Volume 45, Issue 5 www.huntsvillefolk.org May 2011

TheHTMA Huntsville President’s Traditional NotesMusic Next Meeting AllAssociation of my siblings meets got ontogether the third in Huntsville Sunday of last May 15th weekend to helpeach my month Mom celebrate her 2:00 P.M. birthday. WhileOur next they meeting were here is: I took the Huntsville/Madison Public Library opportunitySunday, to invite February some folks 21st over for a little Htma Coffee house picking. Had several2:00 - 4:30 folks PM over Saturday, and Presents really had a good time sharing new and old Huntsville/Madison Public Library Auditorium tunes with friends and family.

Later I talked with my brother John about the music association, and inertia. John was president of our sister organization, the

Delaware Friends of Folk, up in Dover Delaware, for nearly ten years, till he got transferred to Cincinnati. I think that DeFF had only a dozen or so members when John joined, but by the time he left they had a weekly coffeehouse (at Wesley College) and over 150 families were members. That’s a huge May 19th membership for Dover, a much smaller town 7:00PM than Huntsville.

(continued on page 4) Old Country Church

Inside this Issue: Page 1: President’s Notes Page 2: Executive Board Page 3: May Calendar of Events Page 4: The Berry Patch Page 5: President’s Notes (continued) Page 6 & 7: One of the Greats in Bluegrass Music

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President Jerry LeCroy 880-6234 [email protected]

Vice President Jim England 852-5740 [email protected]

Walking Tour Sec/Treasurer Pat Long 539-7211 [email protected]

HTMA has been asked to Publicity Chair Claire Mikkelsen [email protected] provide music for the annual Public Service Chair Mooresville Walking Tour to Position Available!

be held Saturday, May 21 Performance Chair Jim Holland [email protected] from 11 am to 5 pm in Operations Co-Chair Mooresville, AL (just down George Williams 256-728-2359 [email protected] the road from HSV on I565). Music must be Steve McGehee 858-2032 [email protected]

acoustic (no amplification). Webmaster Brian Curtis 412-0980 [email protected] http://www.mooresvillealabama.com/tour11.htm Newsletter Editor Brian Curtis 412-0980 [email protected]

Anyone interested may contact Pat Long for further

info. For the positions of Event [email protected] Photographer/Videographer

Backup Sound Technician

Contact Jerry LeCroy for details Call 256-880-6324 or E-Mail [email protected]

Visit our website www.huntsvillefolk.org

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Gurley's Music Barn Tues. Night Jams Lexington Bluegrass Festival Every Tuesday night in May beginning at 7:00 PM May 21st 45 Peck Hollow Rd; Somerville, AL 35670 Lexington City Park, Lexington, Alabama http://www.lexingtonal.org/bluegrass.html New Hope Saturday Night Jam Every Saturday night in May beginning at 6:00 PM Daily & Vincent New Hope Senior Center, New Hope, Alabama May 21st Arab City Park, Arab, Alabama Glen England’s Spring Bluegrass Festival http://daileyvincent.musiccitynetworks.com/ May 12th through 14th Glen England Home, Center Star, Alabama 27th Annual Poke Salat Festival STAGE Jam Contact [email protected] for details and directions May 21st Arab City Park, Arab, Alabama Second Saturday Old-Time Jam http://www.pokesalatfestival.com/ May 14th 1:00 - 4:00 PM Constitution Hall Village, Huntsville, Alabama Mooresville Walking Tour May 21st 11 AM – 5 PM Hearthstone Assisted Living Gig Historic Mooresville, Alabama May 14th 3:00 PM Contact [email protected] for more details 2020 Benaroya Lane, Huntsville, Alabama Log Cabin String Band HTMA Meeting May 21st 7-9 PM May 15th 2:00 PM 16 Main St. (East Lawn), Madison, Alabama Huntsville/Madison Library, Huntsville, Alabama www.16maingallery.com/Gallery_Events.html

HTMA Coffeehouse Huntsville Bluegrass/Gospel Jam May 19th 7:00 PM May 22nd 2:00-5:30 PM Burritt on the Mountain - Old Country Church Madison County Nature Trail at Green Mtn.

Horse Pens 40 Spring Bluegrass Festival Hurricane Creek Bluegrass Band May 20th - 22nd May 21st Horse Pens 40 Park, Steele, Alabama Little House of Prayer, Lacey’s Springs, Alabama http://www.hurricanecreekbluegrass.com/ Just Down the Road May 20th 6:00 PM Acoustic Café Singing on the Square, Athens, Alabama May 27th and 28th Natural Bridge, Alabama Keel Mtn Fire Dept. 3rd Friday Night Jam http://www.theacousticcafe.com/ May 20th 6:00 PM Keel Mtn. Fire Dept., Gurley, Alabama Regency Retirement Village Gig May 28th 3:15 PM Harborchase Assisted Living Gig 204 Max Luther Drive, Huntsville, Alabama May 21st 10:30 AM 4801 Whitesport Circle, Huntsville, Alabama Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers: An Evening of Bluegrass and Banjo May 29th 8:00 PM Von Braun Civic Center Concert Hall http://www.stevemartin.com/ More information on all HTMA meetings, concerts, coffeehouses, and other events, is available at www.huntsvilefolk.org

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The Berry Patch IT WAS ONLY EIGHTY YEARS AGO WHEN:

Four hundred, forty-five dollars would buy a new Chevrolet that would, with a good effort, carry the family an average of 230 miles each day when on vacation travel. Usually, for most vacationing Americans, it was a three week affair; one week going, one staying, and another getting back home.

Flat tires were a common occurrence. Many cars carried a spare mounted on the back. If no spare was available, repairing a “flat” was often a challenge. The do-it-yourself method required the use of a jack, tire-tools, cold-patch kit, hand-pump, and a handy puddle of water to baptize the tube in to “check for leaks.” Chances of successfully repairing the leak with the first effort were about fifty-fifty, assuming one was experienced in such matters. The neophyte had about one chance in ten of success on the first try. A hot, over-head August sun beating down on the man fixing the flat was no cause for celebration, but good cause to give the man plenty of space. A wise mother took the kids and a blanket to some far-away, shady spot, out of hearing distance. Daddy, the hot sun, and the flat tire were a combustible combination, not a fit place for young ears.

That same year, and for several thereafter, Professor Thomas Marshall’s American History was in common usage in our country. Thomas, speaking of the slave, wrote: Although he was in a state of slavery, the Negro of plantation days was usually happy. He was fond of the company of others and liked to sing, dance, crack jokes, and laugh. (I guess this was the writer’s way of saying “misery loves company.”) Shirley Temple was age four and already appearing in “picture-shows.” Times were difficult for many musicians, causing Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman to share a common room while playing in various pit bands in New York City.

In Beaumont, Texas, Harry James was not so lucky with a traveling bandleader named Lawrence Welk who denied Harry’s bid for a job because, You play too loud for my band.

A clock maker in New Jersey discovered that it was hazardous of his employees to use radium for painting of luminous figures on clock dials. Out of regard for their safety, he converted to the use of uranium.

Such was life, back then.

Many thanks for your good work for HTMA, Joe

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DeFF started putting on a music festival about twenty years ago. It was first known as the Fall Fling, but is now the DELMARVA (Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia) folk festival. Runs two days every October, and a lot of folks camp out to be sure they aren’t missing anything. John and Vickie’s kids have fond memories of the folk festival as a big annual party, and they still make a pilgrimage there. But DEFF membership has been falling, much like we have experienced at HTMA. John has some theories about that. He suspects that a critical element in maintaining an involved membership in an organization like ours is to have a wide range of musical choices presented in the association’s performance schedule. One pitfall for us would be to have a coffeehouse schedule that reflects the musical taste of one member. It doesn’t matter whether that member likes blues or bluegrass, gospel or opera. If we only put on one kind of music, after a while the audience will thin out to the select group who enjoy that genre, and everyone else finds other things to do with their time. That puts a lot of stress on the booking committee. Essentially, it means that to do the job, they have to occasionally book performers that they might not normally choose to go see, harder still if the performance committee is one guy. This is pretty much our current situation. Even with the best intentions, it’s hard for one guy to have enough contacts across music genres to even know who might be brought in from musical styles outside his usual experience. This means that HTMA could really use some help in the performance booking department. If you know an artist that you’d like to see in Huntsville, please take the time to talk to me or Jim Holland, and let us know about your interests. Better yet, think about volunteering to work (not really work if you love it) on the performance committee. We might not get your first choice of a coffeehouse band, due to scheduling or financial considerations, but there’s a good chance we will. When that happens, do your part and tell all your friends. If you need to, give them all rides to the show. Make it your job to deliver a respectable audience for your favorite artist.

I may be getting repetitive, but the point stays the same. If we don’t bring in fresh faces in our audiences, and new names in our membership, HTMA is going to disappear, probably sooner than the federal government collapses under its debt load.

I received one nice email in response to last month’s column, from Dale Ramsey. (Thank You, Dale!) Dale’s idea is that we are not likely to bring in a younger audience by doing anything as easy as just cutting ticket prices on concerts to three or four bucks. He suggested that we might get a better reception by working out an agreement with Catherine and Anna Sue at the Flying Monkey to do concerts on the FlyMo loading dock. I like that idea, and I’ll be talking to them about it. If you are interested in playing regular gigs at the Monkey’s dock, please let me know. I’d like to see if we can get several months worth of HTMA members lined up before we do the first show, because a gig like this needs to have quality and endurance to succeed. On the subject of HTMA members playing out, please don’t forget the Gazebo concert coming up on July 17th. This will replace the July Huntsville Library meeting. I am ready to have HTMA members sign up for performance slots in this concert now, and expect to freeze the program by July 1. If you have a special need for an early or late time slot, let me know and I will try to accommodate. When you contact me to request a slot, please let me know who will be playing with you, the band name (if applicable) and the sound setup you will need (number of instrument and vocal microphones). Putting on a show with a dozen acts is really hard work for the sound crew, and you can help ease the pain by letting us know what you will need ahead of time.

Between now and the summer concert, I hope that we all have a terrific summer.

Jerry LeCroy HTMA President

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One of the Greats in Bluegrass Music By Brian Curtis

It’s not every day you get a chance to sit knee to knee with someone who played and toured with some of the most famous people in bluegrass music. When the genre of bluegrass music was being created there were only a few who got a chance to learn and experience the life and times of people like Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Scotty Stoneman, Billy Ray Latham, Roger Bush and (brother) Clarence White among other bluegrass greats of this world. In April 2011, I got a chance to do just that for an entire week with Roland White at the Alabama Folk School in Nauvoo, Alabama.

Roland White started his career with the family band in California called The Country Boys, a kid act that was formed on a local TV show. Around 1956 he met with banjo player Billy Ray Latham and formed the band The Kentucky Colonels with his brother Clarence White. The Kentucky Colonels would eventually include bluegrass greats such as Scotty Stoneman, Bobby Slone and Leroy McNeese. In 1967 Roland began playing guitar for Bill Monroe’s band The Bluegrass Boys. After two years as a member of The Bluegrass Boys, Roland signed on with Lester Flatt’s newly formed group Nashville Grass for the next four years. He then teamed back up with his brother Clarence and reformed the New Kentucky Colonels. After an accident in 1973 that killed Clarence White, Roland moved to Nashville and joined with Roger Bush and Alan Munde who formed the successful Country Gazette. Roland’s website bio included the comments of fellow Nashville Grass member Marty Stuart:

"For those of us who love bluegrass music, it's always been the same. It's understood that Bill Monroe is the Father of it all...but time has a way of crawling along and taking the responsibility for the future to other souls. As long as I know that Roland has a voice in the inner circle, I know that everything's going to be all right concerning the tradition and future of bluegrass."

When I moved to Huntsville three and a half years ago due to job location, I left family and friends in Florence Alabama. That was the town I grew up in. I did not know anyone in my new home and after sitting at home for six months, I realized I was going to have to find something to take up this enormous amount of time on my hands.

I was at my father’s house and noticed an old mandolin in the closet that he got after my grandfather passed away. That old thing was not of much value and at the time I was not sure if it had ever been played. I knew that it had not been played since my grandfather passed. I never really witnessed my grandfather playing it either. I took that mandolin and bought a book at a music store, Roland White’s Approach to Bluegrass Mandolin. I had never picked up an instrument in my entire life and knew absolutely nothing about music before I went on this venture. I knew that if I could learn one song I would probably put it down and never pick it up again, but I gave it a try…little did I know it would become such a huge part of my life. I opened the book, put in the CD and within a couple of hours I was playing the first song. After that, I was hooked. Three years later I have learned almost every song in

6 One of the Greats in Bluegrass Music (continued) the book. I attend every jam I can find, have become the newsletter editor and webmaster for the HTMA. I also try to keep up with every festival known to our local area. I have ventured away from Roland’s book and learned other songs by different means and media, but I still go back to the songs I learned in the beginning. You can see now why I had to meet the man and try to soak in as much as possible during his class at the Alabama Folk School. It was the opportunity of a lifetime to get a chance to meet the person who really put a spark in my life and gave me a passion for playing music.

The first couple of classes were really rough for me because the songs he was teaching was straight from the book and I already knew most of them. I soon began to realize what knowledge, wisdom and talent Roland White really has. His experiences and stories he would tell about playing with all of the greats listed above was more to me than money could buy. We would have class for three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. After supper was over, there would be a jam session that would start around 7 p.m. and last until late in the night or early the next morning. I played so much my fingers were hurting by the second day.

The highlight of my trip was when the class was finishing up a break in the morning and everyone was gathering back to the class. I was the first to sit down and lightly began playing Jerusalem Ridge to myself. I have been trying for months to get that song down and was getting pretty good in my opinion. Roland walked in the door and spoke to a couple of people then began noticing what I was playing. He grabbed up his mandolin and sat directly in front of me and joined in. Just the two of us playing one of the most difficult songs I have ever learned and we were playing note for note. That was one of the best feelings in the world.

I will have to say that when I left the Alabama Folk School I realized I had played music with some great people. Roland White, Diane Bouska, Alan Munde, Herb Trottman, Jason Bailey and everyone in the class that sat alongside me to learn Advanced Mandolin from One of The Greats in Bluegrass Music.

If you have never been to the Alabama Folk School at Camp McDowell, I advise you to pick your instrument up, find a class that suits your needs and sign up for the best music, food, accommodations and entertainment you will find. Between the classes and jams every day, I figured I had played that mandolin around 8 – 10 hours every day. That is a lot of playing time for someone that was just going to learn one song and probably put it down three years ago.

http://www.rolandwhite.com/

http://www.campmcdowell.com/folkschool/

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