After an extremely slow afternoon tending our booth at the IBMA tradeshow, I popped down the street to the Hilton hotel to interview the band G2, on whom I’m writing a magazine article. I’m old fashioned and still use a cassette recorder to tape interviews. To my embarassment I had brought the recorder, a mic, and extra batteries…but no tapes! Luckily Erik, the mandolin player, had an iPod with a little recorder to capture our conversation. Wshew!
After that I headed down to lower Broad to Roberts Western Wear to catch the Bloggrass boys show. The single, if you can call it that, from the new CD is a hilarious song called “Democrat Ain’t a Dirty Word No More.” They had some great guests, including the amazing singer Jonell Mosser. And I had the unique experience of purchasing their CD from Suzy Bogguss, who sings on it.
L-R: Josh McMurry, (hidden Mike Witcher), Travis Stinson, Paul Kramer, Chris Jones, Jon Weisberger, Aaron Till.
My next stops were at after-hours showcases where I caught a wide variety of bands including:
Red Wine, from Italy.
Goldheart, a wonderful trio of sisters from Virginia. I first heard them two years ago and since then they have developed their musicianship by leaps and bounds. The 16-year-old sister, Jocelyn, writes some wonderful songs and picks the fire out of the guitar. 18-year-old Analise holds her own on the mandolin, while 13-year-old Shelby tears it up on the fiddle. Their trio is stunning.
I caught my brother Chris playing with former Two-Stringer and Winfield Guitar Champion Tyler Grant.
The above band tours Japan every year. Shin Akimoto, Andy Ball, Sammy Shelor, Maro Katawba (I apologize if I’ve misspelled names there…). When I stuck my head in the door they were picking a triple-mandolin version of “Golden Slippers.”
And once again to end up the night, G2. There were very few people in that 1:30 am showcase, so we clapped twice as loud to make up for it. L-R: Tobias Strömberg, Christoffer Olsson, Jimmy Sunnebrandt, Erik Igelström, Jens Koch.
[...] a couple days ago. Last week I posted a photo of the Virginia band Goldheart in my post about IBMA, Day 2. Over at the Bluegrass Blog, Brance captured me capturing that shot and posted it here. Pretty [...]
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Cheers! Sandra. R.