[tenn_jim]

Last night I had dinner at a little bar in Roanoke Virginia. The band was Acoustic Endeavors, a group of local musicians who just relocated back from Nashville where they reported tough times trying to record, write and perform live music. The great thing about this band is that they are truly a flashback to the days when music was pure acoustic...fiddle, banjo, stand-up bass, guitar.

I was totally impressed with the fingerpicking style of Dewey Peters. And Dadfad, no electronic pickups or amps...just a simple microphone system.

If you get the chance, I would highly recommend you listen to pure acoustic music performed by artists such as this group. It brings back guitar in its purest form.

Speaking of acoustic guitars, rumors have it that we have a shortage of red spruce. That may not be true.
Dewey and I had a chance to talk at great length after the show and tell a few lies over a couple of beers. During this conversation, Dewey told me about an incident that happened last year up in the Smoky Mountain National Park. Apparently after the remnanats of a hurricane passed over the area, there were a lot of trees down across the road. The Park Service hired a contractor (logger) to come in and clean up the debris. Dewey was passing thru the area and came upon the contractor tackling one large spruce tree...yes, you guess it...a huge Red Spruce that must have been over 400 years old. Dewey ask the logger what he was going to do with the tree and the logger said, make 2X4's out of it. Dewey then ask what he would sell the tree for (knowing the tree would make great guitar tops). He began to peel off $100 bills and when he got to $700, the contractor ask where he wanted the log. Dewey of course said, I'll come back and get it later. That claw thing you use to pick up logs will destroy 200 guitar tops. They came back later that day with a log truck and picked up enough red spruce logs to make over 1000 guitars.

Actually, the Smokey Mountain National Park has thousands of mature red spruce trees but according to Park Regulations these cannot be harvested. You can only pick up the down and dead.

Dewey has a local luthier making him a custom guitar from this spruce (after it dries out) and a stash of Brazilian Rosewood the luthier just happened to have.

[The_buffalo]

...if you get the chance, I would highly recommend you listen to pure acoustic music performed by artists such as this group. It brings back guitar in its purest form...

Just look at the popularity of the "O, Brother" movie & soundtrack, and the spin-off "Down from the Mountain" DVD, CD, and tour.

This post has been edited by The_buffalo: 07 September 2006 - 05:15 PM

[dadfad]

There's some truly great stuff in that tradition, like Tommy Jarrel and (especially) Roscoe Holcomb and others. Excellent guitar (or other instrument) and vocals. Great old tunes. Like one old Black bluesguy put it to me once... "We all sing about the same things, just on different sides of the tracks." A really good more contemporary guy is Jody Stecher. Great old-time Appalachian guitar and banjo (and mandolin and fiddle too if he feels like it).

[MakoMako]

I love hearing bands like that. There's actually two local, old-time groups performing down at the city park where I live tomorrow. I'm pretty excited to go down and listen to them, especially since it can be a nice laid back way of doing it. The just set up a temporary ampitheatre on one of the baseball fields, and set some chairs in the infeild. Depending on how loud they play, I might just decide to take up a seat back against the fence. The entire air of situation just strikes me as a simpiler time that I think everyone, young and old, should take some time to look back in too.

P.S.
I've been told that the days gone by weren't quite as simple as alot of people claim them to be, but its still nice to tell myself that so I can relax.

[tenn_jim]

I love hearing bands like that. There's actually two local, old-time groups performing down at the city park where I live tomorrow. I'm pretty excited to go down and listen to them, especially since it can be a nice laid back way of doing it. The just set up a temporary ampitheatre on one of the baseball fields, and set some chairs in the infeild. Depending on how loud they play, I might just decide to take up a seat back against the fence. The entire air of situation just strikes me as a simpiler time that I think everyone, young and old, should take some time to look back in too.

P.S.
I've been told that the days gone by weren't quite as simple as alot of people claim them to be, but its still nice to tell myself that so I can relax.

Yes, until people travel down our way they don't know what they're missing.

[okiejohn]

I think Patty Loveless is who turned me on to that type of music. I had listened to quite a bit of it over the years by different folks along with some of the bluegrass from the area, but for some reason or another, I never really paid much attention to the voice inflections till I heard Patty do it.

Ain't that a shame ?

[tenn_jim]

I think Patty Loveless is who turned me on to that type of music. I had listened to quite a bit of it over the years by different folks along with some of the bluegrass from the area, but for some reason or another, I never really paid much attention to the voice inflections till I heard Patty do it.

Ain't that a shame ?

It is a shame John...but this music lives on and on as a reflection of the pure, honest sounds it brings. Kind of like the Delta Blues.

I know most people today prefer the sounds of people like Jimi, Eric Clapton, SRV, etc. It seem volume has superceded pure tone and that's ok. That's what music is all about, enjoying what you enjoy.

As my granddaddy once said, if everyone liked what I like, they would be married to my wife.