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Central Texas Bluegrass Association Bluegrass Bulletin Volume 32, No. 4 April, 2010 Old Settler’s Music Festival April 15-18, 2010 By Tom Duplissey Central Texas Bluegrass is a proud to co-sponsor The 23rd Annual Old Settler‟s Music Festival (OSMF) at Camp Ben McCullough this year. OSMF is the largest and most enjoyed festival in the Cen- tral Texas area that has a reputation of featuring some of the finest bluegrass acts. This year is no excep- tion. The lineup is incredible! The flyer lists all of the acts but just check out the list of the “bluegrass acts” at OSMF this year. This list alone dwarfs any bluegrass festival in Texas. Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band Blue Highway The Travelin‟ McCourys Green Mountain Grass Alison Brown w/Joe Craven Infamous Stringdusters Bearfoot The Special Consensus Blue Highway comes to us from Rounder Records having just released their milestone CD “Some Day: The Fifteenth Anniversary Collection”. It‟s hard to find a band in any genre with five truly gifted song- writers. It is a remarkable achievement to last sixteen years, let‟s hope they keep it going! The Infamous Stringdusters are some of the most talented musicians you will ever see on one stage. One other secret: Don‟t be surprised to find them jamming until the roosters crow. If you have never seen Doyle Lawson then be prepared to get a lesson in the foundation of bluegrass. Peter Rowan represents what Pete Wernick referred to as “the long hair” of bluegrass. Both of these bands are from different ends of the bluegrass spectrum but both will blow you away. „ Hopefully Alison Brown will give another banjo workshop. You don‟t have to be a banjo player to get an education in technique and elegance in performance from her workshops. Alison often uses a piano and drummer in her bluegrass band, the outcome is impressive. Expect to see Greg Cahill teaching a banjo workshop too. Special Consensus played ArtZ Rib House a while back and they were fantastic. Greg has one of the most solid bass players I have ever heard. You can always find plenty of jamming in the Camp Ben camping area. Be forewarned that in previ- ous years you had to have a camping wristband to get into the camping area. Sorry, there is no place to jam near the stage areas. So if jamming is your thing, plan to buy a camping pass. Copyright © Central Texas Bluegrass Association Copyright © Central Texas Bluegrass Association 2 LISTEN TO BLUEGRASS ON THE RADIO KOOP Radio, Austin, 91.7, Strictly Bluegrass Show 10:00AM every Sunday KPFT Radio, Houston, 90.1, The Bluegrass Zone, 4:00PM every Sunday KSYM Radio, San Antonio, 90.1, Hillbilly Hit Parade, Noon every Sunday KEOS Radio, College Station, 89.1, High Lonesome, 7:00PM every Tuesday Randall’s Good Neighbor Program The process to get this started is a bit of a pain, but it makes donating to CTBA, your local schools, or your favorite organizations very, very easy. Just go to the link below, print the form and fill it out, enter CTBA‟s code 9735, and take to your local Randall‟s store: http://shop.safeway.com/corporate/randalls/gn_houston_austin.pdf Copyright © Central Texas Bluegrass Association 3 Artist Profile Page This month: Dan Huckabee By Tom Duplissey A few weeks ago I noticed that there was some new mandolin instructional material out there by none other than Dan Huckabee. I had met Dan in the 70‟s when both of our bands were playing the dreaded Chelsea St. Pub cir- cuit. He was playing with Joe Carr and Gerald Jones at the time. Dan was an extraordinary dobro player and he had begun developing instructional mate- rial during the early 70‟s at a time when there weren‟t many books and no video available. Shucks, Beta didn‟t come out until 1974 and by the time it caught on VHS was replacing it. As a result, instructors like Dan were forced to go from vinyl to cassette then to CD, Beta to VHS then DVD. Dan casually said that he loses three years of productivity every time the media standards change. After seeing Dan‟s material on Amazon I sent him an email to see if he would be interested in talking with Central Texas Bluegrass about all the things he is working on now. Dan is a very likable guy and immediately wanted to show me his latest submission to Flatpicking Guitar Magazine. I had to step over a real fine old 1951 D-28 Martin to get to where we could see the computer screen. Tell us about Musician’s Workshop. When did all get started? I started Musician's Workshop in 1973 and we've been creating music instruction products continuously ever since. When I started this business I was with the Allman Brothers. There was nothing to do dur- ing the daytime before the tour started so I went across the street from the motel to the Cemetery and sat around recording some dobro lessons on my battery powered cassette recorder. Later I went back to the cemetery with Dickey (Betts) and he showed me the Elizabeth Reed headstone. I had been sitting there, recording some lessons, in the same cemetery where he made up “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed”. The lessons have been on records, 8-track, cassettes, CD‟s, VHS, DVD and now on Download. Musician- Workshop.com Are there any new products in the works from Musicians Workshop? Yes. We have several new mandolin products that were just released this week. Some are download- able on the web site and the six newest are only available if you call (800) 543-6125. We now have Texas Contest Fiddle Tunes for Mandolin, Easy Mandolin Song 2 Volumes, 6 Volumes of Intermediate thru advanced songs, 2 Easy Gospel and 2 Intermediate Gospel, 2 Irish, 4 Fiddle Tunes for Mandolin and more coming through the spring and summer. Each consist of 10 songs with book and CD. Each tune is played fast, slow, and jam track along with a plain melody version. All the tunes are well thought out to help your skills at developing a style and eventual improvising. They all have great mix-and- match componentry. I see that your web site has over 600 products. You have Greg Cahill, Chris Jones, John Carlini, Brad Davis, Mark Maniscalco, and Robert Bowlin just to name a few. How do you decide which artists mate- rial goes into Musician’s Workshop? I guess just networking socially, the same way you'd meet friends to start a band with. I never really had a procedure. Copyright © Central Texas Bluegrass Association 4 (continued from the previous page) You won the 1976 National Dobro Championship but you have written instructional material for mandolin, guitar, bass, and other instruments. Is guitar your primary instrument? ( Note: he was just finishing his submission of “Big Spike Hammer” for the next issue of Flatpick Guitar Magazine just when I arrived). No, my current main instrument is Mandolin, the only time I play Guitar is when I write my column (in Flatpick Guitar Magazine). I had the opportunity to go up to Colorado to see Sam Bush and visit with Scott (Vestal, an old friend from the 70s). I had a chance to talk to Sam after the concert and he asked, “Well, are you still dobro‟n it?” and I said, no, and he says “Well, why not?” and I said because I got fingering envy…and he just roared. I guess us Dobro players just miss out on the things the rest of you get to do with 4 fingers. So the Mandolin didn't weigh much and it seemed to be more playable in the horizontal position. “You’re a good dobro I see on your web site that you are teaching lessons. Are you actively taking new students? player, you just need to work out your breaks.” Yes, and thoroughly enjoying it. If anyone is interested I can be reached at [email protected] or 800-543- Jerry Douglas to Dan 6125. It's somewhat informal in that I don't require students come every week and pay by the month. They just come in as often as they are ready and we take the pace that fits their schedules. What advice would you give to people interested in playing bluegrass music? I think it boils down to the process of solo designing. Some people call it "working out your breaks." I lecture about that a lot in my column in Flatpicking Guitar. If what they are doing is searching for the melody and gradually adding a little embellishing to it, then they are doing exactly what every famous star did. I'm self taught but I've had one lesson and it was from Jerry Douglas. I made a pilgrimage to spend a week with him and his family while he was still in high school. He didn‟t teach me anything all week but at the end he said, “you‟re a good dobro player, you just need to work out your breaks." And so now, that I‟m back, that‟s what I do every day. I think if you name Tony Rice, Mark O‟Conner, Earl Scruggs or any name, that‟s what they did. On a personal note, what are your other hobbies? What do you like to do in your spare time? My main hobby is Western Archery Hunting.

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