Showing posts with label bluegrass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bluegrass. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Summer Sun

Lots going on as that ridiculously hot summer gives way to a much more temperate fall.  Some of what's going on falls into the Not-So-Good category.  Here are some shots to reclaim the joy a little bit. They're from a Chalk Art Festival we went to a couple months back.





Also on the 'things that make life worth living' side of the scale was the Fresh Grass bluegrass festival we went to at MASS MoCA last weekend.  I don't have many shots from that, but I'll post a couple here soon.  Meanwhile, I have three words for you that you should take very seriously: Carolina Chocolate Drops

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Tennessee Thunder

That being the name of the band that played with Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby monday night. Fantastic bluegrass show at the concert hall in the ethical culture society building on central park west. Super ensemble, very tight in spite of what they claimed was an under-rehearsed situation. Front men were great too: skaggs probably best known for his pop country stuff and hornsby for his singer/songwriter career (you know that 'jacob's ladder' song whether you realize it or not - step by step, one by one.) But they represented the roots on monday. Ricky on vocals, mandolin, guitar and an old banjo that gave him some tuning problems that he was able to turn into good stage time; Bruce on vox and piano (not much of a bluegrass instrument, he's the first to admit, but damned if he didn't work it.)

The seats are essentially church pews, which is far from ideal, and i was crazy tired, which isn't the best for deep listening, but it was a really good show! Traditional tunes, songs written for this group, reworkings of their back catalog, classics from the stanley brothers, bill monroe, folks like that. And for a bitchen encore, a bluegrass rendition of rick james' superfreak! Yes they did.

As they say in texas, it was a hoot.