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One of the lovely things about springtime is the feeling of new beginning as the future spreads out before you... new experiences, mysteries revealed, unexpected sensations...kind of like today when I uploaded my first YouTube videos! Well, I mean, like...I'm already up there in a bunch of videos but none that I've ever actually put up myself, so it is a completely new experience for me. And, you know, it wasn't all that hard. Why did it take me so long? Take a look and leave a comment if you've a mind to. Here's a couple of links, that you might admire my handiwork :)...
As far as unexpected sensations go, check out the guitar I'm playing in those vids. It is a brand new Rayco Stage DeLuxe acoustic slide guitar. Some of you may know that I endorse their dobros and I have a beautiful one they built for me a few years ago. Jason, Mark, and Chris are fantastic luthiers and their stuff just gets better and better. I talked with them a couple of years ago about maybe making a guitar based on the 1930s Gibson Roy Smeck Signature Hawaiian guitar that was, essentially, a dreadnought-sized acoustic guitar body with a squareneck attached that was meant to be played lap-style. I had borrowed an original from a vintage guitar dealer pal of mine and showed it to the boys but, as Canadians sometimes are prone to be, they were a bit reserved and didn't seem to get too excited about it. Well, time went by and we didn't talk about it much and here's where the unexpected sensation thing comes in...they made me one and surprised me with it this year at the Wintergrass Festival! I love it! It sounds better than the 70 year old original! For my dobro playing pals out there, you really should get one of these guitars. It's a very sweet alternative slide sound and, though it's an acoustic guitar like a Weissenborn, it has a very different sound than the Weissy. Rich, full, and this sucker is loud too. It's made to be able to handle heavy dobro gauged strings and its tone is just thrilling to me. A welcome and unexpected addition to my slide guitar sound palette and I think you'd love it too. If you have any other questions about it shoot me an email. Now, as to revealed mysteries, last time we talked I told you about the then-secret recording project I did in Nashville with Jerry Douglas and a host of the other top dobro pickers on the planet. It's a tribute to the music of Tut Taylor. If you don't know him, google him up and you'll find that he is one of the seminal forces for truth and beauty as manifested through the dobro. That CD should be out by early summer and I talked about it the other day with Jason Verlinde, the editor of Fretboard Journal magazine and we both realized that Tut needs to be the subject of a major article and that I should make a pilgrimage to North Carolina and do the interview! Yes! I did an article in 2001 on Josh Graves, another primal force of the dobro, for Acoustic Guitar magazine and I'm psyched to go speak at length with another venerated elder and reveal his mysteries to the uninitiated. I'm announcing this a bit early since, due to advance lead times and all, the article probably won't appear until the winter issue, but I'm so excited about it I just thought I'd let you know. I'll mention it again when we finally get near the release time. Other fun stuff that has occurred since last we met include a fine California tour with my friend and fellow King of MongrelFolk™, Mark Graham, some fun gigs and releases of several youtube videos with songwriter Barton Carroll, a sold-out CD release party for Grant Dermody's "Lay Down My Burden" recording which I produced and played on, a nomination for a BB award from the WA Blues Society for "Best Blues Duo" for myself and Mia Vermillion, and the release of the MandoMorphosis CD at Empty Sea Studio with a full house for our avant-garde mandolin musings. Got some good stuff coming right up, too, check the calendar. Thanks for stopping by and thanks, as always, to cybersheik Bruce Blood for affixing my musings to the Interwebs with a firm joining that they may not be washed away into cyberpurgatory. |