©2008
WUMB RADIO
SAMW
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| SAMW Class Week #1 July 13-19, 2008 |
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Rolly Brown
Fingerpicking
Flatpicking
Rolly Brown is a National Fingerpicking Champion (1980), a Philadelphia Music Award nominee, a solo performer, sideman, and teacher. Folk, blues, ragtime, bluegrass, country, & jazz have each, over the past 37 years, been his passions. Acoustic Guitar Magazine calls Rolly's guitar sound "an exceptionally melodic, articulate playing style that takes full advantage of the acoustic guitar's beautiful tone."
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John Doerschuk
Sound
John Doerschuk has been in the sound business for over 25 years. He was attracted to waves and electrons while playing in bands in the seventies, and somehow continues to make a living as an "audio guy." He lives with his artist wife Bessie and daughter Sophie in Cambridge, Massachusetts. John plays piano and guitar and is trying to tame a Dobro.
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Steve Gillette
Songwriting (2 Sessions)
In a musical age created by the singer-songwriter, Steve Gillette has long been considered to be one of the finest. His music has inspired glowing reviews from the critics and the deep loyalty of his fans. Since Ian and Sylvia first recorded Darcy Farrow in 1966, Steve's songs have been sung by dozens of major artists including Garth Brooks, John Denver, Nanci Griffith, Waylon Jennings, Anne Murray, Kenny Rogers, Linda Ronstadt, Spanky and Our Gang, Don Williams, and Tammy Wynette.
Since their marriage in 1989, Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen have been traveling, performing and recording together. Their album Live In Concert, recorded at The Ark in Ann Arbor in 1991, is available from their own company, Compass Rose Music2003). In addition to performing in 31 countries, Steve has performed on over 100 college campuses and has taught numerous workshops and seminars on songwriting, guitar theory, and record production. Steve is the author of the book Songwriting and The Creative Process, published by The Sing Out Press in 1995. His film credits include writing and singing the main title theme for M.G.M.'s The Outfit, Walt Disney's The Pond, The Grass Is Greener, Summer Run, and Door To Door. Steve has also written songs for the Walt Disney characters Jiminy Cricket, Dumbo, Rainbow Brite, and Winnie the Pooh. Steve traveled to Japan with the "Day Of The Dolphin" concert series in Tokyo in 1976, and has been active in the anti nuclear movement and other social causes. He has received ASCAP and BMI performance awards, and was honored by the World Folk Music Association as a 1988 nominee for the Kate Wolf Award. He has been a featured performer at many festivals, including Clearwater’s Hudson River Revival, Fox Hollow, International Songwriter's Festival at Frutigen (Switzerland), The Mariposa Folk Festival, The Old Songs Festival, Owen Sound Summerfolk Festival, The Philadelphia Folk Festival, The Vancouver Folk Festival, The Walnut Valley Festival, The Winnipeg Folk Festival, and is a director and long-time participant in The Kerrville Folk Festival
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Martin Grosswendt
Beginning fingerstyle Guitar
Bottleneck Blues Technique
Martin Grosswendt, once described by U. Utah Phillips as "a rumor in his own time," has been a performer, session musician, and teacher for more than three decades. As a more recent writer has said, "While his name is not a household word, among musicians and fans of country, blues and folk, he is sort of an underground legend, a musician of extraordinary talent." A multi-instrumentalist and singer long known as an interpreter of '20s and '30s blues, Martin is equally at home playing the old-time music of the Southern Appalachians or the Cajun and Creole music of Southwest Louisiana. He plays six- and twelve-string guitar, five-string banjo, mandolin, fiddle, bass, Cajun accordion, and Dobro. Martin is music teaches at and is co-director of Banjo Camp North and Old Time Music Camp North, and has performed and taught at numerous festivals.
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Lorraine Hammond
Morning Song
Appalachian Dulcimer
Lorraine Hammond was born and raised in the mountains of Northwestern Connecticut when traditional music was still a normal part of community life. With a degree in Music and Education from Goddard College, she is well known as a folk singer and songwriter, an accomplished player and teacher of the Celtic harp and the 5-string banjo, and as perhaps the foremost exponent of the Appalachian dulcimer. Lorraine teaches locally at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education where she also produces an annual spring dulcimer festival. She is a regularly featured teacher and performer at venues around the country including The John C Campbell Folk School, and The Mountain Collegium of Early Music, both in North Carolina, Puget Sound Guitar Workshop in the state of Washington, Augusta Heritage Program in West Virginia, and Summer Acoustic Music Week in New Hampshire.
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Bennett Hammond
Filling In the Cracks;
Intermediate Beginners Guitar
Bennett Hammond began to play traditional and original music on the guitar in high school in Vermont, and began teaching it while in college in New Hampshire. With a degree in Classical Greek, Bennett also speaks French and Spanish. "Hammond has a deft melodic sense, and a knack for transmuting traditional Irish and Appalachian motifs into thoroughly contemporary results. Hammond's great talent is that he doesn't let his skill overpower his taste and artistry." Boston Globe. Since 1986 Bennett has performed, recorded and toured extensively at home and abroad with Lorraine. The couple lives in an old house in Brookline, Massachusetts.
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Ernie Hawkins
Basic Guitar Technique
Advanced Guitar Blues and Rags
For many years Ernie Hawkins has been playing concerts, clubs, blues and folk festivals, workshops, colleges, museums, parties, fist fights and millennium celebrations in the United States, Canada, Japan and Spain and at every stop in the road from A Prairie Home Companion to Antone's to the Madrid Jazz Festival. He has played with blues greats such as Son House, Mance Lipscomb, Fred McDowell, Jim Brewer, Rev. Gary Davis and many others. He first learned country guitar, mandolin, banjo and bones from a guy named Pete who worked on his uncle's farm. Ernie was already playing blues as a teenager when he heard a fellow play Gary Davis' "Let Us Get Together". He was hooked then and forever on country blues and ragtime guitar and players like Davis, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Blake, Willie Johnson, Skip James, John Hurt and Leadbelly. After high school, Ernie moved to New York City to study with Rev. Gary Davis. In 1969 he moved back to Pennsylvania and earned a degree in philosophy. In 1973 Ernie moved to Dallas for graduate school and earned a Ph.D. in phenomenological psychology. There he hooked up with players from all over the southwest, learning some Lemon Jefferson, Henry Thomas and Lightnin' Hopkins. In the early '80's he recorded his first solo album of ragtime guitar, Ragtime Signatures. His second CD Blues Advice was dedicated to the memory of his teacher, Rev. Gary Davis. The CD includes three songs taught to Ernie by Davis: "Penitentiary Blues," "Florida Blues" and "Will There Be Stars in My Crown" that have never been previously recorded. Ernie's third CD Bluesified regularly plays in the preemie unit of a Pittsburgh hospital where the soulful guitar is considered an integral part of the healing process. He has Instructional videos on Lightnin' Hopkins, Blind Willie McTell, Mance Lipscomb and Rev. Gary Davis.
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Rev. Robert B. Jones, Sr.
Basic Blues Harmonica
Holy Blues Guitar
Robert B. Jones has more than twenty years of experience as a performer, musician, storyteller, radio producer/host and music educator. He has opened for and played with some of the finest musicians in the world. Still, Robert considers his greatest honor to be his call to the gospel of ministry. Jones was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1956. His father was from West Pointe, Mississippi and his mother hailed from Conecuh County, Alabama. Consequently, Robert grew up in Detroit in a very Southern household. Early on Robert Jones fell under the influence of his maternal grandmother’s record collection. He grew up listening to and loving a wide variety of music, especially the blues. By the age of 17 Robert had already amassed a record collection of early blues and begun to teach himself guitar and harmonica. By his mid twenties Robert was hosting an award winning radio show on WDET-FM, Detroit called "Blues From The Lowlands". Concentrating primarily on traditional acoustic blues, Robert started performing at some of Detroit's best music venues including the Soup Kitchen Saloon, The Ark and Sully's. Influenced by legendary bluesman Willie Dixon, Robert developed an educational program called, "Blues For Schools". This program has literally taken him into classrooms all over the country, and for approximately the next 15 years Robert polished his craft as both as a performer and a music educator. Answering a call to the ministry Robert began to study under Rev. James Robinson, Sr. at the Sweet Kingdom Missionary Baptist Church in Detroit. Emphasizing the cultural, historical and educational aspects of blues, Jones began to think of his music as an outreach of his ministry. Essentially, he was a singer who preached. However, the death of his pastor in January of 1999 would change the direction of Jones’ life and his music. In 2002, with his home church in the fourth year of upheaval at the loss of it's leader, and with no end to the confusion in sight, Robert was called by his church to become it's next pastor. Over a period of a few months Robert started the process of becoming a preacher who sings instead of a singer that preaches. During this period Robert Jones gave up his highly rated radio program and essentially gave up performing. He reshaped is "Blues For Schools" program into "American Roots Music In Education" (ARMIE), a program that could encompass a wider variety of music including spirituals, gospel and folk songs. 2006 has marked a decided return to performance. Especially influenced by sacred musicians such as Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Willie Johnson and Rev. Dan Smith, Rev. Robert B. Jones now presents "Holy Blues" to new audiences.
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Carl Jones
Mandolin
Dance Band
Vocal Harmony, along with Bevery Smith
Carl Jones has been playing music since he started playing guitar in the 1960s. He moved into the Bluegrass world in the 70s, but was swept into the old time fiddle world after hearing James Bryan fiddle with Norman and Nancy Blake. He later toured as a member of the Rising Fawn String Ensemble playing mandolin and fiddle. Carl stills plays with James Bryan when the opportunity arises, and is sometimes found pickin' as a trio with Bruce Green and Don Pedi. Carl has been an instructor at SAMW for the past two years and has also taught at Port Townsend's Fiddle Tunes Camp, the Swannanoa Gathering, Pinewoods and Mars Hill Old Time weeks. Carl is also a songsmith. His songs have been recorded by the Nashville Bluegrass Band, Rickie Simpkins and others.
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Beverly Smith
Southern Fiddle Styles
Dance Caller
Vocal Harmony, along with Carl Jones
Beverly first heard the old-time sound of the Carter Family and the New Lost City Ramblers while in her early teens and has been devoted to learning and playing it ever since. An accomplished guitar player, fiddler and caller, she is best known for her long association as a member of the Heartbeat Rhythm Quartet. With the Heartbeats, Beverly's lovely songs and strong playing have taken her all around the U.S. and Europe, playing live television and radio shows such as Mountain Stage, Voice of America, E-Town, and A Prairie Home Companion and opening for Mary Chapin Carpenter and 10,000 Maniacs. She has taught at music camps and has performed at most major folk festivals across the US and Canada. She has recently been recording with John Doyle, Brad Leftwich, Laurie Lewis, Martin Hayes and Mick Moloney. She has also performed extensively with Bruce Molsky and Big Hoedown as well as the Freighthoppers
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Joe Walsh
Mandolin
Beginning Flatpicking Guitar
Joe is the first student admitted to the Berklee College of Music to study mandolin. Since moving to Boston two years ago, Joe has shared the stage with Bela Fleck, Earl Scruggs, Emmylou Harris, Ricky Skaggs, David Grisman, and Gillian Welch, has played at the Kennedy Center and the Country Music Hall of Fame, and has performed throughout New England with some of the finest bands in the area, including Northern Lights and the New England Bluegrass Band. Currently he is a member of the band Joy Kills Sorrow. "Some of the better tone I've ever heard," praised Chris Thile.
"Fabulous mandolin player!. The Sam Bush of Boylston Street," says Matt Glaser, Chair of the String Department at the Berklee College of Music."Joe is on the verge of becoming a major talent on the mandolin scene," Peter Ostroushko.
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Charles Williams
Voice / Vocal Health
This Louisiana-born artist has performed in theatres and opera houses and for radio and television in several European cities and around the world. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Sportin' Life in Porgy and Bess. and has performed at Carnegie Hall, The Barns at Wolftrap, the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center. He continues his solo career as well as performing with World Beat along with percussionist/composer Tom Teasley. They have released their first CD, Poetry, Prose, Percussion and Song. His solo CD on CRI records features spirituals and selections from American musical theatre. He is on the voice faculty and is director of musical theatre at the Levine School of Music in Washington, DC, where he is also an artist-in-residence. For a decade or more, he was vocal consultant for Sweet Honey in the Rock.
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