We were looking at an old Scrabble game the other night, one that was handed down through the years. The plain brown box was in pretty good shape, with hardly any rips or tears, and the glue that they used to hold it all together hadn’t come undone. It appeared from the markings to be at least 50 or maybe even 60 years old, and the colorful board was clean and crisp, the tiles and wood holders were spotless. I was told it was well used, but it obviously was also well made. It was a lot of fun for families and friends to play Scrabble together in the dining room or kitchen, but the board game business has likely taken a hit. Like music and video and books, and games and newspapers and magazines, we simply use apps these days. Staring at our little cell phone screens and electronic tablets, we either play against the processor chip or some faceless opponent on the internet.
Last month I went to the library. I still read books made of paper. My last holdout to the digital world. Everything else can reside on my hard drive, but I still like a book. I was there to pick up the latest mystery from Stephen White, the 20th and final novel in a series that takes place in Boulder. As I got ready to check it out (they scan barcodes these days–no more pockets in the front or rubber stamps that notate the due date), my eyes caught sight of an oversized book which I usually don’t ever read. They call them coffee table books. Being hard to hold and all, usually we think of them at Christmastime because they can be a cooler gift to give than a tie or pair of slippers. You leaf through them and look at the pictures. Hardly anyone ever reads them.
Will The Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music In America is different. Published back in 2006 by the Country Music Hall of Fame, our co-founder and former co-Editor Grant Alden wrote the review for No Depression in issue #65, and he liked it. Which, if you know him or have read Grant’s words in the past, is not a low bar to easily jump over. Edited by Paul Kingsbury and Alanna Nash, it is a series of essays and incredible visual representations. Grant noted that it was “written by some of the most respected scholars of country music, several of whom can be credited with creating the field: Bill C. Malone, Charles K. Wolfe, Ronnie Pugh, and Rich Kienzle among them. Other chapters come from comparatively younger pens, including Jon Weisberger and Peter Cooper. (And, yes, all those—save the late Professor Wolfe—have written for ND over the years.)”
While I have studied and read extensively about the history of music in America, I found myself thouroughly enthralled by the chronological details and stories that takes the reader all over the radar from minstrel shows to Tin Pan Alley to the Child and Broadside ballads to the Skillet Lickers and Plow Boys and Patsy Montana and the National Barn Dance and Louisiana Hayride and the Carters and Delmore Brothers and Hank and singin’ cowboys and Buck and Merle and Willie and Waylon and Elvis and Cash and Gram and Earle and Dylan, and on and on and on. A bonus that Grant points out: the modern day “hat acts” and “Garth era” take up barely thirty pages at the end. In addition to the interesting essays, photos, handbills and drawings, there are first person pieces from Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash and many others that really add perspective. The phrase “treasure trove” comes to mind.
The music.
After taking my ol’ sweet time to cradle and read this beauty, I went out to find the music. While I have a ton of audio files and all, what I wanted was to see and watch and experience the performances . Thankfully, we have You Tube. And sadly, we have You Tube. For every great show or clip you can find, there are others so laden with banner ads that it makes them unbearable. And so much is missing. Or never existed in the first place.
But we should be thankful for what we’ve got, and I’d challenge you to surf the search bar and see what you can come up with. The Grand Ole Opry has done a great job is preserving much from the early sixties, and you can watch many films of the era, including the full National Barn Dance release. There’s some great things found from the Johnny Cash Show, and many of the early variety shows from folks like Kate Smith and Tennessee Ernie Ford. I’ll drop in a few that I’ve found for you to check out below.
As the board games of our youth such as Scrabble slip away to the world of apps, the book world will eventually be completely digitized…and obviously its well on it’s way. Bookstores are few and far between these days. (Last time we checked in with Grant, I believe he was running one in Kentucky.) While it might be possible that this book is already out of print, I’ve found a few for sale and you will too if you just look around the interwebs. Better get it while you can.
Last night I greeted musician, artist and my internet friend Pal Shazar the same way I did the first time we met a little over a year ago: with a big hug. As those who read my posts know, and those who don’t will…me and Pal became pen pals since I began writing about her and her husband at the end of the year before last. And she and I share something in common in addition of a fondness for dogs. We both love the music written and sung by her husband Jules Mark Shear.
This is a tale with two moving parts. First, a twenty-two year old young woman becomes so good, so fast…and delivers two sets of impeccable and improbable American roots music last night that it just might be as good as it gets. And for the second part of this story, she performs this magical musical feat at a simple house concert with two old friends from four years of summer music camp. Well, maybe not quite your usual house concert, but by description and definition a house concert nevertheless.
Of more importance to you and me, is that Katonah is home to Caramoor, the ninety-acre summer home and country estate purchased by Walter and Lucie Rosen in 1928. The rambling stucco home, which at 26,000 square feet is slightly larger than my apartment, took a decade to build and was filled with their vast collection of European and Asian art and furnishings. In 1945, the Rosens bequeathed the Caramoor estate and the contents as a center for music and art, in memory of their son who was killed in the second World War. The next year the Music Room was opened to the public for three summer concerts. Not just a beautiful venue surrounded by priceless art, this room is finely tuned for the most natural acoustical sound that has yet to grace these old ears. And from those intimate concerts that the Rosens shared with their friends when they lived there, it has “evolved into a non-profit foundation to serve the public as a venue for year-round concerts, and as an engaging learning environment for the more than 5,000 local school children who take part in Caramoor’s arts-in-education programs each year”. (From the Caramoor website.)
Last night, which would be March 8th if I get this written and published before midnight, Sarah Jarosz performed to a sellout crowd. Showing poise, personality and professionalism that astound given her young age, she played songs drawn from her three albums and live EP, some favorites from friends and mentors Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott, two Dylan covers and the Paul McCartney tune “On The Wings of A Nightingale” which was written for the Everly Brothers’ comeback concert in the 1980’s.
For a visual artist a show at a gallery is the equivalent of a musician grabbing a killer gig at that special venue. Back in January 2014, a friend of mine got her moment, and I chronicled and published the story over at the No Depression site. Thought I’d bring it back home, because it’s a great story about a special person. 
They say that the world is a lot smaller these days, what with news, culture, art, fashion and all sorts of events traveling at supersonic speed through Earth’s inner space. For a few days last week it seemed that everyone posted something on their social media weapon of choice about the passing of Nelson, and today I’m seeing pictures and music of Lennon and tomorrow it will be remembering Sandy Hook. Or snow. The weather is of utmost interest. And in fact, I had a flashback tonight about weather or rather the forecasting of it at the little Chinese restaurant in our village as my sixteen year old son and I shared dumplings, ribs and sesame chicken. And oh yes, we did have brown rice so that made it all ok and healthy-like.
But then somebody got a great idea. Why just a one or two day forecast…when you can have a week’s worth! A long range forecast. And it didn’t have to be right or even real, because as each day went by you could keep changing it. All you had to do was increase the odds for tomorrows weather prediction from 50/50 to (let’s say) 75/25, and the rest would just march into place and you’d be a genius. It was at this moment in time, probably the early seventies as I recall, that weather became big. Fat men with bow ties were replaced with handsome male models, later to be replaced with blonde women except in Latin America. And that’s not a gender stereotype. It’s just that women weather people spend a lot of time telling us about the weather while out on location, and their hair is naturally lightened by the sun.
I realize that in