©2008
WUMB RADIO
SAMW
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| SAMW Class Week #2 August 17-23, 2008
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Mark Cosgrove
Beginning Flatpicking
Advanced Flatpicking
Mark Cosgrove's distinctive, creative flatpicking guitar sound is known and respected on both sides of the Atlantic, through both his own recordings and as a sideman and session player for Jerry Douglas and others. He grew up in a Manhattan apartment surrounded by classical records, and his original music ambition was to become a drummer. He was also immersed in bluegrass and fiddle tunes from an early age. He has continued to make acoustic music his life's work and pleasure. Mark Cosgrove has won the U.S. National Flatpicking Guitar Championship in Winfield, Kansas and also the Doc Watson Guitar Championship in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. His flatpick guitar work is notable not only for power, precision, and tone, but for his fluid high-speed improvisation. Mark is equally proficient in any number of musical styles and as an accompanist, can back a singer or soloist with taste and sensitivity. Mark has a number of CDs including Sweet Reason, Round Island and Good Medicine. He also has a Mel Bay Instructional book Hot Solos for Flatpick Guitarists: Book/CD set.
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Ferron
Songwriting (2 Sessions)
Picture this...in 1967 I am 15 and still wearing knee socks. Guess what anybody else is doing! I like to think I'm hip enough and then I have to say that, as a teenager, I'm the one listening to Janis Ian's 'Society's Child' over and over and over while everyone else is necking. And that's why I'm a musician...I want to know what it takes to GET SOME ATTENTION AROUND HERE! I took a job slicing bread at a bakery when I was about 12, and that's how I got the transistor radio. I ironed shirts and picked strawberries in the summers. When I got a little older I worked in a fish cannery/frozen cranberry factory and that gave me enough money to get away from home. I was 15. In my shopping bag I had a change of clothes, a tooth brush, my A+W uniform, and a Leonard Cohen album. My mother's French Canadian family played music. I heard guitars and banjo and accordian and scrub board and my grandfather clogging. I put it together...music meant fun, meant love and laughter. Ferron is singer/songwriter and poet. In addition to being one of Canada's most famous folk musicians, she is one of the most influential writers and performers of women's music, and an important influence on later musicians such as Ani DiFranco and the. Ferron's rough-hewn voicing, chewy phrasing, and poetic songwriting has brought many favorable comparisons, including Kitty Wells, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen (cf. Stephen Holden 1994 . Testimony was her first professionally produced album, and brought her much interest in the United States, particularly in the women's music community. Her 1984 album Shadows on a Dime received a four-star review (highest rating) from Rolling Stone magazine, calling Ferron "a culture hero" and the album "cowgirl meets Yeats...a thing of beauty. Awarded a Canada Arts Council grant in 1985 to further develop her musicianship, she took several years off from touring, returning in 1990 with Phantom Center. The album featured backing vocals by a then unheard of Tori Amos, and consequently is highly sought after by collectors. It was re-released with a duet with The Indigo Girls on the first track. Ferron continues to tour and teach master classes in writing, and opened an artist retreat for women in Three Rivers, Michigan, called "The Fen Peace and Poetry Camp for Women." For Ferron, "artistic expression is not only essential, it’s revolutionary." "Art is really the expression of the soul," Ferron says. "I'm asking women to remember that if we remember our soul, we keep our soul, and we can do it through artistic connections. Art is connected to the soul, and the soul is connected to God, and God is connected to humility, so if you want to take control of a person's soul, don't let them have art. To me it's a revolutionary act to continue keeping your artist soul alive" (Esters 2007).
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Mary Flower
Piedmont Masters Guitar Styles
Favorite Fingerpicking Guitar Arrangements
Working in both the intricately syncopated Piedmont finger picking style as well as her own deeply bluesy lap-slide guitar, Mary Flower has garnered praise for her spring water-clear vocals and mastery of multiple guitar styles as well as her beautiful original compositions. Though she can recreate pre-war blues with the best of them, Mary isn't content to be just another curator of the classic blues museum. Instead she draws on traditional contemporary and original material to create something new: a sound uniquely her own that remains true to the timeless power of the blues. With two top-three finishes in the National Fingerpicking Guitar Championship, six critically-acclaimed CDs (Bywater Dance is the latest), and three instructional DVDs to her credit, Flower is a world-renowned singer/guitarist, in demand for festivals, concerts and guitar camps on both sides of the Atlantic. With three decades of music behind her, Mary Flower is a performer in her prime, playing at the top of her game and enjoying every note every step of the way.
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Bob Franke
Songwriting - 2 sessions
Bob is a long-time New England-based songwriter and singer. Originally from Detroit, Bob has performed in 34 states, four Canadian provinces and England. His songs have been recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary, Kathy Mattea, June Tabor, Tony Rice, John McCutcheon, and many others. He has written extended works for historical projects, the church, and a ballet (The Velveteen Rabbit, ODC Dance Company of San Francisco). His concerts have appeared on the lists of the top five musical events chosen by critics in the Boston and San Francisco Bay areas. He was named in 2002 by a WUMB poll as one of the top 100 folk artists of the last 20 years. He has several albums and CDs, the newest being The Other Evening In Chicago (2005). Bob has been teaching songwriting in camps, festivals, and special seminars all over the country for roughly 20 years.
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Lorraine Hammond
Practical Music Theory
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 for Guitar;
Advanced Beginning 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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Kim and Reggie Harris
Performance From the Ground Up
The Art of the Community Sing
As singers, songwriters, storytellers, educators, historical interpreters and cultural advocates, Kim and Reggie Harris have used their remarkable voices and their unique talents to bring new insights
to the entertainment and educational spectrum.
Born in Philadelphia, PA. a city rich in musical and cultural heritage, Kim and Reggie were both exposed to a wide range of composers and musical genres. Their training, nurtured in their individual homes and enhanced in their churches and schools, enriched their musical vocabulary. It was the start of what has evolved into the " Bach to Rock" musical approach (with the strongest elements being Folk, Gospel and Jazz) that is so prevalent in their music.
They met, by chance, at a summer camp in 1974. While attending Temple University they honed their performance skills in the clubs and coffeehouses around Philadelphia.
In 1980, Kim and Reggie "hit the road" touring universities, art centers, schools and other concert venues. Their strong material (both original and otherwise) and complex harmonies, combined with their stunning voices and informed stage patter, has won them accolades and fans that has them in constant demand. They average over 275 performances each year!
They have proven themselves to be exceptional people who can entertain audiences of all ages and backgrounds. They continue to distinguish themselves as artists of integrity who show respect for their craft and their audiences by working to expand their skills and build on their knowledge base.
Kim and Reggie are presenters in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Touring workshop program providing teacher training and arts events that encourage the use of the arts in the classroom.
They are featured artists in Silver Burdett and Ginn's "World of Music", a leading educational music series; they have, in collaboration with Chatham Hill Games, produced the "Underground Railroad Activity Set" (a video, game and teaching guide) for use by teachers and parents and they continue to be sought after presenters on the subjects of the Underground Railroad, the Modern Civil Rights Movement and African American Music of Social Change.
Over the course of their career they have opened for and performed with a diverse array of artists including Jay Leno, Pete Seeger, Richie Havens, Tom Paxton, Micheal Keaton, The Indigo Girls, Janis Ian, and many others.
Kim and Reggie have recorded 5 CDs on the Appleseed Recordings label, one CD for Folk Era; contributed tracks to each of Appleseed's Pete Seeger releases and are also featured (with other leading Folk and Acoustic artists) on a growing number of compilation and tribute
CDs.
Kim has most recently earned a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary and, when not touring, Reggie coaches girls varsity basketball.
They reside in upstate New York!
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John Kirk
Beginning Fiddle
Mandolin
John Kirk has always made his living as a musician. In addition to his work with his wife Trish Miller, he fiddles with an old-time stringband called the Woodshed All-stars, and occasionally works with the Vanaver Caravan, an International dance troupe, and the Susquehanna Stringband. He is adjunct music faculty member at Bennington College, Vermont. John was part of the national touring band Walt Michael & Co. in the 1980's. He can be heard, along with Jay Ungar & Molly Mason, on the Ken Burns-PBS television series The West, and has appeared at Carnegie Hall in concert with the Catskill Conservatory Chamber Players. He has his own recordings and has played as a studio musician on many more. In addition to his musicianship, John is a dynamic workshop leader, clog dancer and joke collector.
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Tom MacKenzie
Sound
Tom MacKenzie has been a performer for more than 30 years, traveling to most of the states and to over 20 countries. He performs mainly on Hammered Dulcimer and Banjo playing anything from Contra dances to Old Time to Gaelic to originals. With these two instruments he has probably encountered more than his share of confused sound engineers and invented some new audio sounds.
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Trish Miller
Beginning Guitar
Clogging
Trish Miller has been teaching and performing Appalachian clogging since 1981. She calls square dances, plays old-time clawhammer banjo and guitar. The groups she has danced with include, The Back Creek Cloggers from Richmond, VA.; The Green Grass Cloggers, a professional touring troupe from Asheville, North Carolina; and occasional appearances with the Vanaver Caravan from New Paltz, NY. Trish is office manager for Quickstep Music, choreographs and arranges traditional American music & dance programs for schools, concerts & workshop settings. She and her husband John Kirk have toured throughout the U.S. and abroad since 1988 in venues ranging from a school down in the Grand Canyon to Barbados; from the local Dance Flurry Festival to a concert at the Academy of Culture in St. Petersburg, Russia.
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Sloan Wainwright
Songwriting: The Creative Process
Vocal Coaching
Sloan Wainwright comes from a long line of amazingly gifted singer/songwriters. Her family tree (brother Loudon Wainwright, nephew Rufus Wainwright) reads like a who's who of contemporary popular music that would be impressive even if she never recorded one note of music. But
thankfully, that is not the reality. Sloan's incredible gift is not only her unique songwriting ability, but also her smoky, deep-voiced rendition of songs. With four original CD releases to her credit, Sloan continues to write, sing and perform with a depth that makes the heart ache with recognition and a passion that calls it to rise above. Sloan's voice and expert song craft are instantly memorable. To maintain her own sense of creative diversity, Sloan has written numerous musical compositions for theater and dance and teaches at many of the best-known master songwriter series and workshops. Sloan is an independent artist making grown-up girl music in the truest sense-a rare, one-of-a-kind voice that speaks deeply to our humanity and leaves us forever changed.
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Brooks Williams
Adventuresome Guitar For Songwriters
Intermediate Fingerstyle Guitar
If Williams' guitar picking gets any sharper, we'll have to invent new adjectives," wrote the Boston Globe. Well, they better start inventing because Williams' music, lyrics, singing, and picking get sharper with every recording. Critics and writers hail Brooks as "an acoustic guitar god'" and a "fret monster," saying his music is "electrifying," "dazzling," and "breathtaking," and that he sings like the "Angel of Soul." With millions of touring miles and thirteen albums to his credit, the fans have seen and heard it for themselves. His huge and growing catalog of original songs is "exquisite," says MOJO, a UK magazine. Whether live in concert, where rich new music continues to emerge, or in recordings (he's recorded over thirteen albums) where his fiery flatpicking, power chords, single note leads, and simmering slide can be consumed over and over, fans understand why Dirty Linen says, "A consummate artist, Williams ranks among America's musical treasures."d - and he is quite simply one of the most entertaining and engaging performers on the circuit today. From coast-to-coast, country-to-country, Williams and
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