Mandolin Orange...

Here's a band you should listen to. They call themselves Mandolin Orange. A guy I jammed with once down in Lake Jackson  (we hit it off great musically but have not been able to play again) tipped me to them. He found them I think because he got a mandolin for Christmas. This group that hails from North Carolina and did cover some classic bluegrass stuff but there is a lot more going on here songwriter wise. As they said at the Railbird Festival where we saw them they are not afraid to stand up at a festival and play a slow sad song.  

Check them our on this cut. It's about the Civil War.

This subject makes me think of one of my old ancestors, Elam Albritton who was a Confederate vet of the Civil War. He rode off with some other kin in the 7th Texas Calvary at age 17, had never owned a slave and as far as I can tell the last time an Albritton owned a slave was 1762, fought in the battle of Mansfield , La. came home and died in 1910 with "Come Be Blessed" and the Gates of Heaven engraved on his tombstone in the old McKindree Cemetery. In 1924 his wife Mary applied for a Confederate pension at the Angelina County Courthouse. I don't know if she got it.  His fellow soldiers who lived in Angelina County wrote on the application he was a good soldier and a good citizen after the war. 

If I can't get a slow sad song out of these facts I am no good at all. 

This song they say is about the Statue of Liberty. 

Get you a mandolin. Listen to good music Try and figure out what your ancestors were up to. 

August Catfish Report...

I think this is the only fishing report for this month. The lake was very nice. A warm south wind made  a chop on the water and swung the boat so the sun was at our backs. Those things helped keep us cool. Less than two hours fishing put 14 fat channel cats in the boat. 

Of course a quick swim help keep cool too. 

The area of one of our spring time fishing holes is clogged with lily pads. In early season high water this is a little creed that lets you take a short cut. I bet there be gators up there.  

If she did not eat catfish what would I have done with her? 

Happy Birthday Parker...

Morgan and Ali celebrated Parker's 1st birthday with a Harry Potter themed party. 

I know nothing about Harry Potter. They said dress as a character so I did. I guess I got lucky because I was recognized as Kingsly Shacklebolt. 

Of course there was cake. 

There were tears when the cake ran out

On Sunday Parker was baptized. 

It was a good time with lots of family present. Looks like weekends at Morgan and Ali's house are going to be kids, BBQ, guitars and family. 

Johnny Conqueroo...

If you don't like finding new music just scroll on. Here's my report on Johnny Conqueroo's set at the Railbird Festival in Lexington, Ky. Johnny is a rising local talent and played an inspired set to an adoring crowd. 

What do they sound like? As Johnny said this day, "you like rock and roll? We all do. That's why we are here." Take a little rockabilly, mix in some surf, swamp it up by grabbing the twang bar of your guitar and step on the wah wah pedal and you got some Johnny Conqueroo. 

He had a maniac for a drummer. 

This guy wins best drum faces of the festival. 

Bass player keeps his cool in a wife beater t shirt. 

The Danelectro bass, while I think it's probably a modern instrument helps make a vintage statement and image. 

After this set I went immediately to the merch booth looking for cds and t shirts. In a day and age when people make more money telling you how to make money on music than you do playing music Johnny had no merch. He's doing it the old way, one gig at a time. His web site is under construction but he looks to be pretty busy on facebook and his music is on bandcamp.    

Here is a photo I made of Johnny taking a fall. When he stood up I think I read his lips to the band. "An accident." He played it for the best. Note the photographer in the upper left corner also taking a photo.

Here is his photo that I stole from Johnny's facebook page. Looks like we both pulled the trigger at the same time from different angles. I'm right close to the front you may can pick me out. 

Here is their cover of the old rock and roll tune Be Bop a Lula. 

Mavis Staples...

We have a list. It's the musical performers we would love to see. Mavis Staples is one that has been on my list. We got to see her at the Rail Bird Festival. Reportedly Mavis was once on Bob Dylan's list, but a different sort of list. He asked her to marry him. She said no. Makes you wonder if she let him down gently and thoughtfully or laughed him out of the room. Whatever this was a joyful, rousing set of inspirational music. 

It does not get much simpler or more powerful than a three piece band where everyone is a great singer. Mavis is 80 years old and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. After singing in church and on local Radio in Chicago where she was born on July 10th, (same birthday as Mary) the family band, The Staple Singers took it on the road in 1957 when she graduated from high school and by the mid 60s they established a friendship with Martin Luther King and became the a musical soundtrack and spirit to the civil rights movement. That commitment to those ideas continues today. The Staple Singers hit the top 40 eight times in the 70s with two #1 hits. The awards and recognition have continued to come is the years since as have the critically acclaimed music releases. Ever wonder why your music does not get off the ground? Maybe you should examine the career Mavis has built.  

Mavis's dad Pop, Stables was a study on simple, economical, groovingly clean Fender guitar riffs to propel the music along. With Pops gone you can often find Rick Holmstrom and his group leading Mavis's band. Rick has a great Telecaster guitar Vox amp combo sound with delightful tremolo that leads the charge. Some of his solo work mixes samples, loops, acid jazz and trip hop with the blues based guitar sounds.   

At 80 years old Mavis had a chair handy and occasionally took a seat during the set. The stage this band was on looked right into the afternoon sun and Mavis mildly complained that the flooring was "hot on my feet." She said "I should have wore my other shoes." 

It was a great show, I hate to heard what Mavis sounded like if she woe more comfortable shoes. 

The Blackfoot Gypsies at Railbird Fest...

The last day at the Railbird Festival there were a bunch of big bands playing. There was Gary Clark, a modern blues player. There was St. Paul and the Broken Bones, a soul band doing good works. I once donated to a fund they started to furnish high school students with instruments. There was Tyler Childers, the new Americana music darling and Kentucky native son playing his home ground but seems like even the more serious new country singers like this guy sound like some one I have heard before.

For some reason this day I had trouble tearing myself away from the smallest stage of the festival where all the regional Kentucky and Tennessee  bands were playing. It was here I discovered the Blackfoot Gypsies. I knew of them as in this day and age I had used youtube to scope out all the bands so as not to waste any time and I thought this might be something we would like. It was all that and more. This band was smoking hot.  

The clothes and the double bass drum set brought to mind some scrappy b level rock band of the mid 70s trying to have a little scene. The high pitched vocals and loud guitar seemed Zeppelin like but the twangy blend of the harmony took you to the hills of Tennessee. This little band out of Nashville went all out.  

Great singing and lead guitar.

Bass and vocals good. 

I don't know who writes the songs but they are topical and nicely constructed. 

Cathy tagged them in the photos she took on Instagram and they "liked" the post. 

Don't say there is no good new music and if you say rock is dead, well these guys might just kill you if you go to one of their shows. 

They have some very creative videos but here's someone's cell phone clip from the show we saw. 

 

Our Travels...

 As is with all our trips the adventures and things seen will often brew up in my mind and I write about them long after they happen. This latest trip covered 2121 (no that's not the year I run for president) miles and nine states. Lets see if I can run them down. There was Arkansas, Missouri, a brief bit of Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, a piece of Georgia we just clipped, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.  

We visited cousin Mary in Missouri and dined at Lambert's the home of the throwed rolls. We spent the night here.

There was a lunch visit to cousin Carolyn and husband Doug in Kentucky. Great fun, I think as couples we are a lot alike. 

In their area of  Kentucky there is a Mennonite Community. Men in hats and suspenders drive buggies and you see women in long dresses carrying baskets walking down the roads. I could go for some of that life if blog writing is ok.  

As we traveled I think we saw a bit of every thing being grown in great green fields. Not really sure what state this is but a tobacco crop with an old barn standing in the back ground. I heard the tobacco companies have already figured out that global warming is great for their plants. The warm increasingly tropical weather makes the plant grow faster and the rising temperature dries the leaves better. I guess if we all start smoking this global warming won't really be as much a concern as expected. We will have other things to worry about.   

In addition to a night spent in Indiana with Cathy's sister Margaret and family, a night in Kentucky for the Railbird Fest, a night in Alabama when we got tired of driving we finished with dinner at Chase, Diamond and HD's in Shreveport. Some of these events are pictured by smallc101 on Instagram. 

That's a nine state hat right there beside you in the car. 

The Raconteurs...

We are just back from a big music fest weekend. It was the Railbird Fest in Lexington Ky. We attended because it was the first year for the event and we wanted in on the ground floor of a festival that was not too crowded. It met our expectations for being easy and uncrowded, it has been getting good write ups in the online version of Rolling Stone and the music was great. Here's photos of one our favorite people, Jack White and the Raconteurs. 

The Raconteurs are really a group effort. They don't call Jack the front man but he is a formidable presence. If you remember Jack from his guitar drum duo, the White Stripes you might be aware that early reviews alternately hail them as either the saviors of the blues or the ruination of the blues. It was mixed. Jack has gone on the realease three albums with this group in addition to several with the Dead Weather and several under his on name. The music has ranged from powerful blues based Detroit (his hometown) rock to country music that pays homage to the early histories of American music. This is the third time we have seen Jack White.    

Jack uses a wide array of guitars and fuzz pedals to get some great guitar sounds. His initial claim to fame were the sounds that he got from simple Montgomery Wards catalogue guitars and Sears amps. He has moved on a bit from that but you can't tell where he's headed next.    

Here's Brendan Benson, another Michigan musician on guitar and Dean Fertita of the band Queens of the Stone Age. 

On bass is Jack Lawrence who has many recording credits and is from Kentucky. 

Great light show. 

If I find Cathy has ever run off and left me it would probably wise to check with Jack White or Jack Black to see if they know anything. Cathy likes her Jacks and in fact they have a funny little video out on the internets.

Band takes a bow. Check out some Raconteurs. It's new music but has a timeless element that looks to the future and brings the past into good focus. 

Harlem, NYC, the National Jazz Museum and the Apollo...

When were in NYC we tried to hit as many cool places and neighborhoods as we could. Central Park, Wall Street, Brooklyn, Chinatown, the Bowery, the East End and of course Harlem. In Harlem we discovered the National Jazz Museum. 

It's a small place, basically one room. There are some heavy weights involved. Johnathon Batiste of the famed New Orleans family of musicians and renown bassist Christian McBride are the artistic directors. Couple of Board of trustee names you might recognize are Ken Burns and Wynton Marsalis. I did not get the names of the guys working the desk the day we visited but when I walked in they said "you must be a musician!" Takes one to know one. 

In addition to the exhibits there was quite a library of books on the subject of jazz. I did quite a bit of browsing looking for an old famous book of jazz photos that I used to check out of the Lufkin Library. It had many photos from the 50s and 60s of jazz greats in informal settings as well as arty shots such as a guy carrying a string bass down the street at dawn in NYC. I could not find it and can't recall the photographer's name. The book seems to have disappeared from the local library. Anyway speaking of informal I did find this photo of a combo in rehearsal and the bass player has no pants. None of the places I go to rehearse have given me any indication that no pants are ok. It's ok at my house though but you will have to promise that that will be as far as it goes.   

  

Duke Ellington's piano. What more can I say? Look him up, the world will be better if you get acquainted. 

Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis's tenor sax. The card says he often modified his horns to withstand his powerful playing style and wedged keys he thought unnecessary closed. A man after my own heart. Get it sounding like you like and then break it so it sounds that way all the time. 

The mouthpiece of Lockjaw's horn. Note the bill wrapped around the gooseneck and the wear on the mouthpiece. My kids may be thinking they will inherit some nice instruments but I'm gonna try to wear them out. Just be sure to look under the pickguards on the guitars.   

Now we listen to a good bit of Cuban mambo, Dixieland and swing around here but Cathy does not like modern jazz. Says it makes her feel like slapping someone. I don't play modern jazz, at least when she is in earshot or arms reach. 

Of course you have to see the famous Apollo Theater. Not much going on a Sunday afternoon and they were closed for a few hours in honor of Malcom X's birthday but this was good enough to stand outside this hallowed ground of music.  

Lots of stars with their names inlaid on the sidewalk. 

You might not make it to Harlem but you need to know Billie. Look her up, the world will be better for it.