News from past visitors

The next two Zoom lessons in the new season of banjo 'clinics' by Ken Perlman, godfather of 'melodic clawhammer banjo', are on syncopated patterns of double-thumbing (25 Oct.) and melodic fingering shapes in open G-tuning, up to the ninth fret (15 Nov.).

Between those dates, at the 24th Annual Banjo Gathering in Williamsburg, VA, on 4-7 Nov., Ken will be presenting a talk entitled 'Banjo rappers: comparing & contrasting styles of some well-known pre-"revival" 20th-century downpickers', a category that includes Tom Ashley, Fred Cockerham, Kyle Creed, Rufus Crisp, Hobart Smith, and Wade Ward. Ken also sends a reminder of the next Suwannee Banjo Camp, which will be held on 10-13 Mar. 2022. All Ken's previous lessons are available as videos at $25 each from his Encore Collection.

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Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers, headliners at the 2019 Omagh festival, accepted the Album of the Year award for Industrial strength bluegrass, the Smithsonian Records album produced by Joe, at this year's IBMA Awards Show. The band will host the Industrial Strength Bluegrass Festival in Wilmington, OH, on 11-13 Nov. More information, and photos from IBMA's World Of Bluegrass 2021, are on the band's latest e-newsletter.

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Valerie Smith, who brought her dynamic band Liberty Pike to Ireland some years back, announces the release of her latest album, Renaissance, on the Bell Buckle Records label. The album can be heard and bought (download $15.00) from her website. Liberty Pike now includes Lisa Kay Howard-Hughes (mandolin, vocals), Wally Hughes (fiddle, vocals, guitar, dobro), both of whom have visited Ireland in other bands, together with Joe Zauner (banjo, guitar) and Tom Gray (bass), a member of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.

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Lorraine Jordan sends the news that in addition to the free access her website affords to the videoed concerts at her Coffee and Cafe venue, there is a link to Rachel Liebling's 95-minute 1991 film High lonesome: the story of bluegrass music on YouTube.

© Richard Hawkins