HTMA President's Notes

Volume 46, Issue 4 www.huntsvillefolk.org April 2012

Next Meeting

April 15th TheHTMA Huntsville President’s Traditional NotesMusic 2:00 P.M. Association meets on the third Sunday of Huntsville/Madison Public Library Dear Friends, each month Our next meeting is: HTMA

Spring has finallySunday, sprung! February The leaves 21st are green again, coffeehouse Music Series the dog and cat are shedding like crazy, and I can go 2:00 - 4:30 PM Presents motorcycle riding without arctic gloves and other armor. It’s great. Huntsville/Madison Public Library Auditorium The March Coffeehouse was a terrific success for us, in terms or the audience turnout, performance quality, and finances – this was an unusual event where donations actually exceeded the artist compensation. If that gets to be a habit, we will be http://www.bryanbowers.com/able to increase the honorarium we offer our artists.

I’d really like to be able to do that. Kudos again this month to Jerry McGough, for booking excellent talent, to Sylvia Williams for getting the word out to pull in an audience, and to George Williams for making the sound system work so well. This was our first performance in several years to provide stage th monitoring for the performers, and I could tell that April 26 7:00 PM they appreciated the effort.

(continued on page 5) Old Country Church Inside this Issue: Page 1: President’s Notes Page 2: Scruggs Funeral /Executive Board Page 3: April Area Events Page 4: The Berry Patch

Earl Scruggs funeral is Sunday at the Ryman

Banjo Pioneer Brought Bluegrass to the Masses

President Jerry LeCroy 880-6234 [email protected]

Vice President Jim England 852-5740 [email protected]

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

Publicity Chair Sylvia Wiliams [email protected]

Performance Chair Earl Scruggs Photo Credit: Rusty Russell/Getty Images Jerry McGough 883-1392 [email protected]

The funeral for legendary banjoist Earl Scruggs will be Public Service Chair held Sunday April 1st at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Jim England 852-5740 [email protected] Nashville, Tenn. Operations Co-Chair George Williams [email protected] Scruggs, the bluegrass sensation died of natural causes at a Nashville hospital Wednesday morning, his family Steve McGehee 858-2032 [email protected] said. He was 88. Webmaster Brian Curtis 412-0980 [email protected]

Scruggs’ rise to fame began in the 1940s after quitting his third-shift job at a Shelby,NC textile mill and heading Newsletter Editor to Tennessee. He played with bluegrass pioneer Bill Brian Curtis 412-0980 [email protected] Monroe’s band and later formed a duo with guitarist

Lester Flatt. Legends and Leisure The four-time Grammy winner used three fingers to play At the Alabama Folk School April 16-19, 2012 the banjo – a technique now known as “Scruggs-style picking,” which was prominently displayed in the theme Join us for another fantastic year learning and playing bluegrass with the best. With an all-star cast of instructors, you won’t go song to the 1960s hit “The Beverly Hillbillies.” His home without new skills and tricks, and memories to last a famous “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” was featured in lifetime. Our instructors this year include: the film “Bonnie and Clyde.” Claire Lynch, Vocal Nuances Mark Schatz, Bass Scruggs was preceded in death by his wife, Anne Louise Stephen Mougin, Guitar Accompaniment for Vocals Scruggs and son Steven Scruggs. He’s survived by two Ned Luberecki, Banjo II Herb Trotman, Banjo I sons, Gary Scruggs and Randy Scruggs, five Roland White, Mandolin II grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Jason Bailey, Mandolin I

Visit our website www.huntsvillefolk.org

2 April

Area Events

Gurley's Music Barn Tuesday Night Jam HTMA Coffeehouse Every Tues Night in April beginning at 7:00 PM April 26th 7:00 PM 45 Peck Hollow Rd; Somerville, AL 35670 Burritt on the Mountain Old Country Church

New Hope Saturday Night Jam Panoply Arts Festival Every Saturday night in April beginning at 6:00 PM April 27th – 29th New Hope Senior Center, New Hope Alabama Big Spring Park; Huntsville, Alabama http://www.artshuntsville.org/our-programs/panoply-arts-festival Earl Scruggs Life Celebration April 1st 16th Annual National Cornbread Festival Ryman Auditorium; Nashville, Tennessee April 28th – 29th http://www.ryman.com/ South Pittsburg Tennessee http://nationalcornbread.com/ Allison Krauss & Union Station April 5th Rhonda Vincent BJCC Concert Hall; Birmingham, Alabama April 29th alisonkrauss.com/events National Cornbread Festival; South Pittsburg, Tennessee http://www.rhondavincent.com/ Alabama Chicken & Egg Festival April 13th – 15th Scruggs Funeral Moulton, Alabama (Continued from page 2) www.alabamachickenandeggfestival.com/ His death has been widely mourned by bluegrass fans Second Saturday Old-Time Jam and country music stars. April 14th 1:00 - 4:00 PM Alabama Constitution Village, Huntsville Alabama “Lost one of the pillars of bluegrass music and country http://www.earlyworks.com/the-museums/constitution-village music today,” Dierks Bentley tweeted Wednesday.

“Thanks for a lifetime of music to listen to!” Harbor Chase Assisted Living Gig April 14th 10:30 AM Scruggs’ family will receive friends 3-7 p.m. today and 4801 Whitesport Circle; Huntsville, Alabama Saturday at the Spring Hill Funeral Home in Nashville, HTMA Member Meeting according to an obituary from the funeral home. A April 15th 2:00 PM Huntsville/Madison Public Library celebration of his life will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Ryman, the former home of the Grand Ole Opry. Legends and Leisure Bluegrass Week April 16th – 19th He’ll be buried in a private ceremony.

Alabama Folk School; Nauvoo, Alabama http://www.folkschool.dioala.org/index.html Scruggs’ family has asked, in lieu of flowers, that people make donations to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Folklife Festival Museum in Nashville or to the Earl Scruggs Center April 19nd - 20th Alabama Constitution Village; Huntsville, Alabama Shelby, North Carolina. http://www.earlyworks.com/the-museums/constitution-village The nonprofit Destination Cleveland County is working to Keel Mtn. Fire Dept. 3rd Friday Night Jam restore the 105-year-old Cleveland County courthouse in April 20th 6:00 PM Keel Mtn. Fire Dept., Gurley Alabama Shelby with plans to re-open it as the “Earl Scruggs Center: Music and Stories of the American South,” a Hickory in the Park regional music education and performance center. April 20th - 21st Rogersville Recreation Park; Rogersville, Alabama Organizers said the center will incorporate more than www.rogersvillealabama.org/Event_HickoryInThePark.asp 300 hours of taped interviews with Scruggs. Restoration

work began in 2010. Regency Retirement Village Gig April 21st 3:15 PM 204 Max Luther Drive; Huntsville, Alabama Donations to the Earl Scruggs Center can be mailed to Destination Cleveland County at P.O. box 2063, Shelby, NC 28151. Huntsville Bluegrass/Gospel Jam April 22nd 2:00-5:30 PM Read more here: Madison County Nature Trail at Green Mtn. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/03/29/3137412/earl- http://www.co.madison.al.us/services/naturetrail.shtml scruggs-funeral-is-sunday.html#storylink=cpy

More information on all HTMA meetings, concerts, coffeehouses, and other events, is available at www.huntsvilefolk.org

The Berry Patch If I could choose one Founding Father to personally know, it would be Ben Franklin. If limited to discussing only one subject with Ben, I think it would be his almanac, Poor Richard, which he started in 1732 at age twenty-six. Almanacs had been around at least 200 years before Poor Richard made his appearance in Ben’s first edition. Without apology, Richard explained to his audience that he was in the business of forecasting the weather, moon cycles, the highs and lows of the tides of the ocean, recipes, poems, maxims, and odd sayings of different sorts for the money. The plain truth, Richard said, was that he was excessive poor and his wife, though a good woman was excessive proud and in need of good cooking pot. Ben, a very early advocate of women’s rights, allowed Richard’s wife opportunity, in the next year’s edition, to answer the charge of being excessive proud and to take some shots at her husband. Ben was mindful, in his second edition, to express appreciation for the money earned by the success of the first edition, so successful that Richard’s wife had been able to not only acquire a cook pot but also food to go in the pot. Not only were they able to afford the cook pot, Richard was able to purchase a good, used man’s coat that was of such good appearance it could be worn in public. To whet reader interest, Ben’s first edition predicted the death of one of his almanac publishing competitors the following year. The competitor refused to assist in the prediction by continuing to live and publish his own almanac. Ben, in later editions, insisted his competitor was dead and the insistence to the contrary was good evidence that one could not rely on the truthfulness of the other publication. Carl Van Doren, in his Pulitzer Prize winning Benjamin Franklin, has a collection of Richard’s expressions spanning more than twenty-five years, including:

a. HUNGER NEVER SAW BAD BREAD. b. GREAT TALKERS, LITTLE DOERS. c. LIGHT PURSE, HEAVY HEART. d. ONE GOOD HUSBAND IS WORTH TWO GOOD WIVES, FOR THE SCARCER THINGS ARE, THE MORE THEY ARE VALUED. e. HE IS A FOOL WHO MAKES HIS DOCTOR HIS HEIR. f. GOD HEALS, THE DOCTOR TAKES THE FEE. g. A COUNTRY MAN BETWEEN TWO LAWYERS IS LIKE A FISH BETWEEN TWO CATS.

Ben Franklin had many interests and talents and was possibly the wisest of all Founding Fathers. His wit was not the least of many good qualities. If I could talk to him, most of all, I would want to relish his good humor. Through talent and hard work, Ben acquired considerable wealth. He also had Richard say, WEALTH IS NOT HIS THAT HAS IT, BUT HIS THAT ENJOYS IT. Would it not be fun to talk to the man?

Joe

4 (PRESIDENT’S NOTES continued from page 1)

One of the songs Barry Kay http://www.beyondthesong.net/ did was a medley of ten songs, one each from the first ten years of this millennium. Great idea, but it had to be tough to arrange. What surprised me was how familiar I was with each song in the group. I guess even if I don’t get out much or listen to pop radio, I still hear a lot of pop tunes here and there. Barry’s point, I think, was that some of the songs we are hearing for the first time today are going to be standards in fifteen or twenty years. I think that’s a good thing for those of us who have a penchant for “folk” music to remember. All those folk tunes were new, some not so terribly long ago.

I’ve talked with friends several times over the past month about what seems to be an anomaly in the world of guitar merchandising. On the one hand, the price of an excellent quality stringed instrument (guitar, mandolin, violin in particular) has fallen substantially in recent years, and Korean and Chinese makers have fine-tuned their art and are now making guitars that sound about as good as any from big-name American makers. As Jack Ellis put it, Chinese makers in particular are able to draw from a huge well of talented hand craftsmen, and they are willing to harvest even old-growth trees like there’s no tomorrow. At the same time that quality on the low price end of the market is getting startlingly good prices for small-shop luthiers made guitars appear to be headed to the stratosphere. James Olson will be happy to make you a nice custom guitar, but he’s getting around twelve grand a pop, and the waiting list is nearly a year. Oh My! I still think this is a golden age for guitars, but I worry a bit about a price bubble on the top end. At least with guitars we won’t be seeing a lot of foreclosures if a bubble does burst.

Jerry McGough s doing a really fine job booking Coffeehouses for HTMA this year, but I expect that he can use some help from members anyway. The deal here is that each of us is drawn to focus on at most a handful of corners of the musical geography. We know who is playing in some styles of music, and what artists may be available for booking in our little corners of the world. Outside of our immediate circle, connecting with musicians is more hit or miss. Jerry introduced Barry Kay at the Coffeehouse with a story that explained just how much chance was involved in their first meeting. That meeting might have never happened. You can help make our programming better. Here’s what you do: Think of artists who you know and would like to see performing here in Huntsville. Get their contact data and let Jerry McGough know that you’d like to see if we can book them. If you want to make it more of a sure thing, offer to help with publicity, or even better, offer to help sponsor one of your favorite performers at one of our gigs. If you are willing to help us financially on a booking, that improves the situation in so many respects. Your support may allow us to bring in artists who would otherwise be unaffordable, or pay even lesser-known artists more than we would otherwise be able to offer. Bringing in artists who might not visit Huntsville without your support is good for the artists, and for our community. Last – any donation you make to HTMA to sponsor an artist performance is tax deductible, so it’s good for you, too. So if you remember an outstanding performer you ran across at a festival, or on XM/Sirius, or wherever, let Jerry and me know about who they are. The main idea of the Coffeehouse series is to bring in artists who will delight and awe our members and audiences. Your participation in the program can make that goal reachable.

In the meantime, keep on picking. Jerry LeCroy HTMA President