Acoustic Guitar 2001-05

.i-

Jo~Y

!o

S.bo_..._

'

!!

Js

.r~

JfJ!Jt

·ro

TRANSCENDENCE

Carbon. Basic. Elemental. Pure.

The foundation of RainSong·s all-graphite construction. RainSongs are made entirely of pure Carbon. Light in weight and delicately responsive.

Projection Tuned Layering1 M for loud. dynamic acoustic playing. Only RalnSong delivers all the warmth. crystalline clarity and elemental tone of the classic

carbon sound. Discover with RainSong the sound and experience of graphite guitars and wake up to a whole new world.

Making Guitars forever Better"' 300 Ohukai Road. C-214 Kihei. Maui. Hawaii 96753 Phone: 808.879.0434 I fax: 808.879.4261

•

-

•

I

•

I I

,,,,,,,,,,

~~.<U'UUP

EXP

means Extended Play

looking for longer String life Without Sacrificing Tone or Feel?

D'Addario's Extended Play Coated Phosphor Bronze Acoustic Guitar strings look like traditional strings,

feel like traditional strings, and sound like traditional strings. The only difference is that the EXP coating provides a barrier against the corrosion and wear that sap life from regular strings, so EXPs retain their "new string tone" 3 to 4 times longer than traditional.strings.

The secret is the way the string is coated. Rather than just coating a finished string, we coat the phosphor bronze wrap wire with an ultra-fine layer of EXP coating before we wrap it around the high-carbon steel hex core wire. Then the string is wrapped normally, giving you the feel you're comfortable with, along with longer life, increased durability, and the brightness, clarity, and sensitivity you expect from D'Addario strings.

Ll.._c_ -p~ ~TM

J. D' Addario & Company, Inc. • PO Box 290 • Farmingdale, NY 11735 • E-mail: [email protected]

The new McPherson

Guitar

pedects

''Offset Somtdhole Teclmologf.'!.

a

pursuit we began twenty years ago

~ The original McPherson Guitar (1980) pioneered offset soundhole placement

The McPherson Guitar

achieves

an incredibly

rich sound

three

ways:

l.Offset soundhole design

Unlike center-hole designs that rob a guitar of sound-enhancing flexible surface .area, the McPherson Guitar moves the soundhole away from

the center to a less critical spot on the guitar face. This preserves flexible surface area on the

central part of the instrument to deliver pristine highs an.d a rich bottom end.

2.Strategic hole shape,

size and location

·

The elliptical shape of the soundhole on this guitar, combili.ed with its tested

size and precise location, helps create the richness,

balance and versatility that musicians everywhere

are talking about.

Patent Pending

3. Uniquely engineered bradng

pattern

The challenge when bracing a guitar is to

create structural stability without restricting sound potential. Our innovative,

state-of-the-art bracing pattern maximizes the available open,

"vibrating" area on the inside of the

guitar face resulting in a sound you have

to hear to believe.

What do some of the world's finest studio musicians and petfonners have to say?

"The McPherson guitar achieves a balance like no other. The top end is brilliant and the bottom is tight without the boominess heard on center-hole guitars. I've recorded acoustic guitars on projects from Alan Jackson to Amy Grant ... the McPherson guitar is the best I've hearq. •

Bill Deaton

Nashville Producer/Engineer

"I used my McPherson on my new album "Stories from the Heart." It is the best recording acoustic guitar I own. McPherson Guitars achieve a level of tones, sustain and Low-E to High-E sonic consistency that I have never experienced before."

Bob Carlisle

Grammy Award W"mner for "Butterfly Kisses"

"As a touring musician for over 20 years, I've always had to choose between great tone or·road tough durability, but not anymore. My McPherson has the best sound of any guitar I have ever played AND has held up to over 26,000 miles -~--'-"-of bumpy roads and gorilla baggage handlers

with not even a neck adjustment!"

Dave Watson

Oak Ridge Boys

"This guitar, to me, is like a great tube amp. You play soft-you get a certain sweetness. You dig in -you get power. .. this is a superb sounding and playing instrument .. a true joy to play!"

David Cleveland

Nashville Studio Musician

(Crystal Lewis, Avalon and 1\vila Paris) "The McPherson has a vintage warmth with sparkling highs. A gourmet acoustic with guts!" Jerry McPherson

Studio Musician (Amy Grant, Neville Brothers and Spice Girls) "It projects extremely well and creates a very large sound."

Mark Baldwin

Studio Musician, Producer and Instrumental Recording Artist (Whitney

Houston, James Ingram, Amy Grant) "One of the most versatile and wonderfu( sounding guitars I've ever played ... We've used it exclusively in the recordings of The Normal$, Heather Miller and Whiteheart." Billy Smiley

Producer and Recording Artist

We.

~,cit.~~

:tk

~! 919 River Road, P.O. Box 367 Sparta, Wisconsin 54656

(608) 269-2728 Fax (608) 269-3120

He's an award-winning classical guitar artist, a student of Segovia, who has released a Time-Life CD internationally, and won first prize in the Guitar Foundation of America Competition.

He's an eclectic steel string artist whose compositions have been featured on TV and in movies, and is a winner of the National Finger Picking Championship in Winfield.

He's a respected professor of guitar and heads the guitar depart-ment at the University of New Mexico. When it comes to acoustic guitars, Michael Chapdelaine knows no boundaries.

MICHAEL LILLE'S TOP 5

WAYS TO SPEND THE TIME HE'S NOT CHANGING

GUI-TAR STRINGS:

~

Mountain biking

in the skinny air.

0

Q

uoting the classics

(Caddyshack,

A

nimal

House, etc.).

e

Sushi. Sushi. Sushi.

@

Whitewater kayaking.

0

Playing my

g

u

ita

r

w

ith ELIXIR

s

t

rings

.

Michael Lille's latest CD, Never Home To Stay,

is now available at WW'"dJ.songs.comlml and 800-BUY-MY-CD.

MORE TIME TO PLAY.

You have better things

to do

than change

strings.

ELIXIR®

Guitar Strings featuring POLYWEB

®

Coating offer

great

sound and

l

ong life. This is why

great

musicians like Michael Lille and

l

eading guitar manufacturers choos

_

e

ELIXIR®

Guitar Strings for their instruments. Put some on

your

guitar today and spend your extra play time

wisely

.

..

ELECTRIC ACOUSTIC BASS • MANDOLIN BANJO • CLASSICAL

NORTH AMERICA

8

00-3

6

7

-553

3

[email protected] www.elixirstrings.com UNITED KINGDOM

0800 169 6669

[email protected] GERMANY

0800

-

85 63 080

[email protected]

SOUND QUALITY THAT LASTS

~

ACOUSTIC

MAY 2001

GUitAR

VOLUME 1ISSUE 101 1, NUMBER 11

,_

. .

~

.

»r.&'"r'JHE.lD . . . e»

..-*:

BJ;U:EGRASS;.

Cover: Keb' Mo' and his new signature model Martin. Photo by Anne Hamersky.

MAY 2001

I

ACOUSTIC GUITAR

Behind The Door

The singular vis

i

on that allows Keb' Mo' to tell the stories

in the songs

.

By David Hamburger

Words and music to "Loot a Loo" p. 40

Philly Gumbo

"Philadelphia" Jerry Ricks brings gospel, R&B, and jazz

influences to country blues guitar.

By Duck Baker Words and music to "No More Ramblin"' p. 48

'-

Spirit

of the

Blues

Eric Bibb gets outside his head and inside the song.

By Bill Milkowski

Words and music to "Come Back Baby" p. 58

The gu

i

tars and accessories you'll need to create that

vintage sound.

By Steve James

~ CONTRIBUTORS

10 MUSIC NOTAnON KEY

12 MAIL

14 JUMP STREET Mark Olson, the Hot Club of Cowtown, a farewell to Luiz Bonta, and more.

20 REVIEWS Bill Monroe biographies and Hit List CDs and books. 26 A.G. LETTER Sam Shaber checks in from the Cutting Edge of

the Campfire Festival in Harvard Square.

30 STAGE AND STUDIO Performance Lab: How to make the most of your local open mic. By Hassaun Ali Jones-Bey

70 MARKETPLACE

76 GEARBOX Beginners' guitar kits reviewed, a visit with Froggy·

Bottom Guitars, and new gear.

M DEAR A.G. Answers to your questions, plus a reader tip.

PRIVATE LESSONS

86 Basics: Combining Bass Notes and Slide. By David Hamburger Musical examples and "Offbeat Blues" p. 88

92 Rhythm Techniques: Building Swing Chords. By Jim Wood Musical examples p. 94

98 OFF THE RECORD Stephen Dick celebrates the 30th

anniversary of Joni Mitchell's ground-shaking Blue. Words and music to "This Flight Tonight" p. 98

100 AD INDEX

1Q.§ GREAT ACOUSTICS Epiphone Bluesmaster. By David Hamburger

David Hamburger is a guitarist, writer, and teacher who lives in Austin, Texas. In this issue, he

inter-views Keb' Mo', profiles the Hot Club of Cowtown,

and gives a lesson on steady-bass slide. Hamburger is the author of four instruction books, including Acoustic Guitar Slide Basics. He has been heard on

TFN's Emeril Live, on the soundtrack of the PBS film

Betrayal: The Flood of 1928, and in the Broadway production of Footloose. For a discography, perfor -mance schedule, and information on his latest solo

CD, Indigo Rose, visit www.davidhamburger.com.

Photographer Anne Hamersky's work has appeared in scores of magazines, including Time, Vanity Fair, Teen People, and New Scientist, and graced the jack-ets of numerous Rounder and Compass CDs. She lives in San Francisco with husband Scott Nygaard and their son Josef. Of this month's cover subject,

bluesman Keb' Mo', Hamersky says, "We waited

through a long sound check, but he had a great com-bination of charm, mellowness, and complete pro -fessionalism that made the 15 mi11utes he was able

to give us worth two hours."

Steve James is a touring performer, recording artist, and one of Acoustic Guitar's contributing edi-tors. His latest albums of original acoustic roots

music are Boom Chang (Burnside) and Not for

Highway Use, a retrospective compilation on his own Settlement label. James' multi-instrumental ses

-sionography for other artists is extensive, and he

has made a guitar instruction video (Blues/Roots ·

Guitar) for Homespun Tapes. In this issue, he gives advice about blues gear in an excerpt from his u

p-coming Blues Guitar Answer Book (String Letter

Publishing). For current tour dates, visit www. stevejames.com.

Multi-instrumentalist Jim Wood, who gives a lesson on building chords in this issue, works as a per-former, studio musician, and instructor in Nashville. A fiddler since the age of ten, he has won more than 140 fiddle contests and is the Tennessee state cham-pion. He has recorded and performed with such artists as Ray Price, Emmylou Harris, John Hartford, John McEuen, Amy Grant, and many others. Wood also owns and operates his own recording studio and plays bouzouki, mandolin, viola, and tenor gui

-tar. He has arranged music for TNN, ESPN, and the Discovery Channel.

ACOUSTIC GUITAR (ISSN 1049·9261) is published monthly by String letter Publishing, Inc., 255 West End Ave., Sa.n Rafael, CA 94901.

Periodicats postage paid at San Anselmo and edditionaJ mailing offices. Printed in USA

POSTMASTER: Pleue make address changes on·line at www.acousticguitar.com or send to ACOUSTIC GUITAR, PO Box 469120, Escondido,

CA 92046·9020. A single issue costs $4.95; an individual subscription is $29.95 per year; institutional subscriptions are $36 per year. Foreign subSCitbers must order air·mail deliv&ry. Add $15 per year for Canada/Pan Am; $30 elsewhere; payable in U.S. funds 011 U.S. bank. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome but cannot be considered or returned unless accompanied by a self·addressed, stamped envalope. Prior inquiries are preferred.

'Loola Loo' C 2000 Wamer·Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI) and Mo' Than Jus' Music (BMI); 'Come Back Baby" 0 1999 Bug Music Ltd. (PRS); 'No More Romblin'" 0 2000 Mojic in a Bottle Music (BMI); "This Flighl Tonight" C 1971, 1975 Joni Mitchell Publishing Corp. (BMI); 'Combining Bass Notes and Side' C 2001 David Hamburger, aJ other contents C 2001. String Letter Pubishing, D!Md A Lustetman, PIJblisl>er.

8

ACOUSTIC

GUitAR

EDITORIAL

Editor Simone Solondz

Managing Editor Scott Nygaard

Music Editor Andrew DuBrock Gear Editor Te)a Ger1<en

Web Editor Paul Kotaplsh

Assistant Editor Matthew Kramer Senior Writer Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

Contributing Editors Sharon Iobin Steve James Richard Johnston Rick Tumer

DESIGN AND PRODUCTION

Production Director Ellen Richman

Designer Ray Larsen

Production Manager Judy Zlmola

Production Artist Chris Maas

ADMINISTRATION

Publisher David A. Lustennan

General Manager Joan Mumoy

Systems Administrator John Papanlkolaou

Administrative Assistant Peter Penhallow

ADVERTISING

Advertising Director Dan Gabel

Eastern Advertising Manager Brannan Willson

Western Adve~tising Manager Rich Osweller ·

Advertising Coordinator Man: Moore

FINANCE

Controller Man:la Johnson

Staff Accountant Claudia Holland

MARKETING

Circulation and Marketing Director Sabrina Smith

Circulation Manager Matt Morton

Books Marketing Manager Jen Fujimoto ·Promotions Manager Paige Clem

CORRESPONDENCE

. Mail PO Bolt 767

., Slin Anselmo, cA 94979

Shipping 25S West End Ave:

San Rafael, CA 94901

Editorial £.mall [email protected]

Subscriptions £.mall [email protected]

J Web Site · www.acoustlcgultar.com

Telephone (415) 485·6946

Fax (415) 485-0831

.www.acousticguitar.~om

..e

Audtt 8ur~au of Gir<u~

Me:mb«

A Breedlove guitar.

With such sensuous beauty and inspiring

thought possible. To experience it for yoursel4

f ,. •t ~

fOU io w~ys r~~ never i -~

f . ,.,.

~r.e9Jov.e <Jealer nell!. y_oJl. • . ,:i ,) M

:.;.. .. J @2000 Breedlove Gt~itar Company, 19885 8th Strut, Tumalo, Oregon 97701 wwJu.breedloveguitars.com For a Breedlove dealer, near yQu call 5411385-833!1

Play Well ...

At First Quality, we sell ex-ceptional products that bring out the best in your music, at excellent prices. Our selection includes:

Instruments Strings Accessories Sound Reinforcement Parts and Supplies 10

NEW Elixir" NanoWebN strings deliver a brighter tone rhan earlier models, while maintaining rhe long life and fast action for which Elixirs arc famous, thanks to their ultra-thin coating. You'll still get great sound, less corrosion, less squeak and

greater comfort than with other strings, but the coating is less obvious to finger and eye.

FIRn OP.

.

ftl!I2

800.635.2021

www.fqms.com First Quality carries the complete line of Elixir~ guitar strings for acoustic

and electric

Si(.

.~.:

4

~

instruments. ~ Call us today.

MUSIC NOTATION KEY

Guitar tunings are given from the lowest

(sixth) string to the highest (first) string;

standard tuning is written as E A D G B E.

Arrows underneath tuning notes indicate strings that are altered from standard tuning and whether they are tuned up or down.

In standard notation, small symbols next to notes refer to left-hand fingers: 1 for the index finger, 2 the middle, 3 the ring, 4 the little finger, and T the thumb. Right-hand fingering is indicated QY i for the index finger, m the middle, a the ring, c the pinky, and p the thumb. Circled num

-bers next to notes show what string the note should be played on, with 1 the

high-est and 6 the lowest.

In tablature, the horizontal lines repre

-sent the six strings, with the first string on

top and the sixth on the bottom. The num-bers refer to fret numnum-bers on the given string. H indicates a hammer-on, P a pull-off, S a slide, .J a bend. The number next to the bend symbol shows how much the

bend raises the pitch: ~ for a slight bend, J1 for a half step, 1 for a whole step.

-"Il l ,....;;... 3 ~ _~ '-..Y v.. H p p _s v _{~ '}} -v

"

..., ~ v ..., ~ /

Chord diagrams show where the fingers go on the fretboard. Frets are·

shown horizontally. The top horizontal

line represents the nut, unless a Roman

numeral to the right of the diagram marks a higher position (IV would mean fourth fret). Numbers above the diagram are

left-hand finger numbers, as used in

stan-dard notation. X indicates a string that

should be muted or not played; 0 indicates an open string.

A complete guide to A. G. music nota-tion can be found at www.acousticguitar. com. To receive it by mail, send a self-ad-dressed, stamped envelope to Music Editor,

Acoustic Guitar, PO Box 767, San Anselmo,

CA 94979-0767.

12

1!-thiers Mercantile international, Inc.

-Complete Supplies for the Stringed Instrument

Maker-FREE 80 PAGE CATALOG

1·800-477-4437

or [email protected]

guitarist Merlin!

See

ALL

of our new guitar releases at

www.presser.com

MAIL

Congratulations on a great February issue. Eric Lugosch (Off the Record) is

a great musician who deserves more recognition. And Paul Kotapish did a fan-tastic interview with Richard Thompson

("More Daring Adventures"). I appreci-ate the thoroughness of the What They

Play section.and the notes for playing

"Turning of the Tide." Finally, I would like to mention another great British guitarist who deserves attention: Pete Berryman. He is now on Peter Finger's Acoustic Music Records and was an influence on many great guitarists as far back as the 1970s. In fact, Pete Berryman was one of the finer artists recording on Stefan Grossman's groundbreaking Kicking

· Mule Records.

Shaun Porter Cambridge, England

I was glad to see an article about flamen-co guitarists Tomatito, Gerardo Nunez, and Vicente Amigo in your February

issue. But what a

disappointment-par-ticularly that there was no What They

Play section. I suspect [author) Stephen

Dick never even talked to the three

guitarists.

Monica Wyatt Santa Monica, California

Stephen Dick responds: You suspect right,

and it was a drag becquse I was looking.

forlJ.!ard to talking to these guys. Unf qr-tundtely, I wasn't able to get in touch with all bf them. The editors considered aban-doning the article but decided instead to

offer something that would introduce these ·

artists to nonflamencos and provide some

background information for those who

had heard of them ·and wanted to know

more. Meanwhile, to qnswer your What They Play question, Vicente Amigo plays

two guitars built by Lest~r Devoe

(680 Camino Roble, Nipomo, CA 93444;

[805} 931-0313; www.maui.net/-rtadaki/

devoe.html), one of which is featured on

the cover of Amigo's Ciudad de Las Ideas

CD. Nunez plays a Conde Hermanos gui

-tar, and Tomatito plays guitars by Conde Hermanos and Manuei Reyes.

Thanks for citing the Robin Nolan-Trio for their contribution to Gypsy jazz (Jump

Street, February). My wife and I met them

a couple of years ago on the streets of

Amsterdam, where they play eight hours

a day in just about any weather. They

are the embodiment of musical dedica -tion, they play their butts off, and they're

great guys. Their Gypsy Jazz Songbook and play-along CD [available at www. robinnolantrio.com] are wonderful prac -tice tools for those of us who'd like to de-velop some Gypsy jazz chops but don't have access to the players.

John Curtin Milford, Pennsylvania Yourarticle on Shelley Park (Gearbox Profile, January), especially the informa-tion on her preferences for setup, helped me decide to ask her to fix up the buzzes

in my guitar that I had put up with for

too long. Her work is-meticulous, as you describe. The guitar plays better than ever. By the way, her phone number is now (604) 988-4324.

Garry Stevenson Coquitlam, BC, Canada As a regular reader·· of your excellent magazine, I have just ··seen Banning · . Eyre's lovely article in your January ·.

issue ("In Griot Time"), in which he di~-·

cusses the guitar stylings of Djelimady · Tounkara, et al. He mentions that I put

the idea of meeting Djelimady into his

head and also credits me as the person

behind the Bajourou recording. I did

make the trip to Bamako, and the

recording too, but credit must go also

to Dr. Lucy Duran for putting that idea

into my head and for .working together

with me on the visit. You head the discography with a mention of the Bajourou Big String Theory CD. release on Xenophile, which I recorded direct to OAT in Bamako with Djelimady, Bouba Sacko, and Lafia Diabate. I be-lieve that this is no longer available through Xenophile, but our original, GlobeStyle U.K. release is still in catalog (www.acerecords.co.uk). As Banning says, it is an ,impressive acoustic session. Thank you for keeping an

open musical perspective in your pages.

Ben Mandelson Ace Re.cords London, England

SEND LETIERS TO Mail, Acoustic Guitar, PO Box 767, San Anselmo, CA 94979-0767; fax (415) 485-0831; e-mail mail.ag@ stringletter.com. Include your name and ad-dress. Letters may be edited for length and

clarity. •

MAY 2001 ' ACOUSTIC GUITAR

From One Craftsman

to Another

Hot, Hot, Hot

Hot Club of Cowtowners Whit Smith, Elana Fremennan, and Matt Weiner.

While there's a certain rugged logic to a band called Hot Club of Cowtown hailing from Austin, Texas, Hot Club guitarist Whit Smith's path to the Lone Star State was as circuitous as it was inevitable. A teenage Van Halen fan from Cape Cod, he made it to New York City in time for the early '90s collision of punk rock energy and hon!..-y-tonk rediscovery on the Lower East Side. Vintage Telecaster in hand, Smith played numerous sideman gigs while bending his brain and fingers around Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West records and other high-speed hillbilly jazz. He eventually found himself at the helm of the Western Caravan, a sprawling, Bob Wills-inspired out-fit complete with triple fiddles, stee! guitar,

piano, rhythm guitar, bass, drums, and a fea-tured vocalist.

Smith and sometime Caravan fiddler Elana Fremerman eventually split for San Diego, where they continued playing as a duet. Relocating to Austin and adding a bass player, they came to the attention of Austin western swing stalwart Don Walser, who helped hook them up with HighTone Records (www. hightone.com), a label on which they've now recorded three COs. Dev'lish Mary, their lat -est, adds another New Yorker to the band, up-right bassist Matt Weiner, and includes an-other change for the band: overdubbing.

"Everything was live on the other two records," says Smith. "In a live performance,

you have character and delivery and energy all fortifying the performance. But you want to listen to a CD over and over again, and you don't need to dwell on anybody's clams. We didn't sit there and do 50 overdubs, though," he says. "It was probably three overdubs and then you'd have the solo you wanted." Some tunes, like the Joe Venuti/Eddie Lang show-piece "The Wild Dog," were recorded straight up. "Everything there happened just like that," says Smith. "There are no extra instru-ments, nothing."

Smith often cut acoustic rhythm tracks first with the band and went in afterward to lay down electric solos, using the DeArmond pickup on his 1925 Gibson L-5. "llov~ playing

acoustic rhythm," he says. "It's different than playing electric rhythm, and it's totally differ-ent than trying to sing and take a solo and play rhythm at the same time (laughs)."

The Hot Club's spare trio format, imposed by the economic realities of touring, has had ramifications on the band's musical ap-proach. "If you limit yourself to the members of the band but you don't limit your ideas, you'll arrive at ways of making a bigger sound," says Smith. "We have both the tone coming out of the acoustic bass and the per-cussive sound coming off the fingerboard as it's being slapped. Elana chunks little double-stops on her violin, almost like a rhythm gui-tar background that I can play off. And when I'm playing rhythm guitar, I move the voicings around at least every two beats if not every beat, almost like the way a piano player, a stride guy, accompanies himself singing or playing the melody."

In concert, it's immediately clear how Smith's technique affects the band's bigger-than-trio sound. "I've been trying to play two

parts, a third below and a third above what Elana's playing," he explains. "So if Elana's playing the single-note melody on her violin, I play two parts on either side, which is a lot different than harmonizing just underneath or above. And if you play those double-stops on adjacent strings, for some bizarre reason it sounds much different than if you skip a string. They're awkward fingerings, but the

Cowgirl Pop

Retro romantic Erin McKeown.

sound is worth it. You really have to rehearse the part, though. I'm only just now starting to be able to use those for improvising. 'Lazy Day,' 'Dev'lish Mary,' 'Little Liza Jane,' and 'My Life's Been a Pleasure' are all done with that technique."

Smith's thought process, however, is the real key. "I try to think like someone from the '20s or '30s. I love fiddle tunes, and it's fun to listen to those tunes and hot-jazzily them. I love the idea that you'd have a thorough jazz background but be playing western tunes in a Dixieland style. Most of the western swing soloists were interested in hot jazz, and you can hear that they've been listening to Louis Armstrong or someone like that. So we don't just listen to Bob Wills."

There's also the question of how much room there is for one's own personality in vintage music, but Smith puts his faith in the inevitable individuality of each person's ef-forts. "Even if you're copying something," he says, "the way you hold the pick, the way you finger the strings, the guitar is going to sound a little different, the equipment's going to sound a little different, and everybody has a unique vision of what they want to do. It makes for good conversation to say 'I like these things and I'm working on these things and putting these things together,' but who the heck knows why it comes out sounding like it does?"

-David Hamburger

Betty Boop in a cowboy hat. That was my first impression of singer-songwriter Erin McKeown, and it was hardly fair. It had more

to do with her hair and size than anything else-when she tunes her Chet Atkins guitar, she has to fully extend her arm to reach the pegs. But then her fingers hit the strings, it's abundantly clear that this 22-year-<>ld Brown University undergraduate is no small tal-ent-and that the success that has been nib-bling at her heels must be gearing up for a big bite.

Following a home-recorded tape that sold 7,000 copies at gigs and on the In-ternet, Signature Sounds (PO Box 106, Whately, MA 01093; [800) 694-5354; www. signature-sounds.com) released McKeown's debut CD Distillation last fall. Produced by Dave Chalfant of the Nields, it has a cheery pop/alt-country vi be-edgy but not morose, with catchy hooks and unabashed retro-mu-sical references. ·A cross between G Love and Django Reinhardt," is how McKeown wryly describes it. True to its name,

What They Play

Distillation is a spare, clean recording that dispenses with all but the essence of McKeown's strengths: intelligent lyrics, a clear and intimate voice, and quirky, com-manding guitar playing. "Most of Erin's songs come with a distinct guitar part as part of the package, so we started there," says Chalfant. "It all came down to what that one acoustic guitar implied," echoes McKeown. "It might function as a ukulele, or a bass, or a piano. We listened to that and filled in the spaces around it."

It was a smart, if unusual, way to go about creating a band recording, and its success owes much to the skills of the instrumental-ists. McKeown wields acoustic and electric guitars with equal aplomb, Chalfant mainly plays electric guitar and bass, and Lorne Entress and Dave Howard play drums. Embedded in the sparse arrangements are myriad details- vocal harmonies, whispers, a Dobro here, a piano there, and tasteful loops and samples. "Someone said to me recently that we didn't play a note more than was

NEW 5

After learning that a recently discov· ered dinosaur had been named Masiakasauras knopfleri because Dire Straits' music had accompanied the archaeologists' Madagascar dig, Mark Knopfler quipped, "I am real· ly delighted. This is a very special honor. The fact that it's a dinosaur is

really ap~ but I'm happy to report that I'm not the least bit vicious~

Mark "Dino" Knopfler.

VVhen the new Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum opens in downtown Nashville this May, visitors

vvill be treated to live music,

interac-tive displays, a theater featuring digital film presentations, and relics such as

Hank Williams' musical suit and gui· tars played by Jimmie Rodgers and

Mother Maybelle Carter. For more in· foonation, go to www.country.com.

EVENTS

May 24-28 brings the Spring

Strawbeny Music Festival to Camp

Mather, in Yosemite, California. Nickel Creek, the Seldom Scene,

and Willis Allan Ramsey will per· form. For more information, go to

www.strawberrymusic.com.

IN MEMORY

Cuban-American singer-songwriter Isaac Guillory died December 31 from undetected cancer. Guillory had one U.S. solo release in 1974 (many more in Europe) and over the years worked with Donovan, Joan Baez, and Mick Jagger. Learn more about Guillory at www.anetstation.com/ guillory.

"Queen of the Cowgirls" Dale

Evans died February 7 of congestive heart failure: €vans co-wrote "Happy Trails" vvith her, husband Roy Rogers

; and starred with him in 35 movies and two television shows in the '50s

and '60s. She also was a best·sell· ing author of 'two

.

~Qoks: Angel

_.

Unaware and Life· isla 8/e:ssing .

...

.

..

16 '

-t'

essary on this record," says McKeown. "I think that's an amazing compliment.''

Distillation is McKeown's second band

ef-fort-or third, if you count her high school

boyfriend's rock band, Weezecake. After a

childhood at the piano, McKeown began teaching herself guitar at age 11. Steeped in

the music of the Indigo Girls and Dave Matthews, she started writing songs at 15. In her second year at Brown, she launched a trio with upright bass and drums. "We took

all my songs and pretended we were Soul

Coughing," says McKeown. "It didn't work. I didn't know how to change my guitar part to play with a drummer and a bass player, and

none of us knew that silence is good."

At her CD release party at the Iron Horse

in Northampton, Massachusetts, this past

September, McKeown was clearly on top of

the band game. "Generally, I'm totally fo-cused on the audience when I'm playing,"

she says. "But with these guys [Chalfant and

Entress ], if I could, I'd just turn everyone In a circle and face each other and play. I'm so in·

terested in what's going on." The trio deliv· ered material from Distillation that ranged

from the 1940s Rodgers and Hart cover "You

Mustn't Kick it Around" to hook-filled origi-nals like "Blackbirds" (a catchy, melodic takeoff on the nursery rhyme), "The Little

Cowboy" (the saga of a cocaine-sniffing

cow-poke with a "nose for the setting sun"), and

"Fast as I Can," a squint-eyed look at suc

-cess: "Something about success that lies, lies

next to me I ln a strange bed, a strange bed, bedfellow strange."

Success does seem ready to pounce on

McKeown. She's already garnered industry

interest and a fan base on both coasts-and

all with a university degree in

ethnomusicol-ogy still pending. When asked what she'd like to be known for, McKeown shoots straight. "That's the easiest question. I want to be known for a good, fun live show. I want people to be a part of it, to create an energy

flow between the stage and the audience. Number two, I want to be known as a good songwriter. That's where I need to grow the most. Number three, I want to be known as a great guitar player. That's my favorite thing to do."

- RaniArbo

Wh

a

t They Play

Erin McKeown plays a 1972 Gibson Hummingbird custom that she bought in high school for $400. "It's an amazing-sounding guitar," she says. "It has a warm high end and a

!humpy low end that suits my style. It has no pickup and I don't care if it ever gets one. I

can't fathom how many problems they start, and then it takes four racks of something to fix

them. If I'm going to play an acoustic guitar, it's only going to be in the studio. Plus, the Hummingbird is a big dreadnought, and that's not comfortable for me on stage~ On stage,

McKeown plays a Gibson Chet Atkins SST acoustic-electric with flatwound strings and a

heavy pick. She also recently acquired a brand· new Gretsch Synchromatic G3900 arch·

top, which she's dubbed the "Lady Baltimore." On Distillation, McKeown and Chalfant used the Hummingbird, a mid·'70s Gibson ES-335, and an Ibanez Telecaster copy.

This Bird Has Flown

What would inspire a songwriter/guitarist in a successful alt-country band with devoted fans across the country and beyond to throw in the towel, move to the California desert, and put together his own homespun folk band? In the case of ex-Jayhawk Mark Olson,

it was field recordings by the Holy Modal Rounders and Lucinda Williams' early

records. "Those are the kind of records I play," Olson says, "so I might as well sound that way." And despite the commercial suc-cess the Minneapolis-based Jayhawks were enjoying in 1995 when Olson decided to quit

the band, his decision was also innuenced by what he perceives as the fickle nature of the

rock 'n' roll world. "With pop music, you're

up one·tlay, down the next," he says. "With

folk music, you can build a following that will stick with you over time- regardless of whether or not you get played on the radio." Olson got a good look at that kind of

devot-ed following when he toured with his wife,

cult heroine and singer-songwriter Victoria

Williams, who has been doing her own quirky thing since releasing her first solo recording,

Happy Come Home (Geffen), in 1987.

There was something magical about Olson's collaboration with Gary Louris, his c<>;-writer, cofrontman, and electric guitarist in the Jayhawks- the blend of tl)eir voices, the way Louris' soulful lead guitar parts filled the spaces in the melody- but Olson is creating a different kind of magic in Josh!la Tree, California, with a whole new crew of

Think of it as the acoustic guitar

with an attitude.

·

The Les Paul Acoustic from Gibson Custom

Rnally Gibson Custom has taken the world's most popular solid body profile and developed what's sure to become the world's hottest electric/acoustic.

The new Les Paul Acoustic features a carved maple top, a hollowed-out mahogany back and an L.R. Baggs® piezo pickup. The result is a light, comfortable guitar with incredible tone and classic Les Paul looks.

For more information, call800-987 -2284, ext. 900 or visit www.gibsoncustom.com.

The World's Finest Guitars

WWW. G IBSONCUSTOM .COM

raters dubbed the Original Harmony Ridge Creek Dippers.

The Creek Dippers' new recording, My

Own Jo Ellen (High Tone), is a collection of

Americana penned by Olson and featuring himself and Williams on vocals, acoustic and electric guitar, dulcimer, piano, and electric banjo; Mike Russell on fiddle, mandolin, and bass; Greg Leisz on acoustic and electric gui-tar, mandolin, bass, and Dobro; Brian Kane on acoustic guitar, clarinet, and sax; and Danny Frankel and Don Heffington on drums. It's ac

-tually Olson's third recording as a Creek Dipper; the first two, The Original Harmony

Ridge Creek Dippers and Pacific Coast

Ram-bler, were not only self-recorded but

self-re-leased. The latest presents more of Olson's simple, singable songs in a kind of loose,

folksy format (despite the high-quality production provided by engineer Michael Dumas). "My songs are really simple," Olson says. "Anyone with a basic knowledge of

music can sit down and play with me." Ex·Jayhawk Mark Olson (right) and the Original Harmony Ridge Creek Dippers.

The off-kilter harmonies spun out by Olson and Williams are something of ·an ac-quired taste, and that singing-around- the-kitchen-table vibe is amplified tenfold when the group loads its equipment (and its dogs) into the van for a concert tour. Williams plays guitar in the Creek Dippers, and Olson plays bass in Williams' band, and their down-home,

seemingly off-the-cuff shows are immensely

appealing.

Olson writes the majority of his songs on his workhorse Guild D-25 but also writes on piano and has recently taken to the dulcimer.

He discovered the appeal of the dulcimer

while playing for mentally retarded kids, who

"really liked it." The sound of the instrument

inspired him to write some of the strongest

tunes on My Own Jo Ellen, including "Walking Through Nevada," a sweet, romantic duet with Williams; "Ben Johnson's Creek," an

old-timey ecological awareness song; and the country-flavored title track. "I wrote 'Letter

from Africa' and 'Linda Lee' on the piano,"

Olson says. "We have this old van and we're able to carry a weighted keyboard in there, so I get to play three different instruments when I'm performing my own songs [on the road). I really enjoy that."

Luiz Bonfa, 1922-2001

Brazilian master Lulz Bonta.

Luiz Floriano Bonta, renowned guitarist, pi-oneer of the bossa nova sound, and com-poser of over 500 instrumentals and songs,

18

including the haunting Brazilian classic

"Manha de Carnaval," passed away in Rio de Janeiro on January 12.

Bonta was born on October 17, 1922, in Rio de Janeiro. He began playing guitar at the age of 11 and studied with the great Uruguayan guitarist/composer Isaias Savio.

Developing a passion for popular music in his teens, Bonta became a singer and began performing in local clubs as a member of the group Quitandinha Serenaders. By 1946, he had become a nationally known guitarist

and composer through broadcasts on Brazil's Radio Nacional.

After touring the U.S. as the guitarist for singer/actress Mary Martin in 1957, Bonta di -vided his time between New York City and Rio, composing, recording, and scoring films in both locations. In 1959, film director Marcel Camus commissioned Bonta to write

the theme for his movie Black Orpheus. The

The change in band status has certainly

taken some getting used to. The Jayh~wks traveled with a full entourage of managers and roadies and essentially had only to show up and play. With the Creek Dippers, Olson and his cohorts are necessarily hands-on,

handling everything from booking the tours to loading in their gear to working with venue

managers and sound engineers. But the

phys-ical labor is a small price to pay for expressing what's in his heart. "Now there are new fans who have just heard of me through the Creek Dippers," says Olson, "and that's a nice thing." - Simone So/ondz

movie and its theme, "Manha de Carnaval,"

brought the music of Brazil, bossa nova in particular, to worldwide attention. Over the next several decades, Bonta worked and recorded with several American jazz musi

-cians, including Stan Getz, and performed regularly in Europe and the U.S. His songs were recorded by countless artists as di-verse as Elvis Presley and jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.

Bonta's harmonically and melodically so-phisticated compositions were ·strongly i n-fluenced by jazz, classical, and Afro-Brazilian music and had more of a traditional samba feel than the music of many of his bossa nova contemporaries. Although his music could be ebullient and upbeat, much of it is char-acterized by a delicate, wistful quality and ex-presses the Brazilian notion of saudade, a sense of deep, unfulfilled yearning.

- Ron Forbes-Roberts

300 copies, individually numbered and signed

BINDING

Hardbound, with slipcase

FORMAT

9 by 12 inches, 152 pages

INTRODUCTION

By Ben Harper

CONTRIBUTORS

Richard Johnston • Michael Wright • Michael Simmons • Steve James • Ben Elder • Eric Schoenberg • Bruce Taylor • George Gruhn • Jon Sievert

PRICE

$100 (after July I, 200 I) $80 (before July I, 200 I)

ORDERING

Music Dispatch, PO Box 13920, Milwaukee, WI 53213 (800) 637-2852, Department BG I 0 I A www.stringletter.com Item #21330781

Guitars:A Musical History

is the first rial reference work to offer guitar enthusiasts, players, and collectors an opportunity to explore the rich, synergistic relationship between builders and artists, between instruments and music-all in the context of a cultural and historical legacy that is uniquely American.

Here you'll meet the craftsmen whose innovations

_ in guitar design and construction inspired new sounds in blues, jazz, country, and popular music, and the pioneering musicians whose

end-less quest for new sounds pushed these instrument makers into unexpected and unheard-of places. And, of course, you'll

see

and savor the rich variety of their gui-tars.

• Generously illustrated with more than 150 photographs of players, instruments, catalog pages, and other memorabilia. • Feawres everything from the elegant American guitars of the

19th century to the evolving dreadnought, jumbo, 12-string, archtop, resophonic, and more--the original instruments as well as contemporary incarnations and reissues.

• Spotlights the guitars of Lead belly, Jimmie Rodgers, the Everly Brothers, Tony Rice, Emmylou Harris, Ben Harper, and others. From the publishers of

Aco

u

stic Guitar

magazine.

You are invited

to

acqu

ir

e the

limited edition now

,

in advance

of publication. If your order is

received before July I, 200

I

,

your price is $80.00

,

a savings

)

of 20%. You will receive your

REVIEWS

True Life Blues

Tw

o n

ew bi

o

graphies detail the life and

music of the father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe

A

mong the bluegrass faithful, no

name conjures a more potent image or elicits more respect than that of Bill Monroe, the undisputed founding father and arbiter of style for

the idiom. While casual listeners might

be more familiar with the banjo-driven

strains of Flatt and Scruggs or the-latter permutations of the genre fostered by David Grisman, for true believers, Bill

Monroe was Moses, David, and John the

Baptist rolled into one. His compositions and repertoire are the heart of the gen-re's canon, and his work remains vi-brantly alive through the thousands of active bluegrass bands the world over that hew close to the "traditional"

sounds he created with various i

tera-tions of the Blue Grass Boys. And

Monroe's impact reached far beyond the

confines of his imitators and acolytes. He was an early star of the Grand Ole Opry and performed there nearly every

Sat-urday night during his 58-year career. He played thousands of gigs and recorded hundreds of songs, and his compositions

were covered by everyone from Elvis

Presley to Jerry Garcia to Ray Charles.

Yet in an era when teen P<?P idols rou

-tinely release biographies with their first hit recordings, Monroe's legacy has been

woefully underdocumented. Monroe didn't

give his first serious interview until the

early '60s-more than 20 years into his

career-and it wasn't until Newsweek

magazine referred to him as the father of

bluegrass in the early '70s that he began to receive broader recognition for his

contributions. James Rooney's Bossmen:

Bill Monroe and Muddy Waters offered

some tantalizing interviews with Monroe

in the era before he achieved his ultimate

place of recognition, but Monroe was

never as articulate in speech as he was with his music, and these chats fail to give a full piCture of the man. Now, four years after his death, two new volumes

20

offer significant insight into the life and times of Bill Monroe.

Richard D. Smith's Can't You Hear Me Callin': The Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass

is the first full-fledged biography of the man, and it is a gripping read. The details of Monroe's life are as compelling as any novel,

and over the years countless

anec-dotes, oral histories, jokes, lies, and tall tales about his quirks, quarrels, and

high adventures have been traded

among aficionados. Smith makes the

most of the dramatic elements of

Monroe's life to support his thesis that

Monroe's potent, lonesome music and

hapless career were the result of early

pain and abandonment. This dimestore

psychology wears pretty thin by the

book's end, but Smith does a wonderful

job of moving the yarn along, and he must be credited for putting together tbe mos.t comprehensive picture of Monroe's life to date.

Born in 1911 near Jerusalem Ridge in

Rosine, Kentucky, Monroe was the

youngest of eight children. He was bur-dened with a retiring disposition and

embarrassed by his cross-eyed vision.

Orphaned by the time he was a teenager, he fell under the grudging care of elder

brothers who seemed to take delight

in bullying the shy and sensitive boy. Monroe took refuge in music, and under

the tutelage of his uncle Pen Vandiver, a fiddler of local renown, and Afr ican-American guitarist Arnold Shultz, Monroe began to acquire the skills that would lift him into the limelight but never fully de-liver him from this early sadness. Despite their cruelty to him, Monroe cast his lot with his brothers, and his initial musical

success was in various combos with

Birch and Charlie Monroe. They shunted the lowly mandolin to Bill while they

grabbed the more popular fiddle and guitar, but Monroe turned the

tables by transforming the little instr

u-ment into a fierce ax capable of blaz

-ing melodies and indomitable rhythm chops.

Over the years, Monroe's

profession-al life traced a jagged course veering

from stratospheric success to desperate

lows, a career comprising grueling tours,

punishing schedules, and lousy business

decisions. For every musical success

there was a financial debacle, and even in his final years when he should have

been basking in the admiration of his

many ardent fans, Monroe was strug

-gling to make ends meet. Inadvertently or

not, Smith builds a convincing case that·

Monroe was as much to blame for his fre-quently stalled career as the fickle public or waning interest in his mountain-style

music. His brooding temperament and

quick anger led to long feuds with other musicians and frequent misunderstand-ings with agents and managers. He was a

deplorable businessman who was

care-less with money, and he often turned his

Books Reviewed

Tom Ewing, Ed., The Bill Monroe

Reader, University of Illinois Press, $29.95 (hardcover book).

Richard D. Smith, Can't You Hear

Me Callin; Little, Brown, and Co., $25.95 (hardcover book).

back on those who were trying their hardest to help him.

Monroe's personal life was every bit as rocky. Despite passionate attachments to several wiv~s and a string of long-term companions, Monroe was a relentless womanizer, and while his romantic es-capades were inspiration for some of his best "true" songs, they also resulted in an exhausting stream of real-life heartaches. Smith goes to great lengths to reveal the "untold" and occasionally unsavory as-pects of Monroe's love life, and he occa-sionally lapses into mere gossip monger-ing when he records allegations and ru-mors only to dismiss them as unfounded.

Smith can't quite make up his mind about whether to put Monroe on a pedestal or knock him off it, and one wishes that he had focused more on Monroe's art and given us a clearer glimpse of the man's incredibly fertile musical imagination. There are some cur-sory descriptions of a few key musical encounters and recording sessions and a handful of telling quotes from the many players who worked with him over the years, but valuable insight into Monroe's creative genius too often gets short shrift in favor of exposing the vicissitudes of his personal life.

MAY 2001

~

ACOUSTIC

GUITAR

The book sports an exhaustive bibli-ography, and Smith's source material is scrupulously documented via endnotes. There is a reasonable index and a brief essay on recommended listening. The lack of a complete discography or any timeline indicating the various permuta-tions of Monroe's ever-shifting band are significant oversights in a serious biogra-phy of a man whose life was spent per-forming and recording. For this data, se-rious fans will have to wait for the antici-pated update of Neal Rosenberg's 1974 Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys: An Illustrated Discography. Despite these quibbles, Can't You Hear Me Call in' is fas

-cinating and fun. Monroe fans will gain insight into the life and times of their hero, and neophytes will get a grand tour of bluegrass from the mountains to the main stage.

In The Bill Monroe Reader, editor Tom Ewing offers a more detached, wide-angle view of Monroe's legacy via a pot-pourri of previously published writings. Ewing played guitar with the Blue Grass Boys during the master's final decade, and he was intimately familiar with Monroe as a friend, musician, and em

-ployer. His chronologically ordered com

-pendium spans seven decades of writing

about Monroe, beginning with excerpts from mid-'30s promotional materials and ending with reflections and memo-rials written after Monroe's death. The book includes excepts from music peri

-odicals, newspapers, books, and news

-letters, and they range from puff pieces to serious criticism, from hard words and angry memories to sentimental po

-etry. There are many first-person ac-counts from men and women who worked and traveled with Monroe over the years, including Neil Rosenberg, Sandy Rothman, and Ralph Rinzler. The half-dozen transcriptions of interviews with Monroe himself are essential

read-ing for the serious fan, as is the

wonder-ful memoir by Cleo Davis, one of the

original Blue Grass Boys. Ewing pro-vides concise editorial comments after every piece, and these notes are espe-cially helpful in putting the stories in context and rectifying stray bits of misinformation.

Both Can't You Hear Me Cal/in' and The Bill Monroe Reader are welcome ad-ditions to the limited library about Monroe. Read in tandem, they provide a robust picture of this most prickly patri-arch of an enduring American music.

- Paul Kotapish

If

you are

i

nto

acoustic

amplification

you should be

i

n

t

o UltraSound.

Just ask

ar

ti

sts like .

..

Jerry Reed,

Thorn Bresh, Wayne

Wesley Johnson,

Muriel

Anderson,

Duck Baker,

Edgar Cruz,

Nokie Edwards,

Tim Farrell

,

Tommy Flint,

Todd Hallawell,

Pat Kirtley,

Jim

Nichols,

Preston Reed and

Bob Saxton.

Stop by your favorite guitar store and find out for yourseH!

www.ultrasoundamps.com

22

Wake the Dead. Many bands have

covered the Grateful Dead, but never quite like this. Led by acoustic guitarist Danny Carnahan and mandolinist

Paul Kotapish, Wake the Dead

recon-ceives a number of Garcia/Hunter songs as Celtic tunes, setting them in medleys alongside traditional Irish jigs and reels. It works beautifully

be-cause the medleys are all so well bal-anced and the ideas so idiosyncratic.

"Friend of the Devil" becomes a jig,

"Touch of Grey" a reel, "Sugaree" a slow

air. The playing is sensitive throughout,

and the players-Carnahan, Kotapish, harpist Maureen Brennan, bassist Cindy Browne, uilleann piper Kevin Carr- fit together perfectly, creating an album as beautiful as it is unlikely. (Grateful Dead/Arista)

-Kenny Berkowitz

Ulisses Rocha and Teco Cardoso,

Caminhos Cruzados. This CD by Teco

Cardoso on reeds and flutes and Ulisses Rocha on nylon-string guitar is an

imagi-native fusion of the diverse .musical

styles and moods embodied in the best Brazilian music. Rocha is a skillful

play-er and improvisplay-er who is precise and thoughtful yet full of fire as he explores the rich harmonic possibilities of these ten tunes, which include six of his own jazz-flavored pieces as well as others by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Egberto Gismonti. Rocha's technical elan and beautiful, complex originals place him firmly in the con-tinuum of Brazil-ian guitari st/com-posers that in-cludes the late Baden Powell and Garoto, the original jazz/classical fusion-1st. (Malandro)

-Ron Forbes-Roberts

Michelle Malone, Strange Bird, Vol. 3. Throughout her career, singer-guitarist Michelle Malone has filled her live per-formances with everything from radio-friendly pop rock to thrashy folk to b

ar-room blues. This live compilation

fol-lows Malone as she tackles an array of

tunes in amphitheaters, out-of-the-way

pubs, and tiny house parties. The

14-track set spans Malone's catalog and

includes crowd-pleasers such as the

nimble jazzy-acoustic "The Edge." But

Malone also mixes in some hefty ax-grinding with her pop ballads. This disc will appeal as much to Malone's hard-rockin' fans as it will to longtime lovers

of her solo acoustic shows. (Strange

Bird Songs)

- Karen Iris Tucker

Kane's River. Kane's River stands out

from the current pack of new bluegrass

bands on the strength of John Lowell's

fluid, melodic flatpicking and Julie

Elkins' punchy banjo playing and

sweet, soulful voice. Each member

of the band, which includes bassist

Dave Thompson and mandolinist Jerry Nettuno, contributes to the excellent

original material on this debut CD, and

Steve Earle's "Billy Austin" is an

in-spired choice for bluegrassification.

The material and approach stick to the prevailing modern bluegrass style-hard-driving pick -ing, smooth vo -cals, and a dash of contemporary har -monies-but Kane's River has added

an original voice to the scene and.

should eat up the festival circuit. (Doobie Shea)

-Scott Nygaard Tchavolo Schmitt, Alors? ... Voila!

Although Tchavolo Schmitt has only played on a couple of obscure COs and

made a brief appearance in the film

Latcho Drom, his skill as a guitarist has made him a legend among Gypsy jazz aficionados. On this recording he is joined by violinist Florin Niculescu,

ac-cordionist lonica

Minune, bassist Gilles Nature!, and rhythm guitarists Phillipe "Doudou" Cuillerier and Romane, the CO's producer. Schmitt

24

has fast fingers, as he demonstrates on Romane's "Duo D'Amour," but he is at his best on slow tracks like the lovely

ballad "Lyola" and his own composition "Variation," where his expressive

play-ing, blended with the timbres of the ac-cordion and violin, evokes a sweet,

melancholy mood that is more Gypsy than jazz. (Iris/Harmonia Mundi)

-Michael Simmons Rodney Crowell, The Houston Kid.

For his first album in four years, Rodney Crowell revisits his old neigh

-borhood, writing about the people he grew up with on the dirt-poor side of Houston. There are his

mother and father, constantly fighting with each other, the armed robber who lives down the street, and the redneck

twin boys next door. They're complex, conflicted, unconventional characters, and Crowell gives all of them the chance to speak in their own words. Even with a full band behind him, it's the quietest album Crowell has made in

years. On acoustic guitar, Crowell

fin-gerpicks with a warm, light precision, supported by longtime collaborators Michael Rhodes on electric bass and Steuart Smith on electric guitar, Auto-harp, mandolin, and bouzouki. The Houston Kid is filled with stories of

rock-abilly rebels, one-eyed sailors, and

bare-foot kids, a beautiful, touching album

that is worlds away from mainstream Nashville. (Sugar Hill)

-Kenny Berkowitz

Various artists, A Jewish Odyssey.

This sampler is a fine introduction to some contemporary Jewish roots performers. You won't find any. rough folky edges on this disc-these are pop artists with smooth voices and professional back

-up. The styles here

range from Eastern European klez

-mer tunes to the less familiar Seph-ardic music of the descendants of Jews forced out of Spain in 1492. Several

tracks have unusual guitar work, most notably Erkan Ogur's soulful accompa-niment on "Ija Mia Mi Kerida," by the Turkish singers Janet and Jak Esim. (Putumayo)

-Sue Thompson

Books

Ozzle Kotani, Guitar Playing Hawaiian Style. Ozzie Kotani is one of the rarest

kinds of musicians: a skilled guitarist who is equally adept at clearly explain-ing how he does what he does. His

book-and-CO set Guitar Playing Hawaiian Style

is the first volume of a projected

three-volume series devoted to teaching the

ki ho 'alu, or slack-key, guitar style.

Kotani uses nine original compositions

to demonstrate the basic right-and

left-hand techniques, slack-key's distinctive

rhythms, and three common tunings,

in-cluding taro patch (D G D G B D),

dou-ble slack (D G D F: B D), and dropped C (C G D G B D). The compositions are

writ-ten in tablature and include extensive performance notes. Kotani has been

teaching slack-key guitar for 11 years,

but if you can't make it to his class in

Hawaii, this book is the next best thing

to being there. (Mel Bay)

- Michael Simmons

Anthony Glise, Complete Sonatas of Sor, Giuliani, and Diabelli. Nineteenth-century guitarists enjoyed a surprising amount of creativity in performance.

You can hear it in the approach to

tempo found in the recordings of artists

born and grounded in that period, such

as Vahdah Olcott Bickford. You can also

find it in Anthony Glise's thorough

ur-text edition of the works of three major

19th-<:entury composers for the guitar: Fernando Sor, Mauro Giuliani, and Anton Diabelli. Glise includes multiple versions of the works as they were published at the time, as well as an essay and

bibli-ography on 19th-century performance

practice, including sample " improvisa-tions"-brief melodic or harmonic ex-cursions that a performer might insert

into a piece. These elements provide

gui-tarists with the tools necessary to create performances that reflect the com-posers' intentions with depth and un-derstanding. (Mel Bay)

-Stephen Dick

Resources

Dooble Shea, PO Box 68, Boones

Mill, VA 24065; (540) 334·2673; www.doobieshea.com.

Malandro, PO Box 15639, Cincinnati,

OH 45215·0639; {800) 356-1786;

www.brazilianjazz.com.

Strange Bird Songs, PO Box 3092, Decatur, GA 30031; www.

michellemalone.com.

MAY 2001 !ACOUSTIC GUITAR

Introducing KisoKlein Acoustic Guitars. Check our website.

521 Broadway Sonoma, CA 95476 Toll-Free: 1-877-4KLEINS

For those quiet moments of

life that only music can

enhance

,

you

'

ll want to

play a Crafter Guitar

.

Hold

Crafter's wa

r

m natural wood

body and work your fingers

over its inlaid frets

.

We

t

hink

you

'

ll

fa

ll in

lo

v

e.

www.hohnerusa.com • www.crafterguitar~.com

Signature Serlts

Mission Grand Concert

with optlonollnloy 26 GU ITARS

_..,.-..._

HANDCRAFTED INSTRUMENTS CHOSEN BY: CHARLES DAVID ALEXANDER MURIEL ANDERSON JACKSON BROWNE PAT DONOHUE JAMIE FINDLAY PETER FINGER BRIAN GORE JANIS IAN LAURENCE JUBER ERIC LUGOSCH WOODY MANN FRANCO MORONE ISATO NAKAGAWA AL PETTEWAY TIM SPARKS SEAN WEAVER AMY WHITE 140B2 WILLOW LANE WESTMINSTER, CA 926B3 B00·311·1527 www.ryonguitors.com Coli for our color brochure.

A.G.LETTER

From Cambridge,

Massachusetts

Sidewalk seating at the Cutting Edge of the Campfire Festival.

Dear Folkies,

I arrived in Cambridge at around midnight on the Friday before Labor Day. As I came

around the corner and caught sight of Club Passim, Harvard Square's cozy basement

spot, I was struck by how many people had congregated on the street outside. It's the

Cutting Edge of the Campfire Festival, four days of live music from noon to 2 A.M., and·

it's hopping.

Created by Matt Smith, a manager and talent buyer at the club, the Campfire is a

brilliant tapestry of new and familiar faces, musical styles, and personalities that takes

place over Memorial and Labor Day weekends, all for just $10, less than the cost of a

CD. Since the Campfire's inception in 1998, the attendees and performers have more

than doubled. The performers-everyone from Ellis Paul to Melissa Ferrick-play for

free, and the event has exposed audiences to many new faces, including Teddy

Goldstein, James O'Brien, Sloan Wainwright, and yours truly.

The amazing thing about the Campfire is that while 56 hours of music could be

enough to drive anyone to voluntary isolation, people actually become more and more

addicted as the weekend goes on. One woman from Germany approaches me and says

that she had planned to listen for an hour and is now intending to stay for the entire

weekend.

It's the way Smith sets up the schedule that keeps the action going. He purposefully

puts acts in order that contrast and complement each other, and he loves to put people

on stage together who have never met before or heard one another's music. The result

is a remarkable chemistry that develops right before the audience's eyes and ears.

Perhaps it is the spirit of the club that makes it work. Passim, a nonprofit organi

za-tion, is largely volunteer-run and eager to give back to its musicians what they put into

it. There is an amazing feeling of equality and friendliness at the Campfire. Performers