George’s Musical Ramblin’s
George Scherer
www.georgescherer.com,
www.facebook.com/gscherer,
www.myspace.com/georgescherer
Questions and comments to Gscherer@bellsouth.net
Raised on Radio, Part I
(A Love Song in 3 Parts)
I was raised on radio. When I was growing up, there was always a radio playing, either in the house, in my fathers’ business or shop, or in the car. I can remember playing on the linoleum floor in the kitchen, while my mother was cooking or cleaning up from cooking, or standing there talking to a friend on the wall phone that didn’t have a long enough cord to reach outside the kitchen, and the radio would be playing.
“From our house to your house,” Joe Rumore said, and it was true, ‘cause he was broadcasting from his home studio and it was coming into our home, and we couldn’t see any of it happening, not like on TV, but we knew it was happening and somehow it was more real because we couldn’t see it.
I can remember listening to “Goin’ Ninety [...]
Down Home BBQ Served With a Side of the Blues:
Bob Sykes 1st Annual BBQ and Blues Festival
(I should begin this article with a confession. I lost the notebook where I made all my notes about the festival I’m about to review. I say it’s a confession because it’s not an apology. I went to this festival as a fan first, then as a reporter. I didn’t intend on letting “getting the story” interfere with my “getting into the music”, if you know what I mean. So, if some of the facts are a little fuzzy and the time frame a bit out of whack, that’s ok,
‘cause like the blues, the story begins with structure, but it’s the improvising that makes it special.)
If you’re gonna have a festival in late May you can count on one of two things. It’s either gonna be pretty hot or it’s gonna be raining. Thank God we got the former instead of the later for the 1st Annual Bob Sykes Blues and Barbeque Festival held on May 22, 2010. It was a beautiful day, but it was already [...]
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George’s Musical Ramblin’s
George Scherer
www.georgescherer.com,
www.facebook.com/gscherer,
www.myspace.com/georgescherer
Questions and comments to Gscherer@bellsouth.net
John Prine: In Person and On Stage. (Oh Boy Records)
John Prine; never a household name, but a name held with great respect by those who happened to know it. I heard “You’re Flag Decals Won’t Get You into Heaven Anymore” in a record shop in Tuscaloosa in 1971, and I had to have it. For others the song was “Sam Stone”, or “Hello in There”, or “Angel From Montgomery”, or “Paradise”, all of which were on his first album in 1971. After hearing that record, it was hard not to fall in love with John Prine. Not that his other records weren’t great (I actually like “Diamonds in the Rough” and “Bruised Orange” better than the first one), but it’s not often that you hear an album like that one, which has absolutely no weak songs.
Of course, I’m not here to talk about that album; [...]
George’s Musical Ramblin’s
George Scherer
www.georgescherer.com,
www.facebook.com/gscherer,
www.myspace.com/georgescherer
Questions and comments to Gscherer@bellsouth.net
This month, we in the McCalla area, have a unique opportunity to see some of the finest blues musicians in the country and all on the same day and for the low price of $12. That may sound too good to be true, but it’s happening on May 22 at Tannehill State Park and it’s being brought to you by Bob Sykes BBQ, with help from several corporate sponsors and if that weren’t enough, a portion of the money is going to the Children’s Hospital.
The musicians will represent a wide variety of blues in various styles.
They include:
2Blu is a local band featuring harp player, Bruce Andrews and guitarist George Dudley. Between them they have 60 years experience playing the blues. Performing as a duo, they play a laid back, acoustic style blues reminiscent of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee. Deja Voodoo is also a [...]
George’s Musical Ramblin’s
George Scherer
www.georgescherer.com,
www.facebook.com/gscherer,
www.myspace.com/georgescherer
Questions and comments to Gscherer@bellsouth.net
Jesse Winchester
“3rd Down, 100 to Go” (Wounded Bird Records, Re-Issue)
One of the things I’d like to do in this column is to tell you about some of the music that has affected my life over the years. Recently, Wounded Bird Records re-released all of Jesse Winchester’s Bearsville recordings from the 1970s, which gives me the chance to talk about them as if they were brand new.
I first learned of Jesse Winchester in 1970, when I came across a copy of his first album-- which famously folded out to reveal the same close up photo of Jesse, looking like a Depression area hobo, on all four sides--in a music shop called the Music Box on 19th St in Bessemer. It was in a stack of cut-outs, which were actually DJ copies of albums from nearby WYAM, which weren’t suppose to be re –sold, but you could pick [...]