(Continued from page 2)
and lead vocalist, and his somewhat
mellow delivery contrasted with Monroe’
sharp-edged tenor. The result was the
classic sound of the Bluegrass highlonesome duet that we hear in Will You Be
Loving Another Man.
Bill Monroe always considered the fiddle
the main instrument in his type of music,
and all the fiddlers that came through his
band during this period (there were at least
four) attested to the great influence
Monroe had on their style of playing.
Chubby Wise was the fiddler in the 1946
band, and his driving, blues-edged melodic
interpretations, full of unusual slides and
double-stops set the standard for all future
Bluegrass fiddlers.
Cedric Rainwater was the bass player (and
comedian) in the band. His generous use
of the walking bass (playing on all four
beats of the measure) gave a sense of drive
to even the more moderately paced songs
of the band’s repertoire. In Will You Be
Loving Another Man, notice how he
alternates between the typical two notes
per measure rhythm and the walking bass
to great effect.
Bill Monroe was also evolving during
these years, especially in his mandolin
playing. Bill has always claimed the blues
as an integral part of his new sound, but
prior to 1946 this was primarily seen in the
instrumentals he wrote for mandolin like
Tennessee Blues and Honkey Tonk Swing.
His mandolin breaks in the earlier songs
were closer to the style he used with the
Monroe Brothers. By 1945 he had
developed a more bluesy, syncopated style
combined with a heavy attack on the
strings. This is more evident in Blue Yodel
No. 4 (third break) than in Will You Be
Loving Another Man.
I have left the role of Earl Scruggs, the 22year old banjo player in the band, for last
because his contribution to the new sound
was clearly the most revolutionary of all.
The banjo was not an important element in
the earlier versions of the Blue Grass
Boys. Stringbean (Dave Akeman) had
been with the band from 1942 to 1945, and
while he switched from frailing to a two-
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March 2010
finger style for Monroe, his picking did
not always mesh with the faster, driving
rhythm that Monroe was developing.
Moreover, Monroe only rarely used the
banjo as a solo instrument. With the arrival
Bill Monroe
of Earl Scruggs all that changed. Scruggs
three-finger style of banjo-picking with its
driving, machine-gun like intensity and
syncopated rhythms electrified the
audiences that first heard it at the Grand
Ole Opry in 1946. With the Scruggs style
of playing, the banjo became a solo
instrument and came to occupy a central
place in the new sound. Judge Hay, the
founder and MC of the Opry was soon
referring to “Earl Scruggs and his fancy
banjo” when introducing the band. Will
You Be Loving Another Man is the first
released recording that includes an uptempo Scruggs banjo break. Since then, of
course, the banjo has become nearly
synonymous with Bluegrass music.
Bluegrass music has travelled a long road
since 1946. While largely a conservative
art form, there has always been
experimentation and innovation. The
Dobro was added to the mix in the 1950s,
and later guitar players began taking
regular solos. New recording technology
influenced the sound of Bluegrass music.
But Will You Be Loving Another Man and
the twenty-seven other songs cut by the
classic Blue Grass Boys in the Wrigley
Building in Chicago in 1946 and 1947
remain the benchmark against which all
Bluegrass music is measured.
McCabe’s Guitar Shop
Would you like to comment on this article? Email the editor we’ll try to include your
comment in next month’s eNewsletter.
This Month at BASC
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March 2010
About BASC
Don’t Miss the BASC Jam in the Park
BASC is dedicated to the
Sunday, March 28th 1:00 to 5:00 PM
the amateur level with
On the fourth Sunday of every month pickers from far and wide are
gathering at the CTMS Folk Music Center in Encino Park for what is
becoming one of Southern California’s premier Bluegrass events -- the BASC
Jam in the Park. With plenty of room -- inside the Center or outside on the
grass if the weather is nice -- this jam is for pickers of all skills and
experience. Don’t be surprised if you find three or four jams going on when
you arrive. Just pick the one that fits you best and join in. The jam goes from
1:00 to 5:00 PM. Snacks and drinks (and BASC tee shirts) will be on sale.
our monthly Jam in the
Here are the remaining dates in 2010.
Park and monthly Pizza
March 28th * April 25th * May 23rd * June 27th
July 25th * August 22nd * September 26th * October 24th
November 28th * December 26th
support and promotion of
Bluegrass music at all
levels.
We support Bluegrass at
Night where audience
members are encouraged
to “sit in” with the band.
We provide a showcase
Click for Map
for the best local
Bluegrass bands at our
Encino Park
16953 Ventura Blvd.
Encino, CA 91316
monthly BASC Night at
the Braemar.
We build interest in
Bluegrass by bringing
some of the best national
bands to Southern
California, including such
artists as J.D. Crowe,
Laurie Lewis, IIIrd Tyme
Out, James King, and The
Special Consensus.
Most importantly, we
Yes, I would like to join BASC and
support Bluegrass in Southern California.
One-Year Membership
Individual $20.00 - Family $25.00 - Band $30.00
Name __________________________
Street__________________________
City____________State___Zip______
Phone__________Email___________
provide a place where
I would like to volunteer to _______
people who want to get
____________________________
connected to Bluegrass
Mail this coupon and your check payable to
BASC to:
Ben Weinberg
16799 Schoenborn St
North Hills CA 91343
as pickers, as listeners,
as volunteers or
organizers – can get
together and meet people
who share their love of
this great music.
Click here
to join BASC
On-Line
Coming Up at Braemar
2010
April 20th
The Brainstormers
& Joel and Laura
Garfield
May 18th
The Mill Creek Boys
November 16th
Rocky Neck Bluegrass
Band
December 21st
Scott Gates and
Nathan McEuen
2011
June 15th
2 Frets Lower
January 18th
Simon Pure
July 20th
The Brombies
February 15th
Sometimes In Tune
August 17th
The Bladerunners
March 15th
Susie Glaze and the
Hilonesome Band
September 21st
Murphy's Flaw
October 19th
Border Radio
Call Harley Tarlitz at
(818) 221-4680 to get
your band booked at
Braemar.
Run Away with Huck Finn…
FATHER’S DAY WEEKEND • JUNE 18, 19, 20, 2010
Country &Bluegrass
CAMP in a meadow • EAT lots of vittles • SHOP a crafts village • RIDE in a hot air balloon • ENJOY 3 days of music
The Oak Ridge Boys
Mark Twain Live
Rhonda Vincent & The Rage
Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper
Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out
Chris Jones & The Night Drivers
The Travelin’ McCourys
Nathan McEuen & Scott Gates
Sierra Hull & Highway 111
Sons & Brothers
Waddie Mitchell
The Hey Boyz
Julie Wingfield
Lonesome Otis
Riley’s Mountaineers
Bon Family Cloggers
Line Dancing with KC Douglas
Chapel with Wayne Rice & Lighthouse
Sunday Gospel Sing
The National Bluegrass Playoffs &
Southwest Bluegrass Association present
Deering Banjo Championships
$1,000 1st Prize! • Call to enter: 1-951-780-8810
Friday Night Barn Dance with Riley’s Mountaineers
Route 66 Car Show • Russell Bros. Circus
California State Arm Wrestling Championships
Sound
SIRIUS XM RADIO’S “BLUEGRASS JUNCTION” WILL BE THERE!
Camping & Tickets
huckfinn.com • 1-951-780-8810
MOJAVE NARROWS REGIONAL PARK • VICTORVILLE, CALIFORNIA
Sponsored by BMSCC i The Bluegrass Music Society of the Central Coast
027+(5·6'$<:((.(1'May
Featuring
Don
Rigsby
& Midnight Call
Also :
The Rarely Herd, The Brombies,
Whiskey Chimp, Bean Creek,
Dalton Mtn. Gang, Kitchen Help,
Black Crown Stringband,
Virtual Strangers & more !
6-9, 2010
4 DAYS OF BLUEGRASS MUSIC IN
&$/,)251,$·6&(175$/&2$67
WINE COUNTRY.
12 wonderful national, regional & local
bluegrass bands. Non-stop jamming.
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KIDS PROGRAMS-Kids bluegrass music camp
with lessons & performance onstage.
Plenty of camping space -59·VWHQWVLQ
4 different camping areas. Electric hookups by
reservation ONLY (sign up early to get on list).
%%4·VUDLVHGILUHSLWV2.'RJV2.
Many wonderful festival vendors &
The Parkfield Café for good eats & great gifts.
NEW! RV rentals available ²see the website link.
For complete information & ticket orders,
please check out our Website:
(to be announced³check the website!)
www.parkfieldbluegrass.com
TICKETS: Adults (age 20-59)
All 4 days
$90 Gate $80 Advance
3 consecutive days
$80 Gate $70 Advance
Single Day: Thu $20 Fri $30 Sat $35 Sun $25
Seniors (age 60+), Students w/ ID, Military,
Or BMSCC members
$5 off Adult price
Kids & Teens (up to age 19)
FREE
Advance Discount only on 3 & 4-day tickets.
ADVANCE TICKET DEADLINE April 1, 2010
CAMPING FEE: (per unit: RV, camper or tent)
4-day, Thurs-Sun $30
3 consecutive days, $25
Single Night:
$10
Pre-Festival Night $12
Electrical Hookup flat fee: $45 per unit/flat fee.
Limited Qty hookups-reserve soon to get on the list!
MAIL ORDER TICKETS: Checks payable to
BMSCC, PO Box 332, Grover Beach, CA 93483.
Please include a stamped self-address legal size envelope.
(TICKET INFORMATION SUBJECT TO CHANGE)
March 13, 8pm
Plaza del Sol 818.677.24 8 8
PERFORMANCE HALL
at
the
California State University, Northridge
www.Arts.ValleyPerformingArtsCenter.org