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Dixie Bee-Liners American Revival Tour – Day 2

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

Casey Henry

Casey Henry

This is the second in my series of tour blogs from the American Revival concerts. In order for you to make sense of them you’ll need to know this: The Dixie Bee-Liners are Brandi Hart (guitar, vocals), Buddy Woodward (mandolin), Rachel Johnson (fiddle), Jeremy Darrow (bass), Robin Davis (guitar), and myself Casey Henry on banjo.

Today started with a drive—around six hours from North Carolina to Maryland. There was a flurry as the three vans were leaving the hotel as we figured out whether we were going to caravan or drive separately. We decided to each make our own way and we got on the road a little after nine.

When we loaded the van I noticed that some of the other band members had cups and bags from Brueggers Bagels. The hotel didn’t have a complimentary breakfast, so I figured we’d stop at Starbucks or something. But Robin said they had actually gone to Brueggers. When we were all in the van I said, “You know what was really cool? When you told me and Rachel that you were going to Brueggers and we all went together and it was a great band bonding experience!” Jeremy was duly apologetic, but I won’t let him forget it…

Rachel had decided to ride with Clay Hess (guitar player with Sierra Hull) and his wife Samantha, who were driving their own car, so I had the whole rear seat of the van to myself. I took advantage of that by sleeping for most of the trip. I did wake up for our coffee stop in Richmond. We got off the interstate, heading toward a Starbucks, but every single attempt we made to find the store was thwarted. In driving fruitlessly around Virginia’s capitol we wasted more than half an hour, never found out Starbucks, and ended up patronizing a more local establishment.

Duly caffined up we got back on the interstate and I promptly went back to sleep.

The Dixie Bee-Liners at the Weinberg Center for the Arts, Frederick, MD

The Dixie Bee-Liners at the Weinberg Center for the Arts, Frederick, MD

When we got to the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick, we did the usual loading in and sound checking. Today our sound check was incredibly long because they were trying to sort out channels leading from our in-ear monitor rig to the house sound system, which took probably close to an hour. I took pictures and tweeted while they were doing that, since setting up sound is not part of my job. It is Jeremy’s job, and we all felt sorry for all the rigmarole he had to deal with. I’m sure we tried the sound man’s patience, but he was a good sport.

We opened the show tonight and our set felt a little smoother than yesterday. We’re still settling in. Tour management doesn’t want band members in the lobby at intermission, only after the show, so we get to hang out back stage, visit and snack, if we’re not up watching the show, until after our final group number.

I had a strange moment in the lobby of the theater. We’d been there for several hours, and I’d been in the lobby at least once. I was in the lobby again looking at a picture on the wall and suddenly I realized that I had been there before. The Maryland Banjo Academy, a camp sponsored by Banjo Newsletter, had one of their concerts here. I distinctly remember playing “Real Women Drive Trucks” on that show. It was startling to realize that I’d been in here for hours and not recognized the place.

The slam-bang finish...

The slam-bang finish...

Post-show we signed and visited in the lobby. Murphy Method student Susan Morrison came out to the show, as did our friends Archie and Priscilla Warnock. It means a lot to us when our friends and family come see us. It makes the whole show experience more fun.

After spending the night at a nearby hotel, we’re headed out to Hampton, VA this morning. Both Rachel and I have gotten up and worked out two mornings in a row, and we’re quite proud of ourselves. We’ll see if we can keep that up!!

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Dixie Bee-Liners American Revival Tour – Day 1

Saturday, October 31st, 2009
Casey Henry

Casey Henry

This is the first in my series of tour blogs from the American Revival concerts.  In order for you to make sense of them you’ll need to know this: The Dixie Bee-Liners are Brandi Hart (guitar, vocals), Buddy Woodward (mandolin), Rachel Johnson (fiddle), Jeremy Darrow (bass), Robin Davis (guitar), and myself Casey Henry on banjo.

The Dixie Bee-Liners van pulled out of Abingdon, VA dark and early (that is, before sunrise) on Thursday morning, headed for Raleigh, NC to play at the Stewart Theater at North Carolina State University. Jeremy (who drew the short straw) was behind the wheel, the rest of us were in an mostly-unconscious state as he drove through the fog, the dawn, and then into the blinding eastern sun.

Jeremy Darrow at the wheel.

Jeremy Darrow at the wheel.

The other two bands on the tour—Uncle Earl, and Sierra Hull and Highway 111—had flown into Raleigh the day before and they, in their rental vans, pulled into the venue shortly after we did. For the first time ever in our lives we had no fewer than five eager willing stage hands to help us unload all our equipment from the van. Awesome.

The dressing rooms back stage were divided by gender, so we Bee girls, the Earl girls, and Sierra plopped our stuff into the women’s side, while the balance of the band members inhabited the men’s quarters. It was a nice mixer right away, and although some of us hadn’t met each other, enough people from the three bands were friends that we were immediately at ease with each others. Ira, our tour manager, had allowed plenty of time for soundchecks, so we had lots of hanging out time in the dressing rooms.

Uncle Earl soundchecked first, so I worked on my computer, taking advantage of the free wireless at the theater. DBL soundchecked second, Sierra last, since she was opening the show. They fed us a nice lunch of soup and sandwiches, with plenty of vegetarian options, and they even remembered Brandi’s dairy-free sandwich.

There was still tons of time between the end of our soundcheck and supper time, so Jeremy and I got out and walked around campus, enjoying the fall colors. It felt good just to move around!

As showtime approached they set up a lovely supper of salad, chicken or salmon entrée, and some luscious desserts. Rachel, Brandi, and I ate with Ron Block, who is playing banjo and guitar with Sierra. With food as good as they’ve giving us, it will be really hard not to gain weight on this trip!

The stage was half-circle shaped, with the audience arced all the way around. It had a very cozy feel. But when we were on stage the lights were so bright that we couldn’t see anyone at all! No one had told us whether they were going to introduce us or had shared any details of our entrance at all, so when Sierra finished and the stagehands set up our stuff, we walked out and made our own adjustments and just kinda stood there when we were ready. They killed the lights, and then brought them back up, and we kicked in to the first tune, “Crooked Road.” Gotta work on that for tonight!

Our set went as smoothly as it could have for a first show. It was the first time we’d done at least two of the songs: “Truck Stop Baby,” from Susanville, and our new promo tune, “She Plays Like A Girl.” We closed with the latter, and except for me coming in singing the chorus in the wrong place and Brandi switching two verses around it went just fine.

DBL USB bracelet

DBL USB bracelet

We’re running a special text-in promotion to win a free download of that song. Brandi ordered these cool USB flashdrive bracelets, and we’ve loaded the track onto them. The first three audience members to text us during the show win one. And I’m a little jealous of them, actually, because she didn’t give them to us band members!

Uncle Earl played after intermission—a truly wonderful set that we ended with a big group encore number—and then we all headed to the lobby to sign CDs and chat. After the huge merchandise counting and repacking all the stuff in the van we headed to the hotel, where I fell gratefully into bed. I don’t think the first tour day could possibly have gone better, and it really pumped us up for the rest of the eighteen shows. Tonight: Frederick, Maryland.

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Posted in By Casey, shows | 1 Comment »

Jamming–Turns or no Turns?

Friday, October 30th, 2009
Red Henry

Red Henry

Folks, I attended a local jam session last night. I’d been there many times before, but this time things were different: there were only a few pickers, but a lot of listeners. And the listeners wanted to listen to music.

Nobody was in charge. The pickers were standing around chatting, or acting as if they weren’t really there to play. This went on for a long time. Finally, I got out my mandolin and accumulated enough pickers to start. At first we had two guitars, two mandolins, and two fiddles. (That’s not much for this jam, which often includes 8 or 9 guitars and other instruments to match). And these were just nice folks who were there because they liked to play along, not because they’d want to take the lead in singing or picking.

It was time to start off with a song. Now, in a fairly disorganized session such as this, do you show off your favorite, fanciest new tune? Do you dazzle the folks with all the notes you can play? No. You play a song everybody knows, in a familiar key, and at a tempo at which everybody can follow. It’s a little bit like a slow jam situation. So in this case, I sang “Wabash Cannonball”, in G, at a moderate speed, and everyone was able to keep up.

I finished the song, and the audience responded nicely. They were paying attention. But among the musicians, nothing happened. No one else was ready to sing. Things ground to a halt.

That put me in an awkward situation. At most jam sessions, people take turns singing and playing their songs. That means that it was someone else’s turn, but the trouble was this time that nobody else wanted to sing. So I decided to take a little bit of charge. I did some introductions and a commercial for the folks who were hosting the event, and then sang another easy number, “Mountain Dew”, also in G and at only a little faster tempo than before. All the pickers kept up well, and the listeners liked that one too. But then things threatened to die again, as no one else came forward to sing and I didn’t think that I ought to be an M.C. for the night. So I decided to risk another song. I told the listeners a few true facts about our friend Clermont Hosford, by way of introduction, and sang “What About You”, in the easy key of D, and decided that I’d let the session go back to standing around and chatting if nothing happened soon.

Finally, at this point, our friend Gerald came in. Gerald knows a lot of songs and sings them well, and he also plays some lead guitar, which gave us some variety from the mandolin-and-fiddle-only sound we’d had before. He sang “More Pretty Girls Than One”. A good bass player arrived at that point, along with a couple more guitar players and singers, and the session was really under way with a fuller sound and more participation. But it had taken some work to get it there! Then we all picked for a long time, and lots of folks took turns singing.

I guess that if there’s a lesson here, it’s that sometimes the usual “taking turns” jam session format won’t work if no one wants to take a turn. In cases like that, just make suggestions and take an extra turn if you need to. To sing three numbers in a row is usually bad jam session etiquette, but if the session’s going to die out if nobody does anything, then just sing a song!

Red

Posted in By Red, jamming | 2 Comments »

Lynn Morris on the Bluegrass Blog

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Our friends over at the Bluegrass Blog have posted a lovely conversation with Lynn Morris, who teaches our Clawhammer Banjo Volume 1 and Volume 2.  It catches up with what she’s doing these days, a question we get asked often. So if you’ve been wondering that yourself, click here and read the article.

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Misfit Jam: Easy Audience

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Murphy Henry

Murphy Henry

We had four banjos at the jam tonight, one guitar, one mandolin, and no bass, Bob Van having decided—again– that it was more important for him to go to a Trustee’s meeting at his church than play with us. Present were Mark, Ellen, Bob Mc, Susan, Logan, and Josh, who was apparently not scared off by us last week but came back for more!

Our song list:

Cripple Creek
I Saw the Light
John Hardy
Two Dollar Bill

At which point I decided not to sing anymore because it was killing my voice since these songs are all too low for me in G and singing over four banjos is hard even if they are vamping as quietly as they can, and Bob Van is supposed to be doing the singing anyhow.

So next we did:

When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder (as an instrumental)
Lonesome Road Blues
Old Joe Clark

And finished off with “Wagon Wheel” on which I had to sing because I had told Ellen, yes, I could sing and play the fiddle at the same time. Which I did, but it wasn’t pretty! Ellen, however, kindly waxed ecstatic when the song was over, saying, “I was sitting here in between the fiddle and the mandolin and I just felt….” At which point I added, “Like shooting yourself.” To which Josh, on mandolin, shook his head up and down and grinned in agreement. Then Ellen said, “No! It was wonderful!” And Josh looked at me and said, “Easy audience.” And I agreed! That’s the best kind!

I cannot say we were playing our best tonight (which I totally blame on the absence of the bass) but we did have some good moments such as when Mark and Susan ended “Old Joe Clark” up the neck together in perfect sync and when Logan inserted a bit of “Yankee Doodle” into the middle of the up-the-neck break to “Lonesome Road Blues.” He stole it from Earl, of course, who did it in “Bugle Call Rag” but I’d never thought of using it in LRB! Good move, Logan! Logan also played some nice guitar leads to “Old Joe Clark” and “John Hardy.”

As you may know, Casey starts her three-week tour with The Dixie Bee-Liners tonight (Thursday, the 29th) in Raleigh. I hope you all will be able to see the band somewhere along their route. They do a great show and have some terrific original material and a wonderful new album, “Susanville.” If you do see them, feel free to post your impressions in the comment section of the blog. Red and I plan to see them at the Birchmere on Monday, November 2. If you’re there, come up and say howdy!

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How to Pack for a 26-day Tour

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Casey Henry

Casey Henry

That’s a question I’ve been pondering for the last couple of days. One thing is for sure. With only a 15-passenger van and six people plus instruments, luggage, and equipment to fit inside it, you sure as heck can’t pack enough clean clothes for the whole time. So my plan is to do a lot of laundry. I packed clothes for about five days and will make frequent use of hotel washers and dryers.

I still have to bring two banjos—my regular one (Kel Kroydon Casey Henry model), and my low-tuned one (my old Gibson style 11)—because we’re doing one song in the set that I play on the E-tuned banjo.

Here’s an interesting quandry. The band uses in-ear monitors. Each person has their own ear pieces which plug into a little belt pack, which is a little larger than a deck of cards and hooks onto your waistband. The required dress for women in the band is skirts or dresses. There is one particular dress I wear that looks great on stage, but I didn’t realize until I was actually on stage that there is no where to hang my pack. There is no waistband, no back pocket. So where do I hang it? On my banjo strap, of course. That worked really well until I had to change banjos in the middle of the set when taking the pack off of the one strap and attaching it to the other without getting it all tangled up added quite a bit of time to what needs to be a speedy instrument switch.

My current solution to this problem is to wear a belt with the dress. It’s not really the kind of dress one would wear a belt with, but I’m hoping it won’t look too awful, because it will save me a lot of time. I’ll let you know how/if it works.

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Posted in By Casey, General | 9 Comments »

Teachers and Students

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Red Henry

Red Henry

Since we’ve had so much interest in lesson discussions recently, I thought we might like to talk about students and teachers. First of all, here are sample behaviors of a few different teachers I’ve seen. Which teacher would you rather learn from?

Teacher #1. The teacher, who is a famous bluegrass musician, spends almost the entire lesson talking about music and music theory, going into intricate details about note relationships and chord structures and progressions. The student plays one or two tunes on the banjo, the teacher assigns a tab to learn the next week, and the lesson is over.

Teacher #2. The teacher, who is a fairly well known banjo picker, spends the lesson playing and talking and playing and talking and not giving the student much opportunity to participate. The student hardly gets a chance to play at all before the lesson is over.

Teacher #3. The teacher starts off by getting the student to play their tune from last week, going through it several times for repetition, warming-up, and encouragement, and then continues all through the lesson, teaching enough new material for the next week but having the student playing at least half the time.

Well, you may think that #3 may be a no-brainer, but I have seen enough examples of the first two lesson formats to know that those two teacher-types are quite common. Nevertheless, the focus of the lesson should be for the student to be learning to play, and I wish that all teachers would make it that way.

. . . . .

Okay, now let’s talk about types of students. Here are a few examples:

Student #1. The student has canceled the previous two lessons on short notice, and now comes in late. He or she obviously hasn’t had the banjo out of its case since the last lesson, almost a month ago. The teacher has to spend the whole lesson in reviewing material and getting the student to play, using up the lesson time for practice.

Student #2. The student arrives barely in time for the lesson, and something’s always missing. They’ve lost their picks, or they’ve forgotten to practice their old material, or the dog ate their tuner– but something has always gone wrong that could have been taken care of ahead of time. The lesson starts slowly, because the teacher has to do other things besides teaching.

Student #3: This student comes in on time and ready to play. Although their life is busy, he or she has played at least a little, almost every day. They may not have learned last week’s lesson completely, but they’re ready to sit down with the banjo and give it a good try.

Which student would you rather teach? I’m glad to say that most students I know fit the #3 category. The teacher and the student both need to do their part if the student is going to learn!

Red

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Happy Anniversary To Us!

Monday, October 26th, 2009
Murphy Henry

Murphy Henry

Today is Red’s and my 35th wedding anniversary, so we are taking the day off to celebrate. Just so this short blog will have some bluegrass content, I would remind you that Red and I first laid eyes on each other at a bluegrass festival in Georgia (Lavonia) in 1972, saw each other from a far at the same festival in 1973, finally spoke to each other at another bluegrass festival (in Conway, S.C.), at the end of 1973, and finally tied the knot in Summerville, S.C., on October 26, 1974. NOT at a bluegrass festival, although as the guy said in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou?, we did “R-U-N-N-O-F-T” and were married by a preacher we’d never met. (As Gamble Rogers used to sing—although not about us!—“It was me and the preacherman, the devil, and my darling wife.”)

The day we were wed happened to be a Saturday, and the next day, Sunday, we were all excited about calling our folks to tell them we’d gotten married. We thought we’d wait till after church so we started calling about 12:15 p.m. Well, unbeknownst to us—or perhaps unremembered by us since we had other things on our minds—that was the first day of Daylight Savings Time, and everybody (but us) had remembered to set their clocks back. So all our family members were still in church. We kept calling and calling, wanting to break this wonderful news and nobody was home! We finally got hold of them, but sheesh! I’m not sure what that meant or what that was a sign of, but, 35 years later, we’re still hanging in there! So, Happy Anniversary to us!

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Long-Distance Learning

Friday, October 23rd, 2009
Casey Henry

Casey Henry

So I’m getting ready to leave with my band (The Dixie Bee-Liners — are you tired of hearing me talk about them yet? Good. Cause you’re probably gonna hear a lot about them from now on.) on a three-week tour of the southeastern US (VA, PA, NC, SC, GA, LA, AR, MO, IL, TX, KY). This, of course, leaves my banjo students high and dry for the time that I’m gone. I feel kinda bad abandoning them for so long. I’ve been gone for two weeks at a time in the past, but never for a whole month.

This time I decided to try something new. I’m getting my students (some of them…the technologically adept ones) to email me mp3s of their playing so that I can critique it and tell them what to work on. I gave one of them a DVD (Banjo for Misfits) and told her to work on the first song. She’ll email me a recording next week and I’ll tell her it’s great, move on to the next song, or I’ll tell her she needs to fix a spot, or polish it up before going on to the next one.

Ginny, my student who flatpicks the banjo, is working on up-to-speed, flatpick-specific versions of the tunes she already knows. We’ve worked out four or five so far. She’ll send me a recording of last week’s tunes, and then I’ll assign her two new ones to work out for this week.

All this will depend on my having access to the internet. Hopefully I’ll have that on a daily basis. If I don’t, it could be one big flop. If I do it could work out to be a really cool way to keep them moving along in their learning while I’m gone. I could even extend it to long-distance students, maybe the people who buy my custom lessons? They could record themselves after they’ve learned the song and send it for critique. Hmmmm. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

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Posted in By Casey, lessons | 1 Comment »

Misfit Jam: A Big Chess Game

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Murphy Henry

Murphy Henry

We had some new faces at the jam tonight. Joining Bob Van, Bob Mc, and Susan were Josh, on mandolin, and Bill on bass. So with Bobby on bass, we actually had “stereo” basses.

With this combo we did:

A five song medley to start with: BITH, CC, Cabbage, FMB, and John Hardy. (This of course was hardly fair to a nascent bass player so for the next song we did….

Blue Ridge Cabin Home

then

Willow

When the Roll is Called Up Yonder

Circle

I’ll Fly Away

Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms

And we ended with “Lonesome Road Blues” since Ellen wasn’t here to lead us in “Wagon Wheel.”

The phrase “Big Chess Game” came up, compliments of Josh, when we were talking about “Willow.” Bobby asked if he should start with the chorus. I said, “You’re the singer. Start wherever you like. We’ll follow you.”

Then I explained (not for the first time) that in a jam you have to pay attention to what the singer is doing. If Bobby started with the chorus would he:

(a)        expect someone to take a break after that or would he

(b) sing the first verse and then another chorus and expect someone to take a break after that?

At which point Susan said, “You have to be a mind reader!”

I said, “No, but you have to be alert to possibilities.”

To which Josh replied, “It’s like a big chess game.”

So after Susan’s kickoff, Bobby sang “Willow,” starting with chorus/verse/chorus, gave a break to Bob, sang another verse, gave a break to Josh, sang a third verse and ended the song. I told Susan if I had been playing the banjo, I would have been hoping that Bobby would sing another verse or another chorus so I could get TWO breaks. Susan said she was glad to only get the one. Bobby said, “Just catch my eye anytime you want another break. I’ll keep singing as long as anybody is picking!” I said, “I’d be catching your eye and pointing at myself going ‘Me! Me!’” (But of course that was all hooey. When I was starting on banjo, I did want all the breaks I could get, but was way too Southern to put myself forward like that.)

After we played “Circle” we examined some of the thinking that was going on. There were only two lead players here: Susan and Josh. And “Circle” can have as many as four verses. So, when Bobby finished the third verse (I will follow close behind her…), I’m thinking, “Will he end the song here, since Susan, who kicked off the song, has already taken two breaks, and Josh has had one, or will he leave a space for a break and then sing a fourth verse?”

As it turned out, he wanted to sing the fourth verse. (Bobby: “I’ve worked hard to learn those words so I want to sing it every chance I get so I won’t forget them!”) So I gave the nod to Josh, who jumped right in on a second break. (Josh  plays enough on his own to be familiar with the jamming ropes, even if mandolin isn’t his primary instrument.) He took the break. Afterwards, I asked him what he was thinking. He said he, too, was wondering how many verses Bobby would sing, and knew he might get the nod to take a break. See? You’ve got to stay on your toes all the time!

Before I close, I have to brag on Susan who improvised a break to “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder.” I was so proud of her! “How did you feel about it?” I asked, which drew a laugh. She said, “I felt good! The Method works!” I said, “Well, it helps that you have practiced so much and of course the jam sessions really help.” (I’m thinking now of Field of Dreams—maybe since I saw it again on TV recently—and the phrase, “If you build it, he will come.” The ol’ leap of faith….) Sometimes you’ve just got to believe.

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