Good Music Done Right

What is it about hearing good music in really small venues that is so satisfying? On Saturday, April 14th, my wife and I had the pleasure of seeing a fine performance by the Manhattan Valley Ramblers at the Orchard House Café on the east side of New York City. Bluegrass in the Big Apple? Yes it does happen. And when MVR is on the bill you’ll get good solid old time picking, soulful vocal harmonies and one of the best fiddle players this listener has ever heard. John Saroyan – guitar, banjo and mandolin – and Bill Christophersen – fiddle and guitar – make up this excellent duo.

The two set program leaned heavily on songs of earlier eras. We heard covers of the Stanley Brothers, Louvin Brothers and, impressively, the Everly Brothers. There were fiddle tunes bowed with what seemed like wild abandon. And that only shows how skilled the fiddler really is. I won’t do a song by song review but here are a few titles that stood out for one reason or another. “Turkey Buzzard” “Wild Hog In the Woods” “Big Tiger Special” “Single-Footing Horse” and “Three Thin Dimes” all showcased Mr. Christophersen’s inspired fiddling. The vocal work on “Down, Down, Down” “Summertime is Past and Gone” “Devoted” “Making Believe” and a particularly fine rendition of “Childish Love” exemplified the deep feelings so evident in Bluegrass music. All of the songs selected display the respect and affection that this duo has for all the compositions.

Now back to the first rhetorical question that I posed. A small venue like the Orchard House Café provides an intimate and friendly atmosphere that is so difficult to duplicate in larger concert settings. Here the musicians can look into the eyes of the audience and gauge how the songs are being accepted or rejected. They can change their set list to alter the mood and they can engage in friendly banter with their listeners, and between themselves, which can also get folks loosened up or ready to appreciate a serious point about the origin or story behind a song. It’s a great way to hear music and the Manhattan Valley Ramblers maximized their setting.

The duo has a fine CD of their music available. The title is “Ballads and Barnburners” and I believe if you check out their website you can obtain this item. John and Bill each have their own CD’s from a few years back and they’re also very good. Go to www.manhattanvalleyramblers.com to learn more.

Let me add one more personal note here. John and Bill are two very kind, friendly and personable fellows. Get out to see them and you’ll see very quickly that these are genuine musicians, dedicated to their art and constantly working to improve their already formidable skills.

Being Different: Thank you Aimee

When I was shopping in that big box store that we're all familiar with the other day I noticed, as I usually do, lots of young people wandering aimlessly about talking on cell phones, sending text messages and having inane conversations. Watching and listening to these people causes us certified old folks to think that there's not much hope for America. We worry that the pervasive influence of a dumbed down educational system is creating a whole generation of youngsters that can only speak gibberish. But then along comes a glimmer of hope. That glimmer for me was the appearance of an essay by one of my very young cousins out in Texas. Her name is Aimee and she has graciously allowed me to reprint her essay here. Aimee is a middle school student and a very bright young lady. She is also a musician and this essay was written for a competition sponsored by the Texas Music Teachers Association. In the essay Aimee explains in a clever way some of the differences between music of different eras and along the way she teaches us a little about differences in people. She won the competition which isn't too surprising considering the quality of the writing. She's a talented kid, one that offers us old folks some pleasant reassurance. Thank you Aimee, for being different.

Being Different
by Aimee Bourey

“Normal is not an option!” Lizzie glared at me in defiance as joggers slowed down to stare at us. She stuck out in the small park with her loud voice, bright blue hair, neon green clothes, and ruby red nails dotted with little black hearts.

“What?” I sighed. We were walking through the park on our way home from school. Today I gave a speech in Social Studies titled “How Teens Try to Fit In.” Of course there were repercussions. Lizzie continued on as only she could.

“You’re so normal Lauren! Even your name is normal. Do you know how many normal girls, and possibly even some very abnormal guys, share your name? You could be the queen of normal, with your normal brunette hair, and your normal brown eyes. Is it your goal to blend in with every other person?”

Lizzie rambled on and I let my attention wander. We walked by an amphitheater and I caught a glimpse of a theater company rehearsing Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King. I heard Lizzie conclude her complaints, so I turned my attention back to her.

“You could at least go by India, your middle name; it’s pretty and different!”

I paused with a smile. “Well, if you think about it, you’re the normal one. Since the early 1900’s everybody has tried to be different! We’re a strange generation, where being different is pretty much normal. The music we listen to and create today would probably be unimaginable to early composers. Today composers frequently use unpleasant-sounding, dissonant chords, like sevenths, and unusual time signatures like 5/8 and 7/8. For example, Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird is written in 7/4 time.”

She looked at me with a confused smile and we walked down the amphitheater steps to watch the rehearsal. I tried to follow the horridly pitchy voices and the bizarre cacophonous orchestral music that was Eight Songs for a Mad King. Climbing chromatic scales played with a whimsical air while the vocals screeched and plunged from high notes to low growls. Dog walkers all around us tried to settle down their antsy dogs while they wondered what in the world this was.

“See?” I said. “This song is exactly what I am talking about!” This is the strange, jarring music of our era. I think that this just shows you—” Lizzie interrupted; of course.

“This just goes to show that in this era, all musicians are nut-jobs. But I see what you mean. I think. Everyone is trying to stand out nowadays. So technically I’m pretty normal!” She laughed to herself.

I kept on talking. “Contemporary composers seem to follow different rules than everybody else. They use modal scales, which most people stopped using after Bach’s time, but…well, I guess we’re just a strange kind of people. Contemporary music can also have different key signatures in the melody and harmony. That was probably not even thought of until the contemporary era.” As I went on, my voice rose in excitement. “Though this song may be a little wild even for the contemporary era, it helps give you the idea. A lot of songs almost sound like people are playing wrong notes! If you ever listen to some of Bela Bartok’s work, you’ll see what I mean, like in Six Dances in a Bulgarian Rhythm. In those songs a lot of the chords sound like mistakes, but his music is a whole lot easier to listen to than this one. ” I winced at a weird screaming part in the song.

“Well,” Lizzie said, wincing as well, “it’s nice to know that some music written in our time is listenable.” She looked around. “Hey, there’s a music store! You wanna go see if we can find some different music?” She said with a smile. I knew that she was through with calling me normal. At least for now.

Health Care

I’m a diabetic. Now hold on, don’t go all mushy with sympathy for my degeneratively diseased old self. You can direct that towards the celebrities in those medicine advertisements. No, I’m a type 2 case who fortunately doesn’t need to stab my body with insulin filled needles throughout the day. My treatment consists of frequent visits to the doctor’s office for lectures about weight loss and healthy living, watching my waistline (it seems to be easier to see all the time), walking two or three miles a day and taking a nice white pill with breakfast. Since I was already taking a couple pills for my hypertension (high blood pressure for you medically un-educated folks) one more tablet didn’t seem like a bad idea. Of course about a year ago the doctor told me some of my medicines were lowering my potassium level so he prescribed a couple of chunky pieces of that mineral to add to the pill pile. But all in all, I’m in okay shape and certainly hoping that I won’t be a burden to you all when I go on Medicare in a couple weeks.

Of course my medical insurance will still be supplied by my dear wife as she continues on her quest for more money and benefits in the world of employment. Some day we’ll be looking at those Plan B, D and other alphabetical supplements that are designed to bankrupt old people on fixed incomes. But for now we’re doing okay. In fact (And here’s what I really wanted to talk about instead of Mr. Obama’s health care utopia) I even have a service where a registered nurse calls me on the phone every six weeks or so to check on me.

This program is called DelaWell, or something similar to that. I call it the “Medical Service for People Who are too Stupid to Be Alive” feature of the insurance policy. The program is provided by our health insurance as a preventative measure for people with diabetes. The very nice nurse from the service will ask questions and pretend to listen to the answers. Then she will deliver a little lecture repeating the stuff that the doctor tells me when I go see him. These nurses assume that a diabetic patient has never read anything about the condition. They assume that we have no access to computers, libraries or the literature that litters the doctor’s waiting room or the little waiting area in the pharmacies where we get our prescriptions filled. I don’t know about other people but when I was informed that I am diabetic I did a little research. It didn’t take a whole lot of checking to see that I’d need to make some changes to my cheese steak and french fries lifestyle, which I did. Mostly.

When the nurse calls she (usually it’s a she) asks the same set of questions about weight, diet, exercise and so forth. Since she asks the same questions every time I figure I can give her the same answers, so I do. Then she asks if I’m depressed, tired, having trouble sleeping and if I’ve checked my feet. Those are all valid questions but, again, if she listened at all, or consulted her computer screen which has all the answers from almost two years of this crap, she’d see that her time would be better spent with a patient who wants to let the disease destroy his or her body. I’m not on that plan. But I suppose there are medical protocols that have to be followed. And I’m sure that these nurses, sitting in their call centers or home offices, are sincere in their desire to help people and not just make a few bucks charging the State of Delaware some exorbitant fee for their service.
Well I’ve shared enough of my personal opinions about this stuff. The phone’s ringing again. It might be somebody from DelaWell, somebody selling diabetic supplies or an estate planning telemarketer. How all these companies learned I was diabetic and on my last legs I can only guess. I’m sure a reputable health and wellness advisory service provider would never give away their client lists. No, I’m sure they’d sell it for a tidy sum.

Have a fine day. I will.

Government vs. Catholics

The news of the day has found its way into my usually unbreakable bubble of resistance against any unpleasant emanations from Washington, New York City or the West Coast. Most days, most weeks actually, I can meander through my days without any political conflict or dopey bureaucratic pronouncements marring the pleasant landscape of my life. But once in a while I look at stuff on the Yahoo! (such an appropriate name) news page which sends me into either fits of rage or spasms of disbelief. Before you know it I’m at the keyboard banging out a blog that will tick off at least eighty percent of my eight readers. And here I am again.

And what I’ve been reading today has to do with the battle between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church. What the heck is the president thinking about by picking this fight? I’m not talking about the moral issues. I’m not talking about the Affordable Health Care act. I’m not even talking about how dweeby Harry Reid sounds when he talks. No, I’m talking about nuns. And to a lesser degree I’m talking about other kinds of clergy.

I went to Catholic schools for a few years. It’s true that when I went to those schools things were tougher. Fear was part of the curriculum. A lot of that has been toned down over the years but I’ve got a feeling that if you rile those folks up too much then there’s no telling what can happen. The nuns might get back into those ninja looking outfits they used to wear. New strings of beads may appear and they may be made out of heavy ball bearings that could crack a skull before you could offer up a “Hail Mary”.

And if the male clergy starts wearing cassocks again you never know what they’ll be carrying under those skirts. Sawed off shotguns or even assault rifles would be easy to hide.

Back in my school days the nuns could intimidate with stares and glares. In the lunchroom I saw those brown metal trays (plastic ones hadn’t been invented yet) smacked on the heads of unruly boys with speed and accuracy. Even our parents knew enough to fear the authority of the Church.

It’s been a long time since Catholics have lined up behind the hierarchy and set off on a crusade. But Mr. Obama has rattled a lot of cages with his latest silly idea. I read some of the stuff his press secretary was spouting off today. It seems, and maybe I’m simplifying things just a little, that the administration really does think that religious folks who don’t believe in abortion are ignorant dullards. And maybe they do believe that a large percentage of Catholics don’t care at all about the Church tenets regarding that issue. But there’s a crowd of folks who do care and there are a lot of members of other churches that see a constitutional problem with the policies that are being pushed into practice. Those government geniuses better watch out. The knuckle beating rulers are coming out of storage and they’ll have sharp edges this time.

Now have a fine day and leave me alone.

Mental Maps

A friend of mine referenced (On Facebook which I’ll mention later on) a recent article in the New York Times about some research that indicates that using GPS systems may cause folks to lose their ability to find their way around on their own. In the words of my grandson – well duh! The more I read about research projects like this the more I think the funding agencies should just send me a subject and a whole bunch of cash and I’ll just tell them what the research results will look like.

For a short time I used the GPS system that came with the car we bought. I cancelled the service when the trial period was up and not just because it was too expensive to continue. No, I cancelled it because it was messing up my own impeccable sense of direction. On one trip my wife and I were traveling through Philadelphia. I know my way around that town but I was using the GPS to see if that massive computer system would find a shorter, quicker way to our destination. Not only did the thing send us on a longer, slower route than the one I had planned in my head but it also sent us into an area that was torn up with construction and populated by unsavory characters that scared my wife into dialing a 9 and a 1 on her cell phone. That way she’d be only a single digit away from alerting the police to trouble. As soon as I stopped depending on the electronic map gadget I got out of the dangerous territory and on our way to our destination in no time at all.

Many of my friends and family members rely on their GPS machines all the time. They won’t go to the grocery store a mile away without turning the things on. Of course, some of my friends and relatives had trouble getting to the grocery store before the GPS was invented. They always seemed to have to stop in at one bar or another to get directions. But even the ones that could find their way would probably have trouble now if their electronic directional nannies broke down.

The same friend of mine who pointed out the GPS research article wondered if an electronic mapping guide couldn’t be invented for working your way through other complicated parts of life. He suggested some sort of positioning guide for marriages, careers or raising kids. Perhaps a wrist watch type instrument could be worn that would warn a husband to keep his mouth shut when the wife asks him if he thinks she’s putting on weight. Or maybe parents could have the same kind of device talking them through the minefield of sex education with their little puberty bound offspring. Come to think of it, those might be a lot more useful than the one that tells you to turn left in one mile.

But I really don’t think more electronics would be better. In fact so much of the interaction between humans is digital that it almost seems unnatural having a face to face conversation. Facebook, Twitter and all those other substitutes for real talking are getting more and more pervasive every year. Now, I admit that I do use Facebook. And I also admit that it has been a good way to re-connect with family and friends and it has also brought some fine new friends into my life. But I don’t text. I don’t tweet. In fact I’d be embarrassed to even say that I tweeted. It just sounds so dang silly. If you listen to people (usually young folks) who depend on text devices as they engage in regular conversation they sound uncomfortable and oddly disjointed. They seem to have lost the ability to use adjectives and adverbs. And their nouns and verbs are short and punctuated by lapses of intelligible sounds. But maybe I’m just a codger and I wouldn’t understand those youngsters even if they weren’t addicted to abbreviations on glowing screens.

But let me go back to GPS device for a minute. If we become so dependent on those things then what will happen if there’s a major crash of the internet or the national electrical grids? Thousands of senior citizens won’t be able to find their way back home from Florida in spring time. There’ll be huge traffic jams all over the place. Wives will be screaming at husbands as wrong turns are made over and over again. Marriages will fail right and left. (Sorry) But I have a suggestion that can help folks keep their internal mapping abilities sharp. If you’re planning a trip, short or long, take a look at a paper map, jot down a directional note or two and go. Leave the GPS off, or, better yet leave it at home. Then tell everyone about your accomplishment (assuming you made it to your destination) which will make them very envious and ready to out do you on their next journey. In no time at all folks will be in competition every time they travel. IQ scores will rise. SAT scores will be higher than ever as young people try to outsmart their elders. Politicians might even get smarter and figure a way out of the messes we’re in.

Okay, this is where I should probably put in a summary and a nice little encouraging message. But since all of you people are giving up on GPS machines you’re smart enough to fill in this space yourselves.

Now, go find your own way to a fine day.

Good Guys

Yesterday I had a very pleasant phone conversation with a good guy. I met this fellow online through our mutual fandom for the Gibson Brothers bluegrass group. We had exchanged notes, read each others blogs and shared our enthusiasm for our favorite musical group. All of that led to a phone call which bodes well for a burgeoning friendship.

After the conversation ended I thought about how very fortunate I am in having friends, family and acquaintances who are good guys. It almost goes without saying that good guys can be girls. But it is better that I put that clarification on the page. If I started a “good guy list” of folks I know and have known on the next line of this essay I’d end up with several pages of names and probably still miss a few important people due to my aging memory.

Here’s my own personal definition of a good guy: a person who is kind, thinks of others before him(or her)self, strives to be positive, laughs easily, is humble, takes care of responsibilities, tries to lead a moral life and is thoughtfully aware of what is going on in the world.

You can see that it’s not easy being a good guy. But I’ve know an awful lot of them. When I start thinking about how messed up the world is, how much just plain badness exists, I think about some of the good guys on my list. Sometimes I’ll give one a call or send a note asking for a little advice or encouragement. In no time at all things look better and I’ve usually learned something useful in the process.

I won’t embarrass my new friend by putting his name here. Well, maybe I will later. But first let me tell you a little bit about him. He’s a fine musician, a writer and a pediatric physician. His work is mostly with children who are very, very ill and he provides what we now call palliative care and pain management. Those are medical words for one of the toughest jobs in health care. This fellow is a family man with a wife and a couple of youngsters. He has a passion for good bluegrass and old time music that he expresses with very good singing and picking. He plays this music in one of the most unlikely markets, New York City. But with his bandmate he spreads the joy of bluegrass all around those proverbial concrete canyons. In addition to all this my friend writes blogs about music with a positive and entertaining style. He’s knowledgeable about and invariably supportive of artists in the bluegrass field. So now I’ve decided to divulge his name because I think he deserves a little recognition and a wider audience. The good guy I’ve been talking about is John Saroyan of the Manhattan Valley Ramblers from, obviously, New York City. Check out his writing at jimsrootsandblues.com. That site also has the Manhattan Valley Ramblers performance dates on the calendar.

So my “good guy list” is a little longer now. It can never be too long, of course. Hope to see everyone on it someday soon. Now, have a fine day.

ERIC GIBSON: Up Close And Personal, The Busco-Dome, Churubusco NY, 11/26/2011

The venue is a vintage looking Quonset building with a generous coating of spray-on insulation lining the interior. Tractor sized overhead doors are on each end of the building and a concrete slab serves as a floor. The place looks very much like a WW II truck repair shop. But down towards the north end of the building is a raised platform. On the platform are some decent looking speakers, a couple of stage light fixtures, a stool and a few microphones. A banjo, guitar and mandolin sit waiting in their stands. Rows of folding chairs are lined up facing the stage, seating for a hundred fifty or so lucky music lovers.

The audience arrived in SUVS, cars and pick-up trucks. Pick-ups seemed to dominate. Young folks, families, not-so-young folks and plenty of geezers, like me, filed in. Many of these people are friends and relatives of Eric and the Gibson family. There was a lot of laughing and hugging going on as folks caught up on the news. There were some arrivals that looked a little wary, not quite sure how red-necked this red-neck bunch was going to be. But they didn’t worry too long as good North Country hospitality set everyone at ease. The mood in this rough hewn country concert hall was happily expectant.

Dick Decosse, owner of the world renowned Dick’s Country Store and Music Oasis (Gas, Groceries, Guitars and Guns) as well as the “Busco-Dome” took the stage. Dick is a businessman, musician and songwriter. He’s also a friend and mentor to many musicians including the Gibson Brothers. He stood tall at the microphone and proudly and warmly introduced his friend and star performer Eric Gibson.

Eric took the stage. He seemed a little bit nervous and he soon admitted that he was uncomfortable without his brother Leigh and his other band mates. He briefly explained, as he strapped on his guitar and checked the tuning, that the evening was something of an experiment and that he’d be introducing lots of new songs as well as singing a few GB standards. He then paused and seemed to reach inside himself and find a place where he was immediately calm and grounded.

And then the music started.

One singer and one guitar is a pretty common combination. But when the musician is an artist, when his skills have been honed through study and thought and when experience has brought him to a graceful maturity something quite wonderful can happen. The audience in that big garage on a lonely stretch of North Country road was privileged to be a part of that rare experience. Real music, honest and pure, without gimmicks or affectation filled the hall.

“I Play An Old Guitar” was the opening song which set the tone for the night. Eric delivered this Gibson Brothers staple with confidence and power, totally in his element. Then he quickly followed with “Farm of Yesterday”, his deeply personal anthem to his roots and an intricately crafted melding of melody and lyrics. His musical maturity was never more apparent.

After some friendly banter Eric introduced a new composition. Just after we’d heard a song that showed the best kind of writing and performing, another possible contender for a future “song of the year” award rang out. “They Call It Music” is the perfect title and its lyrical power is very strong. The song tells a simple story and, again, the blend of lyrics and melody are far greater than the separate elements.

Next came another of those personal songs, Eric’s tribute to his grandfather “Arleigh”. A tribute song is only good if it strikes a chord of commonality with the listener and this one meets that difficult standard. The evening flew on. A new song “Chip Upon My Shoulder” was followed by a twenty year old piece “She Paints A Picture” which was inspired by Eric’s wife. Then another new one, a near rocker called “Tailspin” that had a Toby Keith or Trace Adkins feeling. Next a new gentle, sad tune called “If You Love Me You Would Send Me Out To Sea”.

An instrumental treat followed as Eric grabbed the banjo and jumped back to bluegrass with a fine rendition of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”. That was followed by a lively vocal with banjo accompaniment “Callie’s Reel”. Picking complicated patterns on the banjo is no easy task. Picking those patterns while singing a complex lyric show why Eric is so highly regarded as both a picker and a singer.

Two more new songs, “Of All The Lonely Nights” and “A Truth Too Hard To Tell” should appear on future albums, if not by the Gibson’s then by some other smart recording artist. Next came “Dixie”, Eric’s touching song about Elvis. Hearing the story behind the song was almost as good as the piece itself. “Frozen In Time” followed, a song especially appreciated by the earlier mentioned geezers in the crowd. Then Eric debuted a number called “I’ll Work It Out” that should earn him some product placement cash from the Barlow Knife Company. It too could easily be a hit.

More instrumental music followed as Eric’s son Kelly stepped on stage for a few mandolin solos. Kelly played two original songs, “Phantom Hop” and “Bearded Dragon”, and “Saratoga Racehorse” with his proud dad doing the guitar back-up. Kelly shows a lot of promise and we’ll see more of him as the years go by.

The main show wound up with “I’m A Cowboy”, a touching song about a dad considering the future of his young son. Then Eric belted out “Picker’s Blues” bringing the crowd to a standing ovation.

Eric, on request from some of the audience members, encored his new song “They Call It Music” and then did a Dale Watson tune, “You Are My Friend”. It was a perfect closing to a fine show and drew another well deserved standing ovation.

Could Eric Gibson be a solo performer? Sure. He’s got stage presence, a memorable voice with range and depth and all the skills a musician needs. He writes great songs and “sells” them as well as any performer in the business. But why would he leave one of the finest bluegrass bands working today? With his brother Leigh and the other great musicians in the group there’s every indication that the Gibson Brothers will have a long and satisfying career. An occasional solo show is a good idea, one that brother Leigh might want to consider, not that there would be any rivalry or anything like that. But it would be interesting to see what kind of show Leigh would put together.

Finally, to wrap up this rather long rave review, I’d like Eric to know that the beard isn’t too bad. But I’m still not sold on that jacket.