Robert Trent, director of guitar studies at Radford University, has a brilliant young charge these days.
One of his students, 16-year-old Max Hiner, of Radford, last weekend won high school category at The Music Academy of North Carolina's national guitar competition. He had finished third last year, competing with young players from across the nation.
Check out some video of the young master.
Mountain Heart
We're always happy to hear from Josh Shilling, who these days is the lead singer for genre-busting bluegrass group Mountain Heart. He and the MH boys will be singing the national anthem, a cappella, before the Sprint Cup race at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday.
Here, we talk about how much time musicians have to spend on social networking, and about how tough it is to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Jay Blakesberg/Retna LTD.
Nash's band, The Waybacks, comes to Kirk Avenue Music Hall on Wednesday night to share a bill with formidable roots singer John Cowan and his band. Read story and get details.
Here, Nash talks about the band's MerleFest experiences, including the "Hillside Album Hour," which grows in reputation. And we stream songs from the band's latest CD, "Loaded" (Compass Records).
Christian McBride
Jefferson Center, with its capacity recently reconfigured to 924, was mostly empty on Sunday night for Christian McBride & Inside Straight. The show drew 385, and the rest of you missed what was one of the best displays of jazz mastery you're likely to hear in Roanoke.
McBride, though, appreciated what he had, particularly in light of the band's long journey to get here from French Guiana. Read details of that jazz odyssey and more in the print review. He also was impressed that the valley has hosted him three times -- twice as a bandleader (he played Roanoke College a decade ago), and once with Pat Metheny.
There are plenty of big cities in the United States that haven't booked him this many times.
"Roanoke, you deserve your due," he said, to audience applause. "This is a hip, swinging town, baby. Give me Roanoke and Vegas any day, baby."
The McBride show climaxed a great weekend of music in Roanoke. On Friday, Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen played Kirk Avenue Music Hall. On Saturday, Delbert McClinton headlined the Big Lick Blues Festival, sounding his roadhouse hot best with his rock-solid band, Dick 50 -- more on that show in an upcoming column.
McBride and his band, though, might have been the best band playing *anywhere* this weekend. Amazing.
Former Roanoker Keith Carper, bass player for country music singer Hal Ketchum, died yesterday.
If you knew or heard Carper, post your thoughts and memories here. Meanwhile, I'll try to gather more information.
UPDATE: Courtesy of Keith's old friend, Larry Crocker, comes this information:
> Beloved and well-respected bass player and singer, Keith Carper passed away on Tuesday night, September 22, 2009 at his home in New Braunfels (Texas). He was only 50 years old. No further details are available at this time.
> FRIENDS OF KEITH CARPER - GRUENE HALL, SUNDAY 2 PM-ish. Friends of Keith Carper are gathering this Sunday, September 27, starting around 2 pm at Gruene Hall. It'll be an informal gathering in celebration of Keith's life. Please pass this on to anyone that knew and loved Keith. Anyone needing more information can email Tracie Ferguson at tracie@gruenehall.com.
UPDATE 2: I just got off the phone with Rob Campbell, guitarist for The Worx and an old friend of Carper's.
Here is what Campbell had to say when asked to describe him: "Big heart, easy-going. Even-keeled. Just a really nice guy, fun to hang out with. Good sense of humor."
What a crazy youtube.com discovery. Go to the bottom of this clip to read the back story about how I came to find these videos. At the end of the vid, you'll see options for more clips from that long-ago show at the Coffee Pot.
More than 25 years have passed since a show that the Coffee Pot’s owner, Carroll Bell, calls his room’s claim to fame.
About 1983, a post-Allman Brothers Band Dickey Betts came to the Pot with BHLT and Friends — including Allmans' keyboardist Chuck Leavell and drummer Butch Trucks, and frontman Jimmy Hall of Wet Willie fame. The USA television network taped and broadcast the concert.
Bell said he made a videotape of the show, then lent it to a friend. Since then, Bell has forgotten who borrowed it, and that person has never returned it, Bell lamented on a recent night at the Pot.
Turns out, some of that performance is living on the World Wide Web. A Google search turned up BHLT performing “Ramblin’ Man,” “Rain” and “Nothin’ You Can Do” on YouTube.
The latter clip (embedded above) shows a raucous crowd “getting ready for some jammin’ tonight ... waiting in line to jam with a new supergroup of American rock” at “our USA hot spot tonight, the Coffee Pot in Roanoke, Va.,” according to the host.
Check out both videos at blogs.roanoke.com/cutnscratch. And hey, if you’ve got that old video cassette, why don’t you drop it by the Pot. If you can identify the show host, let me know.
— Tad Dickens
Troy Gatrell's latest project, Way, Shape, or Form, jammed the Roanoke Library on Thursday evening. On the video for below, the band, with Gatrell on drums and keys, comes off like a combination of Steve Khan and Incubus. That is actually a cool combination.
Look for the band's CD, "Trapezoid Campaign."
Aaron Parker is on bass here, and Justin Brown is playing guitar. Video by Hans Moore.
Nikki Glaspie, whose father, Enos Glaspie, lives in preaches in the Roanoke Valley, has a money gig. She tours the world with Beyonce Knowles. She also plays with great soul/jazz sax man Sam Kininger.
On Friday, she came to Roanoke to help her dad raise money for his church, House of Agape Fellowship, and do a workshop for Music Lab at Jefferson Center. The lab worshop was on Friday, and she played for the public on Saturday afternoon at Jefferson Center. All I can say is, the woman combines mercury and lightning. Killer drummer. And her one-off band of primo locals -- bassist Bernard Hairston, keyboardist Mike Randolph and guitarist Greg Ayers -- was right there with her.
If you read what I write, you know I love to listen to Hairston. He's brilliant, and Saturday afternoon was no different. Watching Glaspie interact with him, it was clear that world-class recognizes world-class.
Anyway, I'm going to post a couple of drum breaks that Glaspie played. On this one, she combines groove and solo, and gets butt-shaking results.
"Dancin'" Dave Versch is a FloydFest institution, setting up his traveling tent city annually for folks who like camping without the hassles. The paper has been cool enough to put me up in a Dave tent three of the four years I've gone -- the first year, I hadn't learned about his setup.
Versch hits some of the best bluegrass and roots festivals in the country, and has heard a lot of bands. So I've made it a habit of asking him what he's liking from year to year. He stresses to me that he's just giving his opinion -- other people might like other stuff. True enough; he and I have different thoughts on some of the bands. But he has good taste, so his opinion is worth some of our ether.
I didn't have to ask him about The Belleville Outfit, because I saw him dancing at their dance stage set. And I didn't have to ask him about Holy Ghost Tent Revival, because they were playing at the beer garden, right in front of his tent, where I was his neighbor -- he was enthusiastic about the act.
Later, he told me that he had dug Boulder Acoustic Society, The Horse Flies, the Duhks, Yarn and Railroad Earth.
"And getting turned on to Grace Potter was certainly a treat!" he said in an e-mail exchange this week.
