Tag Archives: sierra hull

Casey Henry

Casey Henry

Yesterday: last show of the tour. Cool old Vaudeville theater with a surprising amount of space in the dressing rooms. I had the BEST surprise. I knew that my cousin who lives here in Pittsburgh and her boyfriend were coming to the show. She came when we were soundchecking and we went to eat Greek food (the owner of the restaurant was Jackie O’s personal chef on her yacht). I knew that my cousin and his girlfriend who live about an hour away were coming. But when I walked into the lobby at intermission and saw two of my mom’s cousins who live in Georgia, I was bowled over. Butch Martin had already seen the show once in Atlanta and still wanted to see it again (that’s a good sign, right?).

It was a really good show and really good crowd last night. For the first time on the entire tour, we had trouble with our sign. We’ve been doing a text-in promotion, so we have the phone number on a big sign. Every show after we show it to the audience, Robin props it up in front of the monitor speakers on the stage. Last night for some reason, it would not stay propped. It actually slid off the front of the stage! On his third try it stayed, earning a nice hand from the audience!

The sweet Uncle Earl G’earls gave us a bottle of wine and made us this card:

paperplate

We’ll miss you, too!! I’ll miss Paula singing baritone at my left shoulder during the finale songs. I’ll miss the theme songs. I’ll miss the jokes. I’ll miss hearing “Shiny Penny” and “Crayola” every day. I wish I had gotten a banjo lesson from Paula.

Here’s what I won’t miss: having to load the van every morning. Hotel breakfasts every morning. Riding in the van every single day. Having to wear the same clothes over and over and over.

Another thing I’ll miss is doing the pattycake on “Crayola.” Here’s Rachel and Sierra, trying to work up their verse, backstage in Hamilton, OH.

Rachel Johnson and Sierra Hull

Rachel Johnson and Sierra Hull

Rachel Johnson and Sierra Hull

Rachel Johnson and Sierra Hull

And I’ll miss everyone. I hope we get to do another tour together sometime!

everyone

Casey Henry

Casey Henry

Knoxville yesterday held many revelations. Among them Morelock Music, which is right around the corner from The Square Room, where we were playing. I happened upon it completely by accident. What caught my eye was the huge banjo

Uncle Earl's Paula Bradley and the ridiculous banjo.

Uncle Earl's Paula Bradley and the ridiculous banjo.

but what really drew me in was the dead cool vintage clothes. Not what I usually expect to see in a music store, but I went with it, and found a nice fleecy jean jacket for $15. They were playing Reed Martin (solo clawhammer banjo) on the store stereo, which made me feel right at home.

Second revelation: YeeHaw Industires printshop. They had a booth set up at the Clifftop old-time festival, where I spent too much money. I was saved from a similar fate yesterday only by the consideration that whatever I bought has to survive in the van for five more days. No poster has a chance.

Third revelation: Kopi Luwak coffee, which we fondly refer to as cat poo coffee. I had heard about this coffee for years. I think the first person to tell me about it was KC Groves. It comes from Sumatra. These animals called Luwaks (cat-like creatures) eat red, ripe coffee cherries. They digest the fruit part, but the beans pass through and end up on the forest floor, where people collect them, roast them and grind them, just like regular coffee. Except that this coffee is so rare it costs $480 a pound. Seriously.

Brandi and I happened into a shop called Coffee and Chocolate, just next door to the venue. They had this coffee. It cost $60 for two ounces. Brandi made a deal with the owner of the shop that we’d get a package of it, get them to brew it up, and split it between all of us, so it would only cost us just over $8 each. They had some of these Kopi Luwak coffee beans encased in a clear paperweight. We all thought this was very amusing and studied it very closely.

Stephie Coleman, Jeremy Darrow, Bryn Davies and KC Groves seriously considering Kopi Luwak coffee beans.

Stephie Coleman, Jeremy Darrow, Bryn Davies and KC Groves seriously considering Kopi Luwak coffee beans.

If you liked the Uncle Earl blog song, you’re sure to like this one. It’s the Uncle Earl Cat Poo Coffee Song! (You need a jingle, they got a jingle. Even if you didn’t know you needed a jingle, they’ve got a jingle for you.) I'm not sure this one is going to be as big a hit as their blog theme...

Before the cat poo coffee we played on the local radio station WDVX for about twenty minutes, advertising the night’s show and our new CD Susanville. Here’s a little photo gallery.

Brandi Hart, consulting about mic placement with WDVX deejay.

Brandi Hart, consulting about mic placement with WDVX program director Tony Lawson.

Rachel Johnson, tearing up her break on "Heavy".

Rachel Johnson, tearing up her break on "Heavy".

Brandi Hart singing "Heavy" from the new Dixie Bee-Liners' CD Susanville.

Brandi Hart singing "Heavy" from the new Dixie Bee-Liners' CD Susanville.

Buddy Woodward rendering "Truck Stop Baby," also on Susanville.

Buddy Woodward rendering "Truck Stop Baby," also on Susanville.

And here’s a shot from the show’s finale song:

Almost everyone from Uncle Earl, Sierra Hull and Highway 111, and The Dixie Bee-Liners in the final song of the night.

Almost everyone from Uncle Earl, Sierra Hull and Highway 111, and The Dixie Bee-Liners in the final song of the night.

Today is a travel day. We’re headed to Glen Ella, Illinois, near Chicago. I don’t think anyone is looking forward to the long drive!

Casey Henry

Casey Henry

Holy cow, day twenty! We've really been out for twenty days? It seems like a hundred. Just kidding. It seems like thirty.

News Flash: this afternoon (November 18th) around 5:00 Eastern time The Bee-Liners and (I think) Sierra Hull's band will be live on the radio--WDVX in Knoxville. You can listen online here, or tune in to the local FM frequency.

Last night was a truly exciting moment: Uncle Earl debuted the blog song on stage for our lucky Bowling Green crowd. And I got an MP3 version of the song, so everyone should be able to play it with no problem. Listen to the Murphy Method Blog Theme Song here. After they sang it I got several inquiries about the address of the blog, so a big welcome to any readers who were lured in by Uncle Earl's siren song.

I realized yesterday that I really hadn't had any pictures of Sierra Hull and her band on here, so I snapped one as were were hanging around, killing time backstage. Here's what Sierra does for fun:

Sierra Hull, finding her true calling.

Sierra Hull, finding her true calling.

This next story is about what Jeremy and I do for fun. We were in the green room backstage, which happens to be under the stage. Sierra's band was soundchecking and there was some foot pounding going on. Underneath the stage as we were, it sounded like someone using a sledge hammer. We decided walking around in the cool night air would be preferable. Jeremy found on his handy iPhone the Corsair Artisan Microdistillery, which was just next door to where we were (we took a roundabout route to get there, but we made it). The inside lights were on and the sign out front said "Distillery Gift Shop," so we took a chance and went in. The pungent smell of fermenting grain met us at the door. We didn't really see anyone, so we looked at the shirts, glasses, bottles of spirits they had there.

Brady, hard at work on a batch of Pumpkin Spice Moonshine.

Brady, hard at work on a batch of Pumpkin Spice Moonshine.

A couple minutes later a guy notices us, says they are actually closed, and introduces himself as Ben, one of the owners. We get into conversation and he tells us about their operation, which is less than two years old. Even though they're closed, he offers to do us a little tasting. We take him up on the offer. He first pours us their Rye whiskey, which is great. The Yazoo Brewing Company in Nashville made the mash for it, and it apparently really clogged up their machines so they'll never do it again. You better believe that Jeremy and I walked out of there with the last two bottles of that batch.

Then Ben poured their vanilla vodka for us. This was far and away my favorite. It tasted like drinking vanilla extract (made with organic fair-trade vanilla beans). I took a bottle of that home as well.

We moved onto Gin, which is not my favorite, but theirs was wonderful. Jeremy tasted the absinthe and liked it enough to buy a bottle. I'm not a licorice fan, so I just smelled its distinctive aroma and that was enough for me.

I would have liked to taste the Pumpkin Spice Moonshine that was running out of the still right at the that moment, but it wasn't ready for the public. Finding Corsair Artisan Distillery was by far the best impromptu side trip of the tour. We felt lucky to have happened upon them, and were so grateful that even though they were closed Ben took the time to introduce us to his wonderful products! They will make the rest of the tour much more fun!

Today we're hitting the road to Knoxville, Tenn., where we play at the Square Room.

Casey Henry

Casey Henry

This is the seventh 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 we traveled from the cute town of Newberry, SC, up to Morganton, NC to play at the Municipal Auditorium. This was a much bigger, 1000+ seat, hall, and the crowd was also bigger, but they didn’t give us back much enery-wise, so although our set was beter and we were more focused on playing as a group, it was hard to generate much momentum.

Sierra Hull had a fill-in fiddler, because Christian Ward had to miss this show: Jim VanCleave from Mountain Heart. Rachel took the opportunity to buy his new Become A More Complete Fiddler DVD so that she can steal some of his hot licks.

Rachel Johnson and Kristin Andreassen working up their clogging bit. (Paula Bradley in the background.)

Rachel Johnson and Kristin Andreassen working up their clogging bit. (Paula Bradley in the background.)

Another nice addition to the show was a little clogging riff from Rachel and Kristin Andreassen. Our finale number is “Sittin’ on Top of the World.” For the first week of shows Kristin and Bryn Davies have been doing a bass and clogging break. Last night in the dressing room Rachel and Kristin worked out a little back and forth routine, so now it’s a bass-and-two-cloggers trio break. It rocked, and the crowd loved it.

We had a second encore all ready—“Angel Band”—but the crowd wasn’t that interested, so we didn’t do it. Next time we have an enthusiastic crowd, though, they’ll get to hear it.

The dressing room last night was busy with business. I worked on sending out a Murphy Method newsletter promoting the remaining tour dates, and Kristin was working on an Uncle Earl newsletter. (I’d like to mention how wonderful it is when theaters have a good wireless internet connection. It makes it so much easier to get work done.) Brandi took a much-deserved day off and got absorbed in Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels.

Today: The Carolina Theater in Greensboro, NC.

Murphy HenryFrom time to time here I’ll be including some posts with feminist leanings. There will almost always be a bluegrass connection, but I realize some of you may not be interested and might rather scoot on over to visit with our buddies at the Banjo Hangout, so I’ll try to remember to give you a heads up. So, heads up!

Today I want to shine a spotlight on the 2008 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Awards Final Ballot which I received a few weeks ago and promptly marked and mailed back. It’s rare to see female performers nominated as Instrumental Performers but this year THREE women are nominated and I want everybody to know that this is Big News. (Okay, not as big as Sarah Palin being nominated for Vice President, but still and yet big for the world of bluegrass!)

So, who are these brave and bold women who are carving out new turf?

Kristin Scott Benson—nominated for Banjo Player of the Year, her first nomination.

Sierra Hull—nominated for Mandolin Player of the Year, her first nomination. And she is the first woman to be nominated in this category!

Missy Raines—nominated for Bass Player of the Year. Her 16th nomination!

Congratulations to all of you! You’re doing all us womyn proud!

Now, in case you’d like to put this into perspective, I did a little digging.

Since the IBMA Awards were instituted in 1990, only two women have won Instrumental Awards. Alison Brown was the first, winning Banjo Player of the Year in 1991. Missy Raines became the second in 1998, and has since won six more times. (Go Missy!)

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