The Rooster's Wife

Wow- this is going to be SO great ! John Cowan and...

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:43:32 -0400

Wow- this is going to be SO great ! John Cowan and Tiller’s Folly ! See you at the Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen, NC . Doors: 6 pm, show at 6:46 Tix at the door : $25 cash or check.

Planning ahead ?

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:03:00 -0400

June 2 Missy Raines and the New Hip, Casey Dreissen
Music is immediate. A few seconds in and you know whether you like a band or not. Missy Raines & The New Hip hits the downbeat. The riff and rhythm of electric guitar and the kick of acoustic bass and drums carry you across the first few changes. Then Missy’s clear, intimate voice tells the story. You lean in and listen. Casey Dreissen will kick things off with his amazing red shoes and incredible fiddlicity ! Fiddle clinic Sunday afternoon. Call Janet 944-7502

June 9 Doug and Telisha, Daniel Smith opens
The Williams bringing a burning energy to every show they play. They mean it. They live it. We will celebrate their new cd with pie !

June 16 Red Clay Ramblers, Cackalacky Sisters open
North Carolina’s Tony winning string band !!! And Janet’s best gal pals opening- what a show !!!!!

June 23 Robin and Linda Williams
Folk musicians from Virginia known internationally for their harmony singing and songwriting talents. From Prairie Home to LA.

June 30 the Rigney Family Band, Alice Gerrard and Laurelyn Dossett
Simply put, Alice Gerrard is a talent of legendary status. In a career spanning some 40-plus years, she has known, learned from, and performed with many of the old-time and bluegrass greats and has in turn earned worldwide respect for her own important contributions to the music. She comes to the Spot with our own Laurelyn Dossett on a co bill with bluegrassers extraordinaire, the Rigney Family.

John Cowan and Tiller’s Folly Sunday May 19 The...

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:23:27 -0400

John Cowan and Tiller’s Folly
Sunday May 19
The Rooster’s Wife
Tickets available online

Harpeth Rising Sunday May 12 at The Rooster’s Wife Tickets...

Mon, 06 May 2013 14:58:00 -0400

Harpeth Rising
Sunday May 12
at The Rooster’s Wife
Tickets available online

"Tickets available now for David Jacobs-Strain and Bob Beach. And learn more about David’s..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 09:58:00 -0400

“Tickets available now for David Jacobs-Strain and Bob Beach. And learn more about David’s musical influences, from Mississippi Fred McDowell to Gillian Welch. Scroll down to read the article and listen to his favorite records on our spotify playlist.”

- Read the article and listen to the David Jacobs-Strain Record Addiction playlist.

Photo

Wed, 01 May 2013 16:38:47 -0400

“A lot of my favorite music is that way. The very first time I...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:51:00 -0400

“A lot of my favorite music is that way. The very first time I hear it, I think, ‘Hm. There’s something wierd about that.’ And then I find myself obsessed.”

David Jacobs-Strain
with Bob Beach Sunday May 5
tickets online

When it comes to a top five records list, David Jacobs-Strain prefers the stripped down style of early innovators, like Mississippi Fred McDowell. The song-craft lyric tricks of Robert Johnson and Gillian Welch. Tom Petty’s rock and Taj Mahal’s roll.

We put it all together in a Spotify playlist so you can get ready for the show Sunday. Below, David explains why the following five are a core part of his road curriculum.

Meantime, give his new record “Geneseo” a listen. Someday you’ll probably see it on somebody’s top five.

Mississippi Fred McDowell

“Standing at the Burying Ground, Recorded Live at the Mayfair Hotel, London in 1969.” They asked him if he wouldn’t mind wearing overalls and a straw hat to the show. They put out a straw bale for him to sit on, and he showed up with an electric guitar and ordered them to clear the stage. Promoters had this very patronizing fantasy of what it meant to be a blues singer. And he showed up, “Nope. I’m an entertainer. I’m a class act. Get rid of this stuff. That’s your fantasy.”

It’s just a wonderfully raw portrait of his music. Fred McDowell has this slightly punk undertone to his music, this driving edge that I love and very modal kind of blues.

Taj Mahal

“The Natch’l Blues.” Taj Mahal was the first person I ever heard live play the blues. Taj is not just blues, it’s blues, it’s reggae and R&B and he puts it together in this way where it’s Taj and it’s not anybody else. That’s been a huge inspiration for me. I probably heard Taj 17 years ago or something and (that experience) still has a big influence on me. It’s hard for me to pick one of his records, but that’s definitely one that I listen to over and over again.

Gillian Welch

“Hell Among the Yearlings” (not available on spotify). I’ve been obsessed with her latest record, “The Harrow and the Harvest,” but the record of hers that really turned me on was “Hell Among the Yearlings.” Gillian’s music is uncompromising. And that record in particular is extremely minimal. It’s pretty much just her and David Rawlings, and they play a lot of these, if not modal, very carefully-voiced chords and harmonies. The songs are dark and haunting. To me it’s like you almost have to slow your heart down to listen. Or, her music slows your heart down until you’re at the speed of the music.

There’s a great compression of language too, there’s a lot of meaning in relatively simple words. And I hear that in great blues, too. It’s not always just the double entendres, and I think it’s something that’s missing in a lot of contemporary blues, too: songcraft.

Robert Johnson

“The Complete Recordings of Robert Johnson.” One of the things Robert Johnson did is to take the best ideas and verses floating around the Mississippi Delta and put them together into coherent songs. Robert Johnson is always referred to as the King of Blues, but one of the reasons that people love his music - and one that’s often unmentioned - is that he knew how to make 2-to-3 minute songs into a coherent story, with a solo, so that it all fits together. As far as acoustic blues goes, he was the master of the two-minute single.

Whereas his mentors, like Charlie Patton, they grew up playing unamplified, country dances where they would have played for hours and hours. And they were great, and they would have been awesome to listen to live, but Robert Johnson took those songs and made the forms coherent, he made them into songs.

Tom Petty

“Wildflowers.” The record that’s totally not a blues record, but had a big impact on me. I think it’s one of the great songwriter records. Fifteen songs and every one is good. It’s not a record that has his biggest singles on it, but it’s got such a good vibe. It’s a record that’s really tightly produced, and yet, he said, he wanted to make a record that sounded like it could have been made in a weekend. It doesn’t sound like that to me but it’s believable. It’s a big production that’s non-self indulgent, and I just think the songs are so beautiful.

David Jacobs-Strain & Bob Beach Sunday, May 5
Tickets available online

Howard Levy and Joe Craven want to help you get your Monday out...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:47:22 -0400

Howard Levy and Joe Craven want to help you get your Monday out of the gate.

Rooster's Wife alum Bruce Molsky featured in No Depression's preview article on the new, Old Time music.

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:59:00 -0400

Rooster's Wife alum Bruce Molsky featured in No Depression's preview article on the new, Old Time music. :

But the emphasis on this album is more on old-time than his previous albums. There’s much here for true-blue old-time music heads, like the shifty fiddling on “Rattle Down the Acorns” from lesser-known fiddler Delbert Hughes, Molsky’s softly sublime clawhammer banjo playing on classic tune “Johnny Booger”, and a sweet version of the chestnut “Bonaparte’s Retreat” from the fiddler in John Dilleshaw’s wonderfully named band “Seven Foot Dilly and his Dill Pickles.”

- Posted by Hearth Music

We're on spring break!

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:19:11 -0400

We're on spring break!:

Back in May.

“He’s a six-foot-two Jewish blues singer from Oregon, a...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:36:00 -0400

“He’s a six-foot-two Jewish blues singer from Oregon, a Stanford drop-out in a trucker hat, and a Left Coast poet; one part Leo Kottke, one part Ken Kesey, and one part Robert Johnson. Is it Delta Blues? Gangsta Grass? Geekabilly? Secular Humanist Gospel?

“It’s a sound big enough to land David at the Newport Folk Festival —as a teenager— and later at MerleFest, the Strawberry Music Festival, the Montreal International Jazz Fest, and on tour with artists as diverse as Lucinda Williams, Etta James, Bob Weir, and Boz Scaggs (for three summer tours).”

David Jacobs-Strain and Bob Beech
Sunday May 5 at the Rooster’s Wife
Tickets available online

Sample a little of the great music playing this spring at the...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:03:00 -0400

Sample a little of the great music playing this spring at the Rooster’s Wife in our Spotify Spring Chickens 2013 playlist.

Then come on by and listen to it live starting May 5.

We’re taking a little spring break through April (you know, Merlefest, Shakori, and whatnot) and will be back for more great music this spring, starting with David Jacobs-Strain.

Tickets available online or at the door.

Who’s coming to the hen house in May? Take a look, order...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:40:00 -0400

Who’s coming to the hen house in May? Take a look, order tickets now, or buy a bundle and save a bundle.

MAY

5 | David Jacobs-Strain and Bob Beech
12 | Harpeth Rising
19 | John Cowan and Tiller’s Folly
26 | Betse Ellis and Wurlitzer Prize

JUNE

Now h'year this: David Jacobs-Strain

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:18:00 -0400

Now h'year this: David Jacobs-Strain:

“David Jacobs-Strain is a virtuosic slide guitar player and a storyteller with a passionate one man show that is both humorous and deeply lyrical. A bridge between today’s indie folk troubadours and the delta guitar slingers of the 1930′s, David plays with precision and sings with emotional abandon.

He’s a six-foot-two Jewish blues singer from Oregon, a Stanford drop-out in a trucker hat, and a Left Coast poet; one part Leo Kottke, one part Ken Kesey, and one part Robert Johnson.

Is it Delta Blues? Gangsta Grass? Geekabilly? Secular Humanist Gospel? It’s a sound big enough to land David at the Newport Folk Festival —as a teenager— and later at MerleFest, the Strawberry Music Festival, the Montreal International Jazz Fest, and on tour with artists as diverse as Lucinda Williams, Etta James, Bob Weir, and Boz Scaggs (for three summer tours).”

Read more about David Jacobs-Strain on his Web site.

See him Sunday May 5 at the Rooster’s Wife.

Sunday, May 5 David Jacobs-Strain and Bob Beech

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:34:00 -0400

“Davd Jacobs-Strain, what a great name!” - Lucinda Williams

Sunday May 5
David Jacobs-Strain and Bob Beech
tickets available online

The Party's Over........NOT

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 14:05:49 -0400

Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen will be at the Spot for our last show of the winter season. Rocking acoustic mayhem- huge instrumental chops with fine singing. Bluegrass, swinging through jazz : the complete definition of that which we call AMERICANA ! Frank and the band will be bringing it. Help us close out our Palustris week with gusto from pour favorite band, cooking with gas on all cylinders.
March 24, 6:46 at the Spot! 114 Knight St., Aberdeen, NC 28315

Mamajowali | Joe Craven, Mamadou Sidibe, Walter Strauss The...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:10:00 -0400

Mamajowali | Joe Craven, Mamadou Sidibe, Walter Strauss

The blend of kamale ngoni (the hunter’s harp) with six string guitar, percussion, fiddle, mandolin and singing – is uncommon and familiar while traditional and innovative – all at the same time. This new “Afromericana” project places each of these respected Northern CA-based artists in a new sound of common ground.

Joe Craven
Mamadou Sidibe
Walter Strauss

Joe Craven

Multi-instrumentalist Joe Craven’s love of performing music has put him in many musical genres and alongside many musicians, from Jerry Garcia, Yo-Yo Ma, David Lindley and Jason Marsalis, to fusion banjoist Alison Brown and groups such as The Persuasions, Psychograss and The Horseflies. For 17 years, he was percussionist/ violinist with mandolinist David Grisman. With presenting workshops and lectures in Costa Rica, to thousands of school kids in Scotland, from house concerts to major festivals and from Carnegie Hall to busking at Cannery Row.

Mamadou Sidibe

Master kamale ngoni player, Mamadou Sidibe is from the Wassoulou Region of Mali, West Africa. Twenty-five years ago Mamadou played a groundbreaking role in transforming the music of this region from it’s origins in hunters’ sacred melodies- -played on six string donso ngoni (hunter’s harps) – to a music of philosophical observations, politics and daily life.

Mamadou was one of the first to expand the instrument’s range with two extra strings, creating the popular kamale ngoni. He has recently enhanced the kamale ngoni even further, by creating 10 and 12 string kamale ngoni. Mamadou, with artists Coumba Sidibe, Oumou Sangare and Ramatu Diakite, spread the new sounds through recordings and performances in Europe, Africa and the United States. Not only is Mamadou an award winning musician and master of the kamale ngoni, he is accomplished on several other African instruments as well.

Walter Strauss

Fingerstyle guitar ace Walter Strauss draws on American roots, world music traditions, and jazz to create a sound uniquely his own. An accomplished composer and lyricist, he has also transposed the intricate music of the kora, a 21-string West African harp, to the guitar to create mind-bending renditions of traditional African melodies. Walter has toured with kora virtuoso and 2010 Grammy winner Mamadou Diabate, and with kamal ngoni (hunters harp) master Mamadou Sidibe, both of Mali. He has recently returned from Mali where he met and played with some of the great West African musicians, and he is currently working on a duo project with Sidiki Diabate, son of the legendary kora master Toumani Diabate.

Thursday March 21
Tickets available now

We are both mad men.

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:27:39 -0400

We are both mad men.:

“Levy and Craven’s paths have crossed a few times through the years. The Grisman quintet has toured fairly often with the Flecktones; both musicians contributed to the final recordings of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. But their own collaboration wasn’t kindled until three years ago when they had a chance to play together at a fundraiser in Aberdeen, N.C. The two kept in touch and eventually started playing out as a duo, indulging in a few touring dates during the past year.”

“We are both mad men,” Levy wrote in an email to the Xpress, explaining their connection. “It takes one to know one. Lots of intensity and enough chops to hang with each other.”

via mountainx.com

Howard Levy and Joe Craven Sunday, March 17 Howard Levy by...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 09:45:00 -0400

Howard Levy and Joe Craven Sunday, March 17

Howard Levy by olivenkuchen on Flickr.

What’s in your gig bag? Folk artist Alice Gerrard shares a...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 09:29:35 -0400

What’s in your gig bag? Folk artist Alice Gerrard shares a few pics of her pick tin.