Archive for the ‘By Casey’ Category

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A Funny Thing Happened Yesterday

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Casey Henry

. . . actually, two funny things happened yesterday. Only the first is topical for this blog, but I’m going to tell you about both of them anyway.

When I sat down Sunday morning to check my email, I thought it was going to be quick: in and out and I’d be on my way to Kroger to get jar lids so I could make apple jelly (Murphy’s favorite!). But I’d been getting some comments lately from people who said “I tried to email you,” whose messages I’d never received. Usually all my email from my five different addresses lands in one Gmail account so I can check it all in one place. I don’t know what it was this particular morning that made me think to log in to my Murphy Method email account separately and see what was there.

When I did, to my extreme surprise, I found two months worth of mail that had not been forwarded to my regular account. The last message I’d seen from that address had been on June 21st. And I NEVER NOTICED! I just kept wondering why nobody was answering my emails. They were—I just wasn’t getting it! Included in all these emails, of course, were all the custom lesson sale orders, so instead of my planned grocery store trip and jelly making I spent three hours answering hundreds of messages and sending many very apologetic emails.

Most people were very understanding and I think I’ve almost caught up. So, if you sent me a message in the last couple of months and haven’t received a reply, please resend!

The evening held a hot dog roast at Kelley and Ned Luberecki’s house. I swung by Kroger on the way for the aforementioned jar lids. When I got in my car I smelled gas, but I didn’t give it too much thought since I sometimes fill gas cans for my lawn mower and usually the smell goes away shortly. I began to get concerned when the smell did not start going away and had reached a peak when my car stalled at a four-way stop in Kelley and Ned’s neighborhood.

A nice old man in the car behind me got out and looked under the hood. Even I could see the gaping hole in the hose that was running gasoline. He would have helped me push my car out of the intersection, but, he said, he’d just gotten out of the hospital with a heart condition! I called Kelley and Ned who sent someone down to pick me up (I was only about three blocks from their house), but before he got there a nice younger man drove up and did push me onto the shoulder. A very speedy tow from AAA (typical, since I was in no hurry and had nowhere I needed to be…) rescued the car and hopefully it won’t take too long for my garage to fix.

I’m thankful that my car didn’t catch on fire, and thankful to Ben Surratt and Missy Raines for giving me a ride home after we were all stuffed full of hot dogs and s’mores. The general consensus seems to be that a squirrel chewed through the fuel line and I totally believe that because the squirrels I have in my yard are greedy, aggressive little buggers. But since I don’t have a way to get to work today, I’ll have plenty of time at home to finish catching up on all those emails!

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New Custom Lessons Available

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Casey Henry

I wanted to give y’all an update on the new additions to the custom lesson catalog.

Just today I’ve recorded a lesson on the high break to “Fireball Mail.” I think this one used to be on the old TMM cassettes; I think that’s where I learned it. But it never made it onto video. Now it’s available again!

Last week I completed lessons on “Banjo Pickin’ Girl” in the key of C (which is where I sing it), and “Me and My Old Banjo” — the Osborne Brothers classic.

Other recent additions include “Dooley” (a Dillards original). The break I teach is not exactly what Doug Dillard played but is definitely inspired by it. And “Pig in a Pen,” the Stanley Brothers song that many people are familiar with because Ricky Skaggs recorded it.

They are all normally priced at $30 each, but from now until tomorrow at midnight (that’s Friday, August 27th at 11:59 p.m.) they’re all half price. Just email me if you’re interested!

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Posted in By Casey, banjo, lessons | 2 Comments »

Around the Net

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Casey Henry

Yesterday the Henrys popped up in a couple of other places around the internet:

First, Ted Lehmann, photographer and blogger, posted an illustrated account of his visit to the Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival. He talks about the Dixie Bee-Liners about three-quarters of the way down the page and there are a couple pictures of yours truly.

That’s it for today. Our half-price sale is really keeping us hopping. It ends Friday at midnight, so order now if you haven’t already!

(edited 8/27/2010)

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Reuben’s Surprise

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Casey Henry

Last weekend the Dixie Bee-Liners played at the Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival in Pennsylvania. It’s only a couple of hours from my parents’ house, so I drove up the day before and spent the night with them. We were minus our fiddler for this gig, because her Army-officer boyfriend was home on leave from Afghanistan for two weeks, so we instead had a dobro player in the form of Matt Ledbetter, who has played with the band before and already knew most of the material.  We did, however, need to practice all the songs on the set list so we met early in the day for a run-through.

Stuffed into a room at the Red Carpet Inn in Chambersburg we breezed through our standards: “Crooked Road,” “Bugs in the Basement,” “Ball and Chain,” “Yellow-Haired Girl”. The only different songs were, of course, the dobro tunes. Matt played “Fireball,” a tune that I love. J.D. Crowe played it when I saw him at the Ryman last month and when I took my break I tried to play my absolute Croweiest.

Matt also played “Reuben,” which is typically a no-brainer. In D tuning it uses the same-old rolls you use all the time in standard tuning. However. We started off the second set with “Reuben” and the next song was “Walls of Time” also in D, but one that I play in regular tuning out of D position. Clearly there would be no time to re-tune. That meant I had to play “Reuben” also in standard tuning out of D position. That makes it COMPLETELY different! The rolls are entirely different and, may I say, just a little challenging. Thank goodness, then, that the tune came in the second set so I had about ten hours to think about it and practice it before debuting this new arrangement on stage.

I did not, of course, spend the entire ten hours practicing it. We had to play our first set, after all, and there were friends to visit (the Steep Canyon Rangers, the Seldom Scene), and a workshop to do, and supper to eat (many thanks to Mary Jo and Charlie Leet, Mike and Gay Henderson, et al, for the high-class fare!).  I did devote a few minutes to it, though, on three separate occasions throughout the day and had a respectable break worked up by the time we hit the stage at 11:30 p.m. – long after my bedtime.

So that is my challenge to you this week. Take a song and play it in an entirely new way. That may just mean capoing up and playing it in a new key. Or taking a song you play in G and trying to play it in C position, or in D tuning (that would really be a challenge!).  Or trying a high break to a song that you’ve never played up the neck. It will make you see that tune in a whole different light!

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Posted in By Casey, banjo, shows | 1 Comment »

The Whirlwind England Trip

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

Casey Henry

I made it to England and back in one piece. The big festival we played there was really wonderful, and the little mini-festival was fun in a more low-key sort of way. Here are some pictures to illustrate the experience.

We flew out of Dulles Airport, which required a six-hour drive from our meeting place in Abingdon, Va. We took off Wednesday night, arriving in London at 10 a.m. the next morning. We had some trouble locating our driver, who was to take us to the hotel, so for a couple hours we made ourselves at home in the middle of the floor in Heathrow’s terminal one.

Buddy Woodward, Casey Henry, Rachel Johnson, Todd Livingston and luggage.

Buddy Woodward, Casey Henry, Rachel Renee Johnson, Todd Livingston and luggage.

As soon as we got to the hotel, Rachel and I headed straight to the bar to get some lunch. There I enjoyed my very first Guinness of the trip. So what if it was only 9 a.m. in Nashville??

Casey with the first Guinness of the trip.

Casey with the first Guinness of the trip.

It’s often the little differences that delight me the most when traveling abroad. This trip it was the milk that accompanied the tea/coffee tray in the hotel room. Instead of being powdered creamer like in the U.S., or even liquid milk in a little round foil-topped container, it was liquid milk in a tube. How cool!

Milk in a tube.

Milk in a tube.

Friday we played at Fairport’s Cropredy Convention. Our driver, Martin Driver, picked us up and took us to the festival. Here we all are:

The Dixie Bee-Liners

Martin Driver, Rachel Renee Johnson, Sav Sankaran, Todd Livingston, Buddy Woodward, Brandi Hart, Casey Henry

The stage was, I swear, like four stories tall. Just look at how Buddy and Rachel are dwarfed by it in the picture below. It was closed on three sides, so it was almost like playing indoors.

Rachel and Buddy next to the really huge stage.

Rachel and Buddy next to the really huge stage.

This was our view from the stage. I think there were about 20,000 people in the audience. I really would have needed a wide-angle lens to capture the whole thing. This is about a quarter of the crowd.

The crowd at Cropredy.

The crowd at Cropredy.

After our set we signed autographs for nearly an hour. In addition to CDs and programs we got to sign funny hats, a pair of rain boots (still on the girl’s feet), the playing side of a CD, a beach ball that we had thrown into the crowd, the front of someone’s jacket while he was still wearing it, and a twenty pound note (which felt really weird. Is that even legal??) Here’s us after the signing in our stage duds:

The Dixie Bee-Liners.

The Dixie Bee-Liners.

The next day’s gig was at the Face Bar in Reading. A van came and picked us up for the two-hour drive. The mini-festival, called Cold Dog Soup, had five bands. The banjo player from Amy Harrison and the Secondhand Stringband interviewed me for his website. He also brought me beer. (He clearly did his research about how to get on my good side!) I was a bit nervous about getting the beer back home, since I had to check it and it was in glass bottles, but I carefully packed each bottle in a sock and wrapped up the cardboard bottle carrier in a bunch of t-shirts that we’d brought to sell but didn’t. All arrived home completely intact, to be enjoyed in the near future.

Harvey's beer sampler.

Harvey's beer sampler.

I met a couple Murphy Method students while there, which was cool. Overall the trip was too short and too busy. We didn’t get a chance to see anything but the roads between the airport, hotels, and gigs. I take that back. Rachel and I did walk around Banbury one evening, and we went to see the movie Inception. (Wow.) Hopefully the next trip (whenever that might be) will be at a more leisurely pace. But we met some really nice people and got to play a huge festival, so overall: a success.

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Posted in By Casey, shows | 4 Comments »

Blimey, I’m going to England!

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

Casey Henry

Today the Dixie Bee-Liners take off for England where we’ll play two days: Friday at a big folk festival in Cropredy put on by the Fairport Convention, Saturday at a mini-festival called Cold Dog Soup, held at the Face Bar in Reading. It’s great to have the opportunity to play in the UK, but a bummer our trip is so short. We come back Sunday morning.

I’m taking CDs with me (duh), packed in my checked luggage, as well as a few DVDs. It was hard to decide which DVDs to bring, since we have so many. I settled on ten, which was all that would fit in my suitcase and still leave room for clothes. Two each of: Beyond Vamping, Easy Songs, Slow Jam, Picking up the Pace, and Beginning Banjo Vol 1. I know it’s sometimes challenging for UK customers to get our products, and I don’t even know if I’ll see any of our students while I’m there, but if I don’t sell all the CDs and DVDs the people at the end of the night on Saturday are going to get some extremely good deals!

My plane reading material (because I know your’re curious) will be Barbara Kingsolver The Lacuna and Colleen McCullough The Thorn Birds, both of which have been sitting on my unread shelf a long time.

I’d better go change my strings, so that I can take my wire cutters out of my case. They don’t like them in carry-on luggage. I once had my bracket wrench almost confiscated and I had to mail it back to myself from the airport. If ever there was a more innocuous piece of metal than a bracket wrench I don’t know what it would be! But it’s now worth $5.95 more to me than it was before.

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Posted in By Casey, General | 3 Comments »

Banjo Lesson Ideas

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Casey Henry

I ran across this article last night (through a link posted on Twitter) about people spending less and being happier. It’s an interesting subject to be because I always find that when I get caught up in the cycle of buy, buy, buy it never makes me feel as satisfied as I think it will. I try to practice “calculated consumption” rather than “conspicuous consumption” and I always feel better when I do.

The article says that new studies show that “people are happier when they spend money on experiences instead of material objects.” I’m all in favor of that. Until I pause and consider that The Murphy Method sells material objects (DVDs) and it would be bad if people stopped buying them.

But that’s not all we sell. We sell knowledge. We sell the experience of learning an instrument. We can teach you how to develop a skill, which is not at all the same as conspicuous consumption.

In that vein I was thinking about how we could do more of that: sell knowledge more effectively. With one of my students who moved away from Nashville I’m doing long-distance lessons like this: every week she learns a new song off of our DVDs (she’s working through Improvising right now). She records herself playing it and emails it to me. I listen and comment and give her an assignment for the next week. That way she has the motivation to keep learning (nothing like having to play for a teacher!) and she has me nagging her to find other people to play with.

Would that sort of thing interest more people? A banjo-lesson subscription service where you pay a flat fee every month, learn songs off of our DVDs, and maintain a weekly email correspondence with the teacher (that would be me) recording yourself playing your tunes so that I can comment and correct. You would have to be computer-savvy enough to be able to email an audio file, and to open one up and play it when you received one back from me. These audio file exchanges could be augmented with webcam lessons if you have the necessary equipment (that would be a webcam…).

If you’re at all interested email me (or comment below). If there seems to be widespread interest we may figure out how to add it to the regular TMM website.

Posted in By Casey, banjo, lessons | 8 Comments »

Yet Another You Tube Video

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Casey Henry

I filmed these tunes as part of a video oral history project on women who play traditional music, which is being made by a woman named Dyann Arthur. It’s called the Music Box Project. She is interviewing women all around the country. Although she’d talked to several clawhammer players, I was the first Scruggs-style player she had included. She has an interview scheduled with Murphy later on this summer. This is the title tune from my CD, “Real Women Drive Trucks.” I wish that I had been able to get my banjo into more perfect tune, but I had to drop it into D tuning that morning, and it really needs at least a day to acclimate before it starts sounding right.

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Posted in By Casey, Video clips, banjo | 3 Comments »

The Words

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Casey Henry

Last week I posted a video of me playing “There’s A Little Cabin,” a lullaby that my Grandmother used to sing to us when we were small. Many of you asked about the words. Grandmother passed away last Friday and I played that arrangement at her funeral, which was really a beautiful service, held at the Clarkesville Baptist Church where she was a member. It still smelled exactly the same as when my brother and I used to attend with her when we stayed in Clarkesville when we were little. We sometimes went to vacation bible school there. I still remember playing Red Rover on the church lawn.

This tune was the last thing in the service, right before the closing hymn, “Now I Belong to Jesus.” I’m glad I didn’t have to try and sing it. As it was my nose was dripping while I was playing. At least no one seems to have noticed that.

So in remembrance of Grandmother, here are the words we so frequently heard after she packed us down in the bed, as we were drifting off to sleep in the nursery.

There’s A Little Cabin

Verse 1
There’s a little cabin where the honeysuckle twines,
Where the cotton grows, where the Suwanee flows.
If you chance to find it, you will find that girl of mine,
She’s my sweet Virginia rose.

Chorus
Carry me back to that old-fashioned shack,
There by the stream, just let me dream.
Virginia moonlight look down from above,
Guard the one I’m thinking of.

Verse 2
Someday I’ll be roaming in the gloaming once again,
With my blushing bride, nestling by my side.
Hope we reach a preacher man to tie the knot and then,
Guess that I’ll be satisfied.

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Posted in By Casey, General | 6 Comments »

Women on the IBMA Ballot

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Casey Henry


Last year, Murphy listed the women who made it onto the second IBMA awards ballot in the instrumental performers category. There were eighteen, in contrast to a decade ago, when there were only five. Since I just filled out this year’s ballot (and since she’s busy working on her book and probably hasn’t even looked at her ballot yet), let’s take a look at who made the cut this year.

For Banjo Player of the Year

Kristin Scott Benson
Alison Brown
Cia Cherryholmes

For Bass Player of the Year

Missy Raines
Christy Reid

For Fiddle Player of the Year

Becky Buller
Molly Cherryholmes
Shelby Gold
Alison Krauss

(Same four people as last year, interestingly enough)

For Mandolin Player of the Year

Brooke Aldridge
Analise Gold
Sierra Hull

Twelve people, which pretty much splits the difference between last year and a decade ago. You’ll notice that no guitar players or dobro players made it at all. New entries this year are Brooke Aldridge, who plays with her husband Darin, and Christy Reid, who plays with her husband Lou in his band, Lou Reid and Carolina. Congratulation to these gals, who are getting out, playing in front of people, and really making an impression.

And since we’re talking about instrumental performers, here are the bands that include women who made it into the Instrumental Group of the Year category: Darin and Brooke Aldridge, Cherryholmes, the Grascals, Lorraine Johnson and Carolina Road, the Claire Lynch Band, and Rhonda Vincent and the Rage. Not a bad turn out!

The group I play with, The Dixie Bee-Liners, actually made it onto the ballot in a couple of categories: Vocal Group of the Year, and Emerging Artist of the Year. Go us!

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Posted in By Casey, women in bluegrass | 1 Comment »

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