Foghorn Stringband

The Foghorn Stringband plays old time string band music deeply rooted in the American folk tradition. It’s a pre-copyright, post-bluegrass style, but the members of Foghorn put their own stamp on it. Stephen “Sammy” Lind’s fiddle and Caleb Klauder’s mandolin play tight unison lead lines supported by Peter Leone’s three-finger banjo picking and anchored by the bedrock rhythms  of Nadine Landry’s bass. It’s a sound that could be coming to you from a big console radio in a 1930’s living room, or an Appalachian front porch; instead it’s being delivered by a group of players from the thriving old time music scene of Portland, Oregon. Proof positive that folk music will remain vital as long as there are folks who want to play it.

Dedication to the music and the band’s sense of camaraderie marks every note the band plays, live or in the studio. Foghorn play in unison, gathered around a single mike, no flashy picking or solos, carried along by their driving rhythms and fierce determination to keep traditional music alive and exciting for this and future generations. The band’s genuine enthusiasm for the music keeps them a mainstay in the folk and old time music circuit.

Foghorn has toured extensively throughout the US, the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Malaysia, playing a variety of stages including the Tonder Music Festival, the Newport Folk Festival, the Rainforest World Music Festival, the Chicago Folk and Roots Festival, Pick-a-thon Roots Music Festival, The Seattle Folk Life Festival, The Bristol Rhythm and Roots Festival, Bumbershoot and the ROMP Festival.

Sweet Sunny South

SweetSunnySouthOn Wednesday, May 26th the Colorado based old-time bluegrass string band Sweet Sunny South will appear at the Martin Hotel for their only Nevada date in 2010. The band will be featuring material from a new release that includes guest appearances by the Denver based jazz heavy, Ron Miles (Bill Frissell, Elvis Costello) on coronet and Phil Wade(The Wilders) on banjo and dobro. The CD entitled “Carried Off By A Twister” introduces a slew of new tunes and finds the band members stretching out in all sorts of new directions.  “Twister” is the 5th CD released by SSS and the band is coming up on their 10th year performing together.

SSS kicks off summer 2010 with a trip to Yosemite, CA for this Memorial Day weekend’s Strawberry Festival (other acts there include Patty Loveless, Richard Thompson and Louden Wainwright III) and winds it up this year with another appearance at SW Colorado favorite Pagosa’s “Four Corners Folk Festival”. Sandwiched between are all kinds of great festival sets, theater shows and summer concert series all across Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado and more. Sign the email list at www.sweetsunnysouth.com for all the details and to find out about shows as they are added to the tour schedule. Come and get your copy of Sweet Sunny South’s new release hot off the presses “Carried Off By A Twister”!

SSSTwisterSweet Sunny South is a four piece string band hailing from Paonia, Colorado consisting of guitar(Rob Miller), upright bass(Shelley Gray), fiddle(Cory Obert), mandolin and banjo(Bill Powers). The band makes original music that blends elements of bluegrass, old-time, country, and swing to create a decidedly unique sound. Their specialty is creating a full entertainment experience through live performance, a journey if you will, taking the audience along for the ride across dusty landscapes of the American countryside. There’s high lonesome ballads, for the winsome and rocking old-time fiddle tunes for the dancers.  All four members sing and play around a single microphone and while this approach brings to mind the glory days of the Grand Ol’ Opry, the band’s sound feels new, fresh and dynamic. Smiles warm the room while real, true music fills the air. Sweet Sunny South’s vibe is contagious and gives everyone permission to feel good.

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The Gillette Brothers

Gillette BrothersGuy and Pipp Gillette are on their way to the Cowboy Poetry Festival in Monterey California, from their home in Crockett Texas, and they are going to make a stop for a show in Winnemucca on December 8.

The last time the Guy and Pipp Gillette were at the Martin they shared the stage with Don Edwards and Pop Warner, but this time they will have the place to themselves.  They perform a mix of traditional cowboy songs, and songs reflecting the celtic roots, country blues, minstrel and medicine show songs that influenced cowboy music.  For me it is always worth the price of admission just to watch and hear Guy play the rhythm bones, musical bones they make from cow ribs.

They have played at major events and venues around the country including: The 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC, The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV, The Monterey Cowboy Poetry & Music Festival in Monterey, CA, The Santa Clarita Cowboy Poetry & Music Festival in Santa Clarita, CA, The Willow Tree Festival in Gordon, NE, The Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering in Prescott, AZ; The Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon, GA; The National Arboretum in Washington, DC, The Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, WY, and The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, OK, The Museum of South Texas in Edinburgh Texas.

2009 Gillette PosterIn August 2005, the Gillette Brothers traveled to Japan representing the State of Texas at the World Expo – Aichi/Nagoya, performing their music at the US Pavilion. In October 2008, the Gillette Brothers toured Somerset, England for two weeks, performing in village halls and the Bridgewater Arts Center.

They have demonstrated chuckwagon cooking at the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City; the Ranching Heritage Museum in Lubbock, Texas; The Museum of South Texas in Edinburgh Texas; Dalton Days in Longview, Texas; and the Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon, Georgia.

Their cooking has been spotlighted in Persimmon Hill, the magazine of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum; The National Cowboy Hall of Fame Cookbook by B. Byron Price; A Taste of Texas Ranching by Tom Bryant and Joel Bernstein; and the Spirit of the West: Cooking for Ranch House & Range by Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs.

The Gillette Brothers were recipients of the 2009 AMERICAN COWBOY CULTURE AWARD for western music from the NATIONAL COWBOY SYMPOSIUM & CELEBRATION. They were awarded the 2003 and the 1998 Will Rogers Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Advancement of Contemporary Cowboy Music Best Duo/Group by The Academy of Western Artists. They have also received the National Cowboy Symposium’s American Cowboy Culture Chuck Wagon Award.

The Gillette Brothers run The Camp St. Cafe & Store in Crockett, Texas a live music venue, much like the Martin Hotel, that has featured some of the top performers in the country.

They were also instrumental in getting a life-sized statue of Blues Legend Lightnin’ Hopkins erected in Crockett.

The Crooked Jades Familiar Old-Time Embraced by the Strange

Crooked Jades

“Grounded in tradition, old-time string band music and mountain blues but with open horizons that take them, subtly, to other parts of the planet, they have a haunting spookiness, an organic pulse, and most importantly a clear vision…Instrumentally they’re truly inspiring, getting original textures out of conventional stringband instruments and mixing them with (in this context) oddities like bass ukulele, harmonium, mbira, cello and Vietnamese jaw harp and bau zither. Vocally, they have that lonesome white blues sound which has its ancestry in Dock Boggs and the Carters but again they take it somewhere else…a consistently startling and addictive album.”
– The Crooked Jades “Shining Darkness”  Reviewed by Ian Anderson
in UK magazine f ROOTS

Performing driving dance tunes and haunting ballads with an amazing array of vintage and eclectic instruments, The Crooked Jades are modern innovators in the old-time Americana world, creating a cinematic sound based on Americana roots infused with the diverse musical influences of Europe and Africa. Continue reading “The Crooked Jades Familiar Old-Time Embraced by the Strange”

The Earl Brothers

The Earl Brothers

The Earl Brothers, a 4-piece, all-original string band from Northern California, stands at the cutting-edge of a movement so new, it has yet to be definitively named. Whether one chooses to describe them as “Honky-Tonk Bluegrass,” “Hillbilly Gothic,” or “Neo-Traditional,” there is one thing on which everyone seems to agree. There is something about this band’s “less is more” approach to songwriting, singing, and musicianship that makes you stop whatever you’re doing and take notice.

For those who remember the goose-bumps they felt the first time they heard the high-lonesome sound of Bill Monroe or the otherworldly harmonies of the Stanley Brothers, that same thrill of discovery is being created all over again by the Earl Brothers. Unlike other traditional bluegrass bands that seek to re-create the music of the original bluegrass masters, the Earl Brothers are blazing their own trail, extending the genre, while simultaneously staying solidly within the gritty tradition that started in the 1940s and 50s. Listeners are left with a mix of exhilaration and bewilderment upon their first exposure to this new-yet-old form of music. As one listener remarked, “There is something mysterious that happens when the Earl Brothers take the stage. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t have to. I just know that something important is going on.”

In the short time since the release of their second album, Troubles To Blame (the eagerly anticipated follow-up to Whiskey, Women & Death), The Earl Brothers have received an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response from music-lovers, festival promoters, radio DJs, and music journalists across the country and abroad. The album rose to the top spot on the WDVX play list in Knoxville, TN, just a few short weeks after its debut on that station. CD orders and radio requests have been tumbling in from such far-flung locales as Australia, Belgium, France, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and even New York City!

The band is built around the unique vocal and songwriting attributes of the creative duo of Bobby Earl Davis (banjo) and Danny Morris (guitar). There is an indescribable “something” that happens when these guys sing together that makes the listener feel as if he or she has taken a step outside of the current time and place and somehow ended up in a different dimension that is unmistakably old-time but is simultaneously avant-garde. The subject matter is mostly limited to “dreadful” subjects—death, drinking, chasing and losing women—and an occasional honky-tonk gospel to atone for all of these transgressions. Rounding out the sound is the tasteful fiddle playing of Tom Lucas and the driving bass of James Touzel.

Give them a listen on their MySpace page:

Foghorn Duo –
7:00 PM, Saturday, September 20, 2008

The Foghorn Duo
The Foghorn Duo

From: the Live Cut
Portland, Oregon’s Music Journal

Posted there by Robert Hamm

Caleb Klauder and Sammy Lind have spent almost a decade dipping into the deep wells of American traditional music as members of the Foghorn Stringband. When they get together outside the band playing shows as the Foghorn Duo, the two explore all of the knotty branches that stretch out from that core sound—from raw bluegrass and country to weeping folk ballads.

The Foghorn Duo brings all of this and more to their first album together, Lonesome Song (Self-released), a warmly recorded collection of both traditional songs and originals written by Klauder that highlight both the duo’s understated playing and the surprisingly full sound they are able to generate with just two acoustic instruments.

Read more of this article including an interview with Caleb. <More….>

Give them a listen on The Foghorn Duospace