shows

Red Henry

Devoted mandolin fans and pickers (such as myself) were treated to a rare spectacle last Saturday night at the Garret Park Town Hall in Maryland, where superlative picker-and-showman Frank Wakefield presented an outstanding show along with the Patuxent Partners. Chris and I drove over for the concert. Neither of us had seen Frank since he'd come by the house back when Casey was 9 and Chris was 6, so we had a good time talking, reminiscing, and picking with Frank before the show.

Now, you need to understand about Frank. He doesn't always talk straight. He "talks backwards." This means that he'll call himself "him" and he'll call people names he makes up (he called Casey "Liza," and Chris was "Leroy."). He'll say "That's BAD!" when he means, "That's GOOD!" -- and vice-versa. So you need to stay on your toes when talking (or listening) to him.

When it was time for his set, Frank sprang into action with the fiery chestnut 'Bluegrass Breakdown' and went on for an hour without a pause, incessantly picking amazingly, talking backwards, balking tackwards, and tacking balkwards for the entire evening in his inimitable style. There is no one who plays mandolin quite like Frank, and his originality and brilliance shone at every opportunity. Notable contributions came from his cast of extremely capable sideman, including Monroe-veteran Tom Ewing's vocals on "When the Golden Leaves Begin to Fall" and Jack Leiderman's high-speed fiddle break on 'Rawhide', which was note for note straight off Bill Monroe's classic 1951 recording, as far as my ears could hear.

The climax of the evening came as Frankfield hosted and bravely participated in, a five-piece mandolin ensemble. We played (all at the same time) Frank's well-known mandolin original 'New Camptown Races'. Mandopickers Frank, Tom, Todd, "Leroy," and "White" all acquitted themselves well, and a good time was had by all.

Red Henry picking with Frank Wakefield

Red Henry picking with Frank Wakefield

Frank Wakefield and Chris Henry

Frank Wakefield and Chris Henry

. . . . .

Other news: Our bass-playing friend Marshall Wilburn spent this last week helping Frank record a new CD. Look for it on the Patuxent label. It's gonna be BAD!

Red

Red Henry

I'm just back from Hiawassee, Georgia, where I was one of the judges at the Georgia State Fiddlers Convention. There were contests for fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin, Dobro, and other instruments, so we did probably 15 hours of judging over two days.

The judges, along with contest MC Barry Palmer and friends, played a set of music each day-- after all, since we were judging the contest, we needed to show that we could play! Our Saturday set went real well (no surprise, since the five people on stage probably had 150 or 200 years of professional musical experience between them), and afterwards I was talking with Chuck Nation, another of the judges, about how much fun our set was. Chuck expresses himself very well, and he commented about playing in a band: "The difference between amateurs and professionals, is that amateurs are competing with each other, and professionals are helping each other." Well said!

I've talked about it before on this blog, but Chuck's comment really put it down plainly where we can understand it. If you're playing in a group-- on stage or off-- are you listening? Are you trying every second to help the BAND (not just yourself) sound as good as possible? Are you playing so as to support the other musicians, not just to make yourself sound good? Your level of proficiency doesn't matter, and plenty of people who can play well don't play in a professional manner, in this respect!

You may be an amateur player, but you can play in a professional way. Think about it.

Red

Casey Henry

I was trolling around on YouTube yesterday and I found a couple videos from past shows that we haven't yet posted here. The first one is from Kaufman Kamp in June 2010. It features myself and Tim May playing "I Am A Pilgrim" with Pat Flynn. I actually really like my break on the song, which was totally off-the-cuff, so I thought I would share it.

This second video is from the American Revival Tour in November 2009. I'm sitting in with Uncle Earl on what was typically the final number in their set. We do the breaks to the song in an old-timey way, that is, fiddle and banjo playing at the same time. Therefore it's not so much that I like my break on this song, but I do like my outfit!

Red Henry

Again this year, for I-don't-know-how-many-years-in-a-row, we set up a booth for the IBMA Fan Fair. The Nashville Convention Center was a busy place, with plenty of bands, dealers, instrument makers, and fans on hand for the weekend. After Lynn Morris won an IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award (see Casey's post just below) and her husband Marshall Wilburn was voted Bass Player of the Year, we were especially proud to be offering Lynn's clawhammer-instruction DVDs and Marshall's bass-teaching DVDs as well.

Red Henry at the Murphy Method IBMA booth.

Red Henry at the Murphy Method IBMA booth.

Casey and I and our friend, festival promoter Patty Pullen, were our on-site staff for the weekend. Folks were picking up Murphy Method DVDs all across the board-- banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, bass, and Dobro too. It was a good weekend for us, and it was great to see so many of our DVDs going home with our Murphy Method students, many of whom we met this weekend for the first time.

A special highlight of the trip for me was watching Casey playing banjo for the Dixie Bee-Liners in their showcase set on Friday. The room was full, the band was "on," and the music was Mighty Fine. (They'd played some showcases after midnight earlier in the week, but I didn't manage to stay up that late!)

I ought to send some special thanks to Bob Fehr and the Martin Guitar folks for setting out so many nice new guitars for people to play-- there was a particularly-amazing "sunburst" D-28 that showed how Martin is making them as well as ever-- and also to Stan Werbin of Elderly Instruments, who invited me to play the A-5 mandolin. (More on that later.)

If you've never been to IBMA, you might like to be there sometime. Think about it.

Red

Casey Henry

Today kicks off the week-long International Bluegrass Music Association Trade Show and Fan Fest in Nashville, Tenn. In conjunction with this WAMU's Bluegrass Country is broadcasting live from Nashville. The Dixie Bee-Liners (with Casey Henry on banjo) will be playing some tunes from 5:00-5:30 Eastern Time this afternoon. You can listen online at bluegrasscountry.org.

If you're going to be in town for the convention, the band is also playing some late-night showcases during the week. They schedule can be found here.

Casey Henry

Tonight at 7:00 central/8:00 eastern you'll have the chance to watch and/or listen to me play live with the Dixie Bee-Liners on the Music City Roots radio show, which is held at the Loveless Cafe Barn in Nashville, Tenn., and broadcast on WSM (wsmonline.com). They also stream live video at musiccityroots.com, so you can see us as well as hear us. Eddie Stubbs is the announcer, Jim Lauderdale is the host, and there are four other bands in addition to ourselves. We play first, so don't tune in late! We'll probably do about four or five songs.

If you live in town (or are coming into town for the jam camp) you can come see the show live for only $10. Details on the website.

I hope you can tune in!

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!

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.

Red Henry

Red Henry

Folks, I just thought you'd like to see this photo of Red & Chris and Their All-Star Band performing with Dale Crider at the Florida Folk Festival a couple of weekends ago:
DSC02475

(Pickers: Jenny Leigh, Chris Henry, Barb Johnson, Dale Crider, Red Henry, John Hedgedcoth.) As you can see, we have a good time playing music with Dale. That's because he's such a great performer with plenty of charisma on stage, and his shows are always unpredictable. Dale's an entertaining MC, and he's liable to bring out lots of his original songs, and he may put a song in a different arrangement or in a different key from the last time we played it. He may even change into a new key, or change the tempo from 3/4 to 4/4 in the middle of a song, so we have to be on our toes. So enjoy this action shot!

Red

Red Henry

Red Henry


Sunday was another long and musical day at White Springs. The morning dawned high and dry, with no sign of the deluge we'd had the previous evening. After begging some morning coffee (essential for survival), I tuned up my mandolin and guitar and contemplated the day. We had a set to play at the River Gazebo, specified to be primarily of Florida songs. We have quite a few of those in our band repertoire, so I started picking out a few. There were some I rejected. "Abraham Washington"? -- maybe too grim for Sunday. "Gospel Snakes"? -- Dale had performed that one on Saturday. But we had plenty more up our sleeves.

By "we" I mean Red and Chris Henry and our All-Star Band, which includes John Hedgecoth (banjo), Jenny Leigh (fiddle), and Barbara Johnson (bass), all three of whom are great pickers. In spite of only performing together a few times per year, we have plenty of material worked up and are always learning more-- we managed to play two hour-long sets at Gamblefest without repeating anything-- and we have a good time playing music together.

First thing on the day's program was to back up our friend Dale Crider for his set on the Old Marble Stage. We all traipsed over there at the appropriate time, and Dale launched into his set.

Now, Dale's mind works quickly and creatively. (I have already mentioned his "Mangrove Buccaneer" song posted by Ron Johnson at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18-Kt4UKmII , in which Dale's cat-like powers of recovery are demonstrated.) But after Dale arrived a few minutes late for his own set on Friday, and was only prevented from singing one of his own songs which we'd already done by the kindness of a vocal audience member, he'd gotten skittish about repeating a song. Before singing one of his songs at the Old Marble Stage, he paused and asked the audience, "Have I already done this one?" -- it's a good thing he asked them instead of us. I leaned into my mike and said, "Dale KNOWS that if he'd already sung it, WE would stand right here and let him sing it AGAIN!" -- but correctly reassured by the audience that he hadn't done it yet, Dale sang "Mangrove Buccaneer" to end the set. Good job, Dale.

After a break back in the campground, it was time for us to go down to the River Gazebo and play. Before our set I chatted for a while with distinguished Florida folks Larry Mangum and Frank Thomas, and also met Nancy Crockford, an accomplished violinist who was interested in learning fiddle. I'll send you a couple of our Murphy Method fiddle-instruction DVDs, Nancy. Then it was time for us to play.

Since Christopher and I like playing double-harmony mandolins together so much, we started out with a fine Bill Monroe tune called "Tallahassee". Chris and Jenny contributed Florida songs of their own, and then John sang his "Florida Sunshine" tribute to White Springs in olden days. The crowd really liked all these but at that point we were running short on time, so we did a quick guitar-harmony rendition of Will McLean's "Osceola's Last Words" and finished out with an abbreviated double-mandolin version of "Rawhide" -- not exactly a Florida song, I suppose, but to get five out of six isn't bad.

Last on our day's schedule was a set by Dale at the Gazebo, alternating songs with Jeannie Fitchen. We had a good time playing, and listening to Jeannie, and playing, and listening, until it was time for Frank Thomas to take center stage and lead us all in "Old Folks at Home". What a good day, and what a great festival!

After the set John needed to get back to Nashville, but the rest of us loaded up our stuff and drove down to Dale's place at Windsor, on the shores of Lake Newnan. The thunderstorms were threatening as we set out, and let go some gully-washing rains as we drove. On Monday, we'd be recording with Dale!

Next time: Day 5!