So I think I'm going to start blogging again.  I just have to be sure to never use the words that refer to the musical event we have here so Google doesn't send all of these people here looking for information.  The event was really cold this time and, considering that, we had a decent turnout.  This one was more like the other musical event that takes place near Austin and is named after the nearby town that starts with a "K".  Meaning that it didn't have bands like we had at the last one - single, duos, and trios - plus a closing jam.

Part of the featured trio but the still camera was basically put away by then so this is all

.

In spite of the weather it was a very good time - several folks from Thermalloy were there and even Suzie and Marilyn drove in.  Just too much happened to say anymore about it here.  Our video person had to bail at the last minute and I made a trip to Walmart, bought me a video camera, did a decent job, and have spent much of the last  few days putting together a video (27 minutes) which also turned out well.  If you happen by the house you can feel pretty sure that I'll offer to play it for you.

I'll mention too my hiking stick and cane "business".  A store in town sells them and has over the last year sold three or four.  But he's now started wheeling the display out onto the sidewalk every day and, in October, he sold five of them.  That's kinda cool - helps offset the loss I took on the music thing.

The FALL-2012 concert is coming together quickly!

This one will be a more modest affair.  The Spring concert will be the bigger one And it's looking like this might be the direction we will go.  One evening, 5 or 6 acts in the Spring, individuals or smaller groups. In May we had about 40 musicians here.  This time it will be less than 10.  But the quality won't be any less! We're really happy that Lynn & Lindy will be here this time. They were on the road when we had the previous events so we tried to schedule around them this time.  They'll be off on an east coast tour right afterwards.  Vanessa Peters appearance here is one of those small world things.  She's the stepdaughter of a guy I worked with for many, many years and she's here as a result of a call made by another friend that we also worked with for many, many years who's been keeping up with the MusicFest.  Vanessa has been in Europe for much of the last 10 years or so and has toured there. Now she's back home in Texas and is going to play at Wildernest.  Randy Brown and Shannon Monk are also local.  They are both folks that we wanted to have at one of the earlier concerts but the scheduling just didn't work.  Kurt Bittner will be playing guitar with Shannon.  He's a cum laude graduate of Berklee school of music in Boston and has toured internationally.  Gus is the MusicFest Producer and is also a performer and owner and operator of Crossroads Music Company and Listening Room in Winnsboro.  He's listed as "Gus and Friends" and the friends will include Alex and Amy and maybe a few others.  You'll hear them at the Jacob Hayes Memorial.

So - some great musicians and a night of music at the Wildernest Stage.  We'll be keeping the website updated - www.wildernestmusicfest.com

Woodyfest

We just stumbled on the fact that there is such a thing less than two weeks ago but, on seeing some names in the lineup, we booked our Best Western room and made our plans.  We were hooked by a few names from the 60's and 70's as well as some of the older Kerrville performers.


First a few basics.  It's free! It's a five day event that takes place in three venues.  The opening show is on Wednesday and it's a ticketed event.  On Thursday afternoon there is music at the Brick Street Stage.  On Friday and Saturday afternoon there's music at the Brick Street Stage and in The Crystal Theater - concurrent shows - take your pick.  All three nights have performances at the Pastures of Plenty outdoor stage.  There is $15 parking for this.   Afternoon shows run from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM and then there's an hour and a half to have dinner and get to the outdoor stage.  The closing event starts at noon on Sunday in the old Crystal Theater.  They call it a hootenanny!  There is no schedule.  Any performer can show up and do one song.  That show was worth the trip and we almost skipped it to start the trip back home.  All-in-all - the whole thing was very well organized!  During the evening performance there was a 30 minute or so stage changeover but that was the only bad mark on it. (There are many other events throughout the town during the week.)


We saw and heard lots of performers, some we knew nothing about, and we really enjoyed them all.  Not enough room to talk about all of them.  I'll just do it in pics. (I'm beginning to master stage photography with my new lens but the Crystal was really challenging with hot spots and colored lights.  The mike for the soloists was in the white spotlight but only one of them used it. Twenty minutes early got us aisle seats on the second row on the right side of the right aisle - was able to take most of these shots without moving. )

At  the Crystal Theater

Ellis Paul on the "Pastures of Plenty" stage

Glynda at the Woody Guthrie homesite.  They are going to rebuild the house

Me at the Woody Guthrie mural.  I wore a "Wildernest Musicfest" t-shirt both days!

Joel Rafael

Butch Hancock

Susan Herndon

Barry Ollman

David Amram. Incredible 80+ man.  Know him from Kerrville He's also a classical composer and conductor.  The backup musicians on stage were in awe twice.  Once when this guy sat at the keyboard and sang a song as he was composing it.  You knew that was true because it was referencing happenings at the Woodyfest as well as the musicians onstage at the time.

Audrey Auld

Bob Livingston.  In Texas music forever!

Burns Sisters (I think)

Andrew Hardin

Radoslav Lorkovic - this was the other time the musicians didn't know what to do.  He was singing a Serbian folksong.

Dan Duggin.  Had to do a lot of Googlin' to find this guys name.  He was a stage musician but this is my favorite of the almost 300 pictures I took!

Butch Morgan

November 2011

I like to look through my pictures at the end of a month to see what we've been doing with our time.  Of course there are some posts from November below this one but here are a few more pictures with some captions:  It was a pretty busy month!

Worked on our Wood County Master Gardeners Spring Conference arranging a speaker, acquiring a raffle prize, and worked on poster ideas.

Created the "Scrapbook Song" DVD for Alex

Found a picture of grandson Colby on FB.  He lives with his father. (Starnes)

Spent a morning traveling around Wood County taking pictures of fall color - but this one is in the back yard.

Had tree removal done at the house and tree trimming done at the Treehouse

Did some refinish work in the chapel and we replaced the cross with one more appropriate.

Spent an hour or so one morning taking fog pictures.  This one is almost the same place as the 'fall color' picture above.

Attended the Winnsboro Fine Art Market

Found a picture of granddaughter Haley on FB.  She too lives with her father. (Gattis)

Had the JamFest T-shirts made and have sold most of them now.

The sign for the city of Quitman is going in.  I worked on the project.

Attended two afternoons of music at the Winnsboro Fine Arts Market.

We are adding some stone pathways at the Wood County Master Gardener's Wildscape Garden at the Mineola Nature Preserve.

A cold Christmas season night in downtown Winnsboro!

Attended several music evenings at Brewbaker's Restaurant and Pub.

I completely rebuilt the upper pond - removing the stone, cleaning and repairing the liner, dug  it deeper but made it smaller, and replaced the stone, pump, filter, and waterfall.

And, of course,there was Thanksgiving and the week of prep that goes into it.

Another weekend at Crossroads Music Co. & Listening Room!

Here Comes the Sun. Listen to this and compare it to the Beatles sound! And look at the smiles - they're having a good time playing this!

Dave Walser and Brian Magnus on cello.   We saw these guys at Crossroads last night and it was a unique experience.  Dave Walser was a member of Beatlegras, a trio that played mostly Beatle music and they did a great job - and Dave voice was a big part of that.  We were all singing along last night especially with the encore - "Hey Jude"!  In addition to Beatles music he also did some Bob Dylan, some James Taylor, and a couple of his own songs.  Wonderfully enjoyable evening!  We liked every song!  Brian is a freelance cellist and cello teacher.  He also plays with Heather McCready (which I've posted about before - another Crossroads favorite) and with the Allen Philharmonic. (Another parenthetical - the other two members of Beatlegras, Milo Deering and George Anderson also play with Heather.)

The night before we heard Druha Trava, from the Czech Republic. These guys make it to Crossroads every year and I've wanted to check them out the last two times they were and we finally did it this year. They've been touring the US for six weeks and played in Wichita, Kansas the night after they played here. You may have seen my FB post - in the Czech Republic they have only one top music list (not one for each genre) and Druha Trava has been number one on that list this year.

I don't know how Gus continues to bring in these quality musicians to play at the modest venue of Crossroads Music Co. and Listening Room. I think it must be something like the Wildernest Treehouse Jamfest. It's just a neat place to play and the finances sorta take a back seat. (Speaking of seats, we've been fortunate enough to get good ones for these two shows and the photos here were taken from our seats.)

It's unusual to have two shows on one weekend but it happened this weekend. Nothing more now until the Saturday after Thanksgiving when they'll have the sixth anniversary show!

Blast from the past!

Someone posted this on FB the other day and it reminds you what a special place the old Rubaiyat in Dallas was. It was THE place in Dallas for listening to this kind of music - this kind being in the folk genre.  This is the calendar for March 1971.  Almost all of these guys eventually succeeded in music to one degree or another and several made it to the international stage. The first guy on the list is Jimmy Johnson played blues for many years but, with the very common name, it's been hard to find anything current.  The second act is Uncle Mike and Micky Mouth.  Mickey is Mickey Raphael and he's been in Willis Nelson's band for year playing harmonica. Allen Damron ran the Chequered Flag night club in Austin for many years and was second in command at Kerrville. One of our favorites from him is "Is There a Heaven fro Balloons".  John Vandiver stayed on the Texas scene until his death (about 1979 I believe) - here's a 2010 tribute to him by Shake Russell. .  England Dan and John Ford Colley  England Dan is Dan Seals of Seals & Croft, Summer Breeze, etc. Mike Murphy is Michael Martin Murphy, Wildfire.  Mike Williams was another successful Texas musician and is now a pastor.  I could find almost nothing on Karen Oznick.  Frummox was Steve Fromholtx (The Man in the Big Hat, written by Steve, recorded by Jerry Jeff) and Dan McCrimmon - both successful Texas musicians and Steve is still making music.  Three Faces West was Ray Wylie Hubbard's first group.  It was him and Rick Fowler and Wayne Kidd.  Ray has had some national success (Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother also recorder by Jerry Jeff) but is still a music maker on the Texas scene (and will be in Winnsboro later this year).    And that was one month at the Rubaiyat.  (It was fun reading the FB comments from other people that remembered it.)

Alex at "Blues Monday" at ZAZUZ Pizza

Come on in!

Our new Monday dinner.  A good pizza at ZAZUZ's in Winnsboro and music.  Our A&E buds Gene and Suzanne make this a regular stop too!  Alex pretty well led this session!