Tuba Skinny Belts Out ONE OF THESE DAYS!

The Tuba Skinny Band came out of the sun on 4-10-12 and played at the Spotted Cat.  It is pretty lively performance.

Cowboy Copas's Friend

The above poster at Barbecue Street Barbecue in Kennesaw reminded me of the time I visited the GRAND OLE OPRY over 50 years ago.

In February 1963, a group of us decided to go to Nashville, Tennessee, to the GRAND OLE OPRY.  I think there were four or five of.  We crammed into my pv544 Volvo.

We got a room at the grand hotel next to the  Ryman Auditorium (home of the Opry).   I say "grand" because it  had a plush name, like it was named  after a president  or dignitary, something like the John Hamilton Hotel.

Before the Opry we walked around Nashville and visited some famous record shops and a few bars and some other tourist traps.    We had dinner  at a Woolworths .  We sat in a booth at the big plate glass window.  Outside we watched a man in dirty raggedy clothes carrying a guitar wander by.  He stood outside, only a foot or two from us and watched us eat.  It looked like he tasted every bite we tasted.  We felt sorry for him.  We motioned him inside.  We didn't have to beg him, he came storming in.  We rearranged to another table and bought him a dinner also. 

As he ate he told us he had fallen on hard times.  He told us he grew up with Cowboy Copas and they were the best of friends.  He said Cowboy Copas told him if he was ever in Nashville he would let him play a few songs on stage at the Opry.

Cowboy Copas was the emcee of the Grand Ole' Opry at that time.  According to Google Cowboy Copas was born Lloyed Estel Copas.  I think changing  his first name to Cowboy was a wise career move.  Google also said he was born in Blue Creek , Ohio, and he got his first break in Cincinnati when he was 14 years old.  I suppose this guy we were dining with was also from Blue Creek, Ohio.

At the Opry we had cheap seats, nose-bleed seats, high up.  By the way, if I remember correctly, all the seats were church pews.  On stage was a big props of the backers of the Grand Ole Opry, like the flour and I think a breakfast cereal.

The Ryman Auditorium was originally named Union Gospel Tabernacle.  In 1892, it was built by Thomas Ryman, a riverboat captain and business man, for the Rev Sam Jones , a revivalist to preach in.  Sam Jones later  moved to Cartersville, Georgia, where he  radiated his popular causes world-wide and was very well known.  He owned two houses here in Marietta, that he purchased:  one for him which he never moved to and one for his daughter, which she and her husband did.

During the Opry that night we saw many household word  entertainers some on stage with Cowboy Copas introducing all of them.  I remember one was Patsy Cline.

One, that didn't make it to the state was our old buddy that we bought dinner for.  From our top seats we saw him making his way down the aisle with his guitar.  Before he made it to the stage several men surrounded him and dragged him away, with all the time he was hollering I forgot if Cowboy was playing or talking, but he never recognized his old friend struggling to get on stage, if he was  his old friend.

About a week later, March 5, 1963, Cowboy Copas and Patsy Cline, and others were killed a plane crash that was  piloted by Cowboy's son-in-law and Patsy Cline's manager.

I wonder if the person we dined with at Woolworth's went to the funeral?

Cowboy Copas

Next to the Last Concert of the Season

There will be one more Summer Concert in September.

The next to the last concert was Friday night, August the 23rd.  It was so crowded you could hardly move.   It can't get more fun than that!

Woodstock Bluegrass Jamboree August 2013

Yesterday evening was the monthly Woodstock Jamboree at the Woodstock Community Church.  We were treated with the Old Mill Road Band and the Jot' Em Down Boys.


The Old Mill Road Band was a non-pretentious band who didn't take themselves too seriously that made good music, and the same goes for the home band, the Jot'Em Down Boys.

Speaking of the Jot'Em Down Boys, their violin player, Danny just earned his Master's Degree, there was a big UGA cake in the lobby to celebrate.

The Old Mill Road Band

The Jot'Em Down Boys

Concert on the Square and the Ass-Holes

We went to the monthly concert in Downtown Marietta in Square last.  The music was by The Grapevine Band from Macon.  They rocked out.


However, many people arrived early or minutes ahead of the concert to get the place  they wanted to watch and listen and after the concert started were hoards of people that by bunches, and dribbles all the way one to one hour after the concert began.  They were disruptive and hoggish, taking their time getting in people's line of vision that thought ahead of time.  I think they were very inconsiderate or a bunch of ASS-HOLES!






Near the end a couple of interesting things we noticed.  Someone had something like a Japanese Lantern at a table.  It had a candle in it.  Just like a hot air balloon it took flight.  It was shaped more like a cube  than a balloon... but it went up and up and you could see the candle inside burning.

Some still pictures.

Sidewalk Cafe just like Paris at Marietta Pizza.  Great Chicken Salad!

Tuba Skinny Starvin' Chain

Tuba Skinny in New Orleans, in the French Quarters, on April 12, 2013.

We stayed at the same hotel that  is the background.  Also, vampire Lestat de Lioncourt stayed at the same hotel when he was interviewed..

Woodstock Concert with YACHT ROCK REVUE

The Woodstock Concert - you heard of that before .  This Woodstock concert was different, there was not much of a pot smell in the air (but some); no openly drinking; no dancing in the mud; and quiet a few pairs of uniformed officers to make sure people followed the rules - This was Woodstock, Georgia.  There was a Saturday Night Fever in the air and a whole lot of shaking going on of young and old.

We enjoyed the company of Joe and Christine Jenkins.  Not only did we enjoy their company, we enjoyed their snacks!

The main band was YACHT ROCK REVUE, which they were good, they knew how to handle their instruments.  They turned the audience into dancing groupies.

But I must admit, I am a little out of touch of the feel of being part of a big crowd.  I saw a kid catch a big beachball and he tossed it to his friend close by and the kid hit it and with many feet away.  That is mean!  I thought, and I was about to run and chase down the ball, retrieve it and return it to its owner when I saw it hit again and went even further away, which about then, another big ball wihizzed by me.  Then, I saw another one high up in the air making its return back to the crowd on the ground.   Oh.

Jane Killian

Chris

Captain Joe Jenkins

Commodore Christine Jenkins

Woodstock Bluegrass Jamboree March 2013

Saturday we went to the monthly Woodstock Bluegrass Jamboree.  It is held the first Saturday of every month, unless otherwise noted.

This time the band SOUL MINERS was the first to take stage.  Each of the four men wore a hat.  I thought of the Blue Brothers, wondering if they were going to do Blues Brothers kind of stuff.  They didn't.

They played good music.  I thought they did Irish music the best.  They are not polished performers, which will take time and work.  I think they felt awkward when they were trying to tell standard standing jokes.

The hosting band "The Jot'Em Boys" came on and did good as they always do.  They do some research on bluegrass music of the past and pass it along to their audience.

A record number were in attendance this month.

Woodstock Bluegrass Jamboree, Dec 2012

The Woodstock Bluegrass Jamboree was good this month, as always.  The guest band was the East Dixie Boys which until I got there I thought they might be some old friends of mine who lived around the corner on East Dixie Avenue in Marietta when I was growing up.  Wrong again.

The East Dixie Boys band has a pair of brothers and the lead singer is from a family of musicians.  They were very talented.

The home band, The Jot'em Boys was  good as always.  It occurred to be that they have a pair of brothers too, and also a pair of teachers.  But one of the teachers is retiring from teaching.  I think after he gets used to being retired he will come out with some unique musical experiments.

As I do, the video is not meant to be better than the live performance, it is just a quick run-down of what you missed, so maybe it will intice you to come to the jamboree sometime.

Grass Roots Concert: Melanie Denard

My friends Melvyn and Joyce Jackson Denard's daughter Melanie Denard and the Melanie Denard Band  are getting into country music in a big way.  They are good.

The little video above is a sampling of their concert they gave at Glover Park in the Marietta Square Saturday afternoon at the Grass Roots Concert series. 

Back to the Square

Friday we went to downtown Marietta, aka The Square, aka, Glover Park to hear a rock & roll band concert.

Saturday night we returned. to hear Georgia Symphony Orchestra play some time proven jazz.  The words time proven and jazz are just about oxymorons - because jazz is by definition improvised, which can't ever be time proven because by theory it is a new variation each time you hear it.  Oh me, I'm confused. 

Here is a short video sampling of their music:




Also, I took some landmark type of pictures again:

Stay tuned - tomorrow:  Belly Dancer on the Square.

Woodstock Jamboree Aug 4, 2012

Last Saturday night was the Woodstock Bluegrass Jamboree.  Here are bits and pieces of what you missed. 

And even better bits and pieces are in the clouds of my mind - I totally missed them.

Incidentally this is my 200th youtube video.  If you look at the first one almost two years ago you see that what is so unique about my videos from the first one to the present there has been absolutely no improvement.

Woodstock Bluegrass Jamboree June 2, 2012

Saturday evening we went to the Woodstock Bluegrass Jamboree at the Community Church on Ropemill Road.




First we went to a restaurant that we heard about , A Taste of Italy, in Publix Shopping Center north of Woodstock. We had a deluxe pizza without anchovies. At first we sat down at an empty booth and waited for a while. Then we figured out you are suppose to go up to the counter and place your order. It is not a big restaurant, just a shopping center storefront size with about eight booths. The pizza was good. The next time we might feel more adventurous and try lasagna or maybe veal parmesan or something spicy.

There were only three sets of parents and a room full of adolescent and/ or preteen girls in red uniforms. I figure they were probably soft-ball players. Two of the men had on the same kind of sport uniforms. The men had a 12 pack of beer they were pulling from. One man said he had to go to the rest room and one of the other men said he needed to go too. The first man said, “Damn! One of us will have to piss in the sink!”



That quick wit was so wrong in so many ways, within earshot of the girls.  tch tch.

An older lady was eating alone behind us. Once she got up and rearranged some scattered chairs. She told somebody she didn’t work there, she was just being neighborly. Later I overheard the young owner trying to talk her into eating her meat balls or at least let him put it in a bowl for her to carry home and she told him she just wasn’t very hungry.




After dinner we looked for the mill ruins of Ropemill, which is probably near Little River and couldn’t find it.

At the Community Church where the Jamboree is always held, admission is $7 per person.  I thought I would pay by credit card. I get monetarily awards for the number of times I use the card.  Other times I have seen people use their credit card to pay their admission.  They simply hand it to the person that is taking the money and that person pulls it through a little machine that is no bigger than a cellphone and they are on their way.  Not this time!  The machine could not come alive long enough to scan my number.  This is more proof that I am so invisible that even machines ignore me.

 
The first band was Bluebilly Grit Band. The name reflect their bluegrass and rockabilly leaning. The band was very lively and very good. They had 5 members who played bluegrass instruments and sung and one singer, which was the daughter of the leader. They are mostly from Dahlonega.




The second group was the Jot-Em Down Boys, which were good as always. They are more or less the organizers and house-band. This time they had two guests to play with them, which I didn't catch their names: a sandy-hair man that played the guitar and a graceful young lady who played the fiddle, or violin, who complemented the regular guy Danny. They did a great job together – it was nothing like Dueling Banjos or anything like that. Both the guest artists were very much attuned to all the band members and did an excellent job giving them support,



The video is just fragments and pieces of what you missed.

Good Music, Bad Ass-Hole

In Glover Park last night they had the big band sound of the Still Swinging Band.


Here is a few bits and pieces of the music. Before intermission they played the Armed Forces Salute.. you know, when they call out the branch of serve and play their tune all members of the audience that was in that branch stand up and be proud that you help defend this country.

I had it all planned what I was going to do.  Then, then some guy walked by who knew the man and woman sitting next to us.  The guy talked loud and persistent.   Listen near the end, you can hear his loud voice.   He would  never shut up, although at times he had to talk loud to drown out the music of the band.  He ruined my whole plan…. Like I drove the seven miles there just hear him.  Ass Hole!

Chicken-Fat on the Locomotive Chase Bandwagon

THE GEAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE was 150 years ago. It was April 12, 1862. Andrew Raiders, a group of yankee spies, led by James Andrews, boarded the train pulled by locomotive THE GENERAL as passengers and in Kennesaw at the first stop, unhooked the cars and stole the engine. And off they went, with the conductor William Fuller, who commandeered THE TEXAS and went after them in hot pursuit. They caught up and captured them, and reclaimed THE GENERAL in Ringgold, Georgia.

That is a quick one paragraph summary of what happened. Books and two movies have been about it THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE.

This week Marietta is celebrating the Chase. We went to downtown Saturday and it was a delightful day to see all thie festivities. And the Company Salad at Marietta Pizza was good too.

Notes -In the video the Civil War band is from Rome and explained some of the music of that time period just before they played it. The lady singing Dixie. L. Wilson and I are third cousins, we are both descended from John and Nancy Sumner Ray of Macon County, NC. The other lady was my 10th grade science teacher. She said she attended silent movie THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE playing at the Strand Theater and loved it. One of the things enjoyable about it was the organ player, Ron Carter, played the music on the organ to suited the scene, as well as they used to in silent movies.

Woodstock Blue Grass Jamboree Apr 7, 2012

The Woodstock (Ga) Bluegrass Jamboree was held Saturday night. As usual it had two groups, The first group was The Bruce Weeks Family Gospel Band and the second, as usual was the Jot’em Down Boys group.

The Weeks family consist of a father, his two daughters, and his wife. They sung very inspirational gospel music and some down to earth homespun humor. The sisters sang beautifully. The daddy, which is probably the one named Bruce, said something about having a church in Jasper, Georgia, on Thursday nights. He talked very positive about the Christian religion, as he is a preacher I’m sure his services come loaded with good music.

The Jot-em Down Boys are wonderful musicians. They openly tell the audience they are trying to keep the art of Bluegrass music alive. I think each of the musicians consider themselves life long students of bluegrass. They take historical, scientific, and passionate approaches of their favorite medium. They play and give credit to other bluegrass artists. This Saturday night they played FOGGY MOUNTAIN BREAKDOWN by Earl Scruggs, who died last week. They put on a good show and you don’t know what will be said iwit or wisdom or played next – sometimes I think they don’t know either. It appears they have notes or a guideline for each performance – but can steer off course if the situation calls for it. It is hard to keep creative people in a box.

The attached videos are just samplings of what you missed.

Wait! I have a complaint! But first I want to complement what I am about to complain about. High up and behind the performing artists is a slideshow. The sideshow is a great collection of “Family of Man” type photos – working people who appear not to be making ends meet, most of the pictures was taken during the Depression and hard tilmes.. It was a bonus treat to be able to see those old pictures line up in single order, one at a time pass by for your viewing as the music played. But this past time it must have been decided that if one picture at a time was good, 3 to 5 pictures would be even better. Not so! A single picture at a time packs a good punch. Multi-pictures in the same frame only waters down or weakens each picture. And some of the groupings of 5 pictures had an oval center picture in the center which overlapped a little of each of the other four. I noticed that some of the overlapping covered crucial parts of the photograph in some instances. But, who am I to complain?

Georgia Symphony Orchestra Concert @ KSU

(photo from Google)

Last night we went to the Bailey Performing Arts Center at Kennesaw State University to a concert by the Georgia Symphony Orchestra (GSO), formally known as Cobb County Symphony Orchestra.

Of course we were one of the first there. We had to hang out in the lobby until they opened the doors. While we waited there was a quartet of violists playing. The good part of being early to a general seating performance is you get to pick your own seat. The bad part is you have to put up with inconsiderate late comers stepping all over you.

The GSO Board President spoke first about how the orchestra had been in existence for 61 year doing creative and exciting things. He then said financially they were not doing so hot. He urged us to pay our admission again as we leave as a donation. That couldn’t possibly be for us retired government employees!

The first part was a concerto by Johannes Brahms with pianist Martina Filjak as the solo pianist. As she hit the keys she gave the sensation she and the piano were electrified as one – accentuating her key notes as her hand bounced high. Both her music and visual effect were quiet a performance.

After intermission, Michael Alexander directed Belshazzar’s Feast by William Walton, which was very jubilating including the GSO Chorus . William Walton was only 29 when he wrote it. If I understood correctly, it is based on the Biblical city of Babylon. Jesse Blumberg, baritone, sung solo. The GSO Chorus were there being directed by Bryan Black. The chorus was three stair-step levels behind the orchestra. The male performing musicians all wore tuxedoes with the women in formal attire. The Chorus members all had black books opened in front of them while they sang. One guy had a peach color tablet in front of him that he was rubbing. He wore dark glasses. I think he was blind with a Braille songbook! Neat!

When we left we were one of the first ones out. That’s us! However, one of the performers with his tux on and musical instrument in a case passed us getting out. I guess he had things to do.

It was an enjoyable evening.

2nd Woodstock Bluegrass Jamboree

Mars Hill Porch Pickers

Jot'Em Down Boys

Saturday evening we went to the second Woodstock Bluegrass Jamboree. It is held the first Saturday of each month at Woodstock Community Church on Rope Mill Road. This time they had a slide show playing on a wide screen above the stage. The pictures were of down to earth people who worked hard for their for their living in rural areas, dirt poor musicians here and there and also some more known musicians. The pictures reminded me of the book "Family of Man". Just like last month the jamboree featured two groups: The Mars Hill Porch Pickers and The Jot’Em Down Boys.

We enjoy Bluegrass for the performer's love of performing. No matter how they perform, you know each and every one of them is up there to do something they truely love. I only know of one local bluegrass player who quit his day job to teach bandjo professionally and work further in the music industry. Guess that is now his "day job".

The below video is the Jot’Em Down Boys playing their last song for the night, “Mountain Dew”. My little camera does not give the sound justice but you can get an idea of their energy. If you enjoy Bluegrass, why not come out next month to support this venue? You won't be sorry!

Bluegrass Jamboree Tomorrow Eve in Woodstock, Ga

Jot-'Em-down Boys

The second Woodstock, Georgia’s Bluegrass Jamboree will be tomorrow, night, Saturday, February the 4th, 7pm.
I think the cost was $7 each last month and they also have an intermission concession counter.

Last month it was at the Community Church on Rope Mill Road, turning left off Main Street. I assume it will be in the same place this month. If you come and it is not at the mentioned church, look around town or ask a policeman or something.

It will feature the Jot-'Em-Down Boys and the Mars Hill Porch Pickers. 7-9pm

First Night of the Woodstock Blugrass Jamberee

This past Saturday night we went to the new Woodstock Bluegrass Jamboree at Woodstock Community Church in Woodstock on Rope Mill Road.

Over 20 years ago we went to a Boy Scout hobo supper at an old wood sided church on Rope Mill Road. I think it was probably the same church. I was expecting to come upon the same old church building as we drove in the dark. Time changes. Now, it is a big modern building with huge windows on two sides of the sanctuary.

There were two Bluegrass groups playing at the first-ever Woodstock bluegrass Jamboree: The Sawnee Creek Band and the Jot’Em Down Boys.


The Sawnee Creek Band was from Forsyth County. I thought they were good. They had a lady violin player that was recently named the best fiddler in Georgia.




Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good picture. Above is a picture I lifted from their website. The Sawnee Creek Band was all from the same church and leaned towards gospel music.

The Jot’em Down Boys also had a lot of gospel music. I think there is a fine line between bluegrass and gospel. If you go to a bluegrass concert you are going to hear some gospel.





We have watched the Jot’em Boys perform over years: first at the Acworth Opry at Logan’s Barn; secondly at Kennesaw Opry, then one time we went to see them at Canton, but the information on the website was wrong, they were not there. I think the two brothers are the foundation of the group and play in a reserved manner and two others do most of the talking and get carried away. They complemented each other to, like Ying and Yang, make a lively show. It is always enjoyable to see them. Then, there is the banjo player who can go either way.

It was announced then that there will be a bluegrass jamboree the first Saturday of every month at the Woodstock Community Church, at 7pm.