Acoustic Americana Music Guide & NEWS, Sep 4-7 (Summer’s last / fall’s first concerts, festivals, and more!)

.
UPDATED September 4 ~ Summer’s last & Fall’s first festivals, concerts, and events ~ AND BEYOND
.
.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
.
Tied to the Tracks
ACOUSTIC AMERICANA
MUSIC GUIDE
.
SEPTEMBER 4 through 7 edition (+ events INTO THE FALL & beyond)
.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
.
.
NEWS FEATURES
.
…in this edition:
.
1) TIX GIVEAWAY: COFFEE GALLERY BACKSTAGE – SHOW OF YOUR CHOICE
2) TIX GIVEAWAY: “CELTIC ARTS CENTER CONCERT AT THE FORD,” SEP 12
3) SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT LABOR DAY, AS IT IS IN 2010
4) MILLPOND MUSIC FESTIVAL WILL BRING TUNEFUL END TO SUMMER
5) WE’D LIKE YOU TO MEET… THE WHITES

.
===
.
1) TIX GIVEAWAY: COFFEE GALLERY BACKSTAGE – SHOW OF YOUR CHOICE
+
Wow. It’s the best listening room in L.A. It earns more “SHOW-OF-THE-WEEK” picks in the Guide than anyplace else. It’s earned the honor multiple years in FolkWorks as “Best Intimate Venue in L.A. for Live Acoustic Music.” The Coffee Gallery Backstage celebrates its ELEVENTH ANNIVERSARY this month, and in observance, they’re enabling us to help you celebrate. You can win free tickets to see a show of your choice there!
+
The Coffee Gallery is a mecca for the arts, up the hill above Old Town Pasadena, in Altadena, at 2029 N. Lake Ave. It’s an art gallery with a new exhibition every month. It’s a coffeehouse with a vast array of hot and cold beverages, sandwiches and tasty treats. It has a new Front Stage with open mic nights, hosted comedy nights, and featured musicians. And it has the world famous BACKSTAGE with professional acts that play performing arts centers, big venues, even arenas, all over the world.
+
Famous musicians, including a great many Grammy and Juno winners – even Emmy and Oscar and at least one Peabody Award winner – love to perform at the Coffee Gallery Backstage, as BOB STANE, the venue’s impresario, will proudly tell you. Bob has the place active five to seven nights a week, plus matinees on the weekends. So there’s an amazing array of music from which to choose.
+
Try to see everything, and it could put you in the poorhouse. But we can help. In cooperation with the Coffee Gallery Backstage, the Guide has four pairs of tickets to award to our readers!
+
TO WIN FREE TICKETS, pick a number between 1 and 1,000. Email it to us – be sure you put “BACKSTAGE TIX” in the subject line – and send your entry to tiedtothetracks@hotmail.com. If you are among the winners, you will get A PAIR OF TICKETS to use for the show of your choice – if you CONFIRM YOUR RESERVATION WITH THE VENUE. (If you win, we will need your name as it appears on the photo i.d. you will use to claim your tix from Bob at the door, plus the name of the town where you live, and your email address to contact you.)
+
So, what’s that about a “confirmed reservation?” Simple. Bob reserves the right to accept a limited number of free tickets for any given show. So, if you win, you should pick a show and make your reservation PROMPTLY at 626-794-2424.
+
You will need to state, when you make your reservation, that you are a winner of a pair of tickets from The Guide (they will already have your name on the list of ticket winners).
+
These free tickets are good anytime between when we announce the winners, September 10, and October 15. Now, here’s the fine print: these free tickets will be honored for any show with a ticket price of $18 or less. If you want to attend a show with a higher ticket price (there may be a few of those) you CAN, if you pay the difference between $18 and the cost of the show (probably, like $2 a ticket…). And like all giveaways, these free tickets have no cash value and you can’t show up someplace asking for cash instead of tickets.
+
Enter NOW (no need to pick your show unless you win) and good luck!
.
.
===
.
.
2) TIX GIVEAWAY: “CELTIC ARTS CENTER CONCERT AT THE FORD,” SEP 12
+
The 7th annual “CELTIC ARTS CENTER CONCERT AT THE FORD” brings the US West Coast premiere of THE FUREYS & DAVEY ARTHUR, with their award-winning guitar, banjo, mandolin, accordion and bouzouki playing and fine vocals. But that’s not all. This is a very full evening of first-rate Irish, Scottish, and Celtic entertainment. Opening the show is KEN O’MALLEY, with his wonderful baritone voice and fine guitar, as he performs authentic traditional and original music of his native Ireland. Plus, there are THE McCARTAN IRISH DANCERS, champion dancers MEGAN & ADAM KIRK, and THE LOS ANGELES POLICE EMERALD SOCIETY PIPES & DRUMS. It’s all at one of L.A.’s best outdoor venues, the Ford Amphitheatre (aka John Anson Ford Amphitheatre), 2580 Cahuenga Bl East, Hollywood 90068. Others can buy tickets at 323-GO1-FORD or www.FordTheatres.org.
+
The show is Sunday, September 12, at 7 pm, and it’s a Guide “SHOW-OF-THE-WEEK” pick.
+
But you don’t need to buy your tickets, if you win them from The Guide! Thanks to Ken O’Malley and his publicist, we have tickets to give away!
+
This annual tradition is a splendid night under the stars. This year’s lineup is brilliant, so the music will be splendid and memorable. You can bring your dinner and beverage of your choice, including your own wine or other libations. Or, can order a catered box dinner at 310-652-3797. This is a delightfully civilized event with all the raucous joy of Irish dance and Celtic music!
+
TO WIN FREE TICKETS, pick a number between 1 and 500. Email it to us – be sure you put “CELTIC SEP 12 TIX” in the subject line – and send your entry to tiedtothetracks@hotmail.com. If you are among the winners, you will get A PAIR OF TICKETS. (If you win, we will need your name as it appears on the photo i.d. you will use to claim your tix at will-call, plus the name of the town where you live, and your email address to contact you.)
+
The fine print: like all giveaways, these free tickets have no cash value and you can’t show up someplace asking for cash instead of tickets.
+
Now, if you DO NOT win your tickets from The Guide, we can help you find DISCOUNT TIX: tickets on the Ford website are FACE VALUE PLUS $3.50 per ticket. You can get them for face value plus a handling fee of only 50 cents per ticket, at www.celticconcert.com (or email fureysattheford@gmail.com). Group rates are available at that site, 10% discount for parties of 8 or more, 20% discount for parties of 16 or more. Tix available at the same discounted price at the Irish Import Shop, 742 N Vine (at Melrose), Hollywood, or Shamrock Imports, 12514 1/2 Magnolia Bl (near Whitsett), Valley Village.
+
But if you enter NOW, you might win FREE tickets!
.
.
===
.
.
3) SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT LABOR DAY, AS IT IS IN 2010
+
Most any year, it would be easy to say, “It’s LABOR DAY ~ not simply a day-off to commemorate the end of summer and to refrain from your own labors, but one when we remember the long struggles of countless people who came before us to build the world we inherited.”
+
But with unemployment higher than at any time since the Great Depression, the focus for many of us seems far too personal to think about past history.
+
Yet how far past is it?
+
There were long and often bloody struggles as workers fought for simple safety provisions, the end of forced child labor, the establishment of the 16-, then the 12-, the 10-, and finally the eight-hour work day. Our father’s generation, and some still working in the railroad industry, can tell you when their work rules called for a standard 12-hour day.
+
Still, that might not seem as urgent as things many of us face right now. We have lost count of the number of musicians we know who are behind on their rent – some who hadn’t yet paid July’s rent, even as the last days of August were waning.
+
What’s important is that it’s all connected. It wasn’t long ago in human history that people were literally worked to death for the enrichment of a very few.
+
And history isn’t a continuous, upward-sloping line of gained improvements. Who would have believed we would need to fight to retain some fragment of the health care and retirement packages that were standard in the work place a generation ago – before today’s Wall Street Robber Barons took it all in the name of enhanced profits?
+
Our August 13 edition carried a News Feature, “Folk Icon ANNE FEENEY Faces Serious Health Challenge.” That’s the same Anne Feeney whom the late UTAH PHILLIPS called, “the greatest labor singer in North America.” It’s the same Anne Feeney who performed a benefit concert in L.A. for health care reform (before it deteriorated to health insurance reform). Anne just sent us a photo of herself, as bald as a billiard ball, as she undergoes treatment following the discovery of a tumor on her lung. She’s home in Pittsburgh, instead of on the multi-artist European tour she had planned. And, like so many musicians, she has been forced to ask for help with her medical bills. To help, or for updates on her condition, go to www.caringbridge.org/visit/annefeeney and leave her messages of encouragement at http://annefeeney.com/guestbook.html.
+
Anne says, “I’m pretty sure it will be difficult for me to talk on the phone for a while. I would love it if you’d post get well wishes, stories and jokes for me on my guestbook (It’s a moderated guestbook, so what you write won’t appear on the guestbook until I read it and approve it – otherwise I’m pretty sure the guestbook would be nothing but ads for Viagra and such…)” Obviously, she still has her sense of humor. And we ’spect she retains her passion for her lifelong cause as an artist, and that she would tell us not to waste the opportunity of a focal point like Labor Day. So, with a humble dedication to Anne, we continue.
+
On September 3, the Clinton administration’s Labor Secretary ROBERT REICH cited that today, 1% of the US workforce collects 24% of all salaries and wages, leaving the remaining 76% to be divided among the 99% of everyone who actually works. Reich, who is now a full professor at Berkeley, says there hasn’t been such a disparity since 1928 – the year before the stock market crash that brought the Great Depression.
+
Indeed, when it comes to labor and the old Horatio Alger ethic of “Work hard and get ahead,” plenty of economists and historians have been citing alarming statistics. We see that, just 20 years ago, the richest 2% of the population of America owned 90% of the wealth, but today, 1% owns 98% of the wealth – despite the facts that we work longer hours, get fewer days off, take shorter (or no) vacations, drive older cars, owe unprecedented amounts on credit cards, and owe enormous amounts on mortgages. Though home ownership rates continue to decline, as more of us become renters, more mortgage holders get upside-down, and many have lost their homes to foreclosure.
+
The cover story of Time magazine’s current issue questions whether the dream of home ownership makes sense anymore.
+
We firmly believe that those who ran the country in the first eight years of the 21st century should be called to account for giving tax advantages – and actual payments – to facilitate the systematic exportation of jobs from the US to other nations. What do we actually make in America anymore? (Other than indie CDs that we struggle to get heard, ranging from genius to awful, and movies that are mostly cheesy.) For the super-rich, the question of what “we” make is moot, because they answer in personal terms, “more money, huge stock option packages, and multimillion-dollar bonuses for cutting overhead by laying-off or exporting jobs.”
+
They do make obscene amounts of money. We – the rest of us – don’t, and the “we” is getting bigger, almost exponentially. For uber-big business, more money was, and is, the only goal. For too many years, and for the politicians who enabled the modern robber barons, the goal was twofold: it included exporting jobs that were unionized, since the opposition party was historically supported by the unions. But the Republican’s cynical strategy of eroding – no, removing – the Democratic Party’s base has left us in a nation that no longer manufactures much of anything. No, the Dems don’t have clean hands or halos. But destroying the nation’s industrial capacity – the ability to manufacture things – leaves us vulnerable in ways that are unprecedented for us, and more akin to Imperial Japan in the 1930s, when it found itself without the resources to enable industrial capacity. (When the US was attacked by Japan, the America of that era HAD the industrial capacity to prevail in World War II, on two fronts. We do not have anything akin to that industrial capacity today.)
+
Politics has put us where we are, though a concerted campaign of obfuscation continually seeks to keep us from seeing it. Look at who supported and who opposed the loans that saved General Motors from oblivion – and the fact that GM, unlike the bailed-out Wall Streeters, actually repaid their government loans, in full, and ahead of schedule.
+
The recent GM experience proves that American workers can still make things (other than obscene profits for manipulative big shots) – if the big shots’ contrived advantages to export jobs are thwarted, and if we invest in our own productive capacity.
+
What does all this mean for jobs, in any sector of the present economy? It’s clear that we must “make” things. We believe we should make our own steel once again, rather than buying it from the Chinese. We believe that the nature of US Foreign Aid should be changed, so that we send useful and effective “stuff” that’s made in America to people in need. Let’s send them goods that we make, rather than money we borrow from China, money that many developing countries’ corrupt government officials – aka strong men – have been salting-away, sending to their Swiss bank accounts, and not spending to serve the needs of their people.
+
We need a vigorous space program, to give credence to the argument for our students to excel at math and science. Just as it did in the days of Apollo’s cornucopia of high tech spin-offs, it will reenergize and rebuild our tech sector – as one of high-tech manufacturing that engineers, designs, and manufactures the hardware for solar and wind and geothermal and biomass energy – and feeds the highest aspirations of the human species, to discover, to learn, to explore, and ultimately, to go where no one has gone before.
+
We need to stop screwing-around spending millions on studies that never produce anything, and actually get serious and build high-speed and commuter rail systems. The entire transcontinental railroad was built from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to the Pacific Coast in less time than it’s taken to build the Metro Gold Line from downtown L.A., and it still doesn’t extend east of Pasadena. The entire Pacific Electric system of a century ago went everywhere, and that entire rail network was built in less time than it took to build L.A.’s little Red Line subway. We need to act in ways that make sense, and rebuild our own productive capacity, and employ our workers. We need to abandon the perceived need for endless expensive studies and proposals for subway construction in earthquake country. Where explosive gas pockets are found beneath the ground, or there is high potential for soil liquefaction or severe seismic acceleration (ground shaking), we should rule-out digging subways, period. Instead, let’s get busy and build a surface or elevated system. Now. No “subway-to-the-sea.” Instead, a surface or elevated line along the freeway corridor. Now. L.A.’s short Red Line subway cost more than any transportation project in human history, including the Apollo Program’s six moon landings. We can’t afford that again, but we can’t afford to do nothing, when people need jobs and society needs alternatives to gas-guzzling automobiles.
+
It’s not enough to make virtual designs on our Chinese-import laptops. That’s engineering masturbation. We must actually build useful things. We must manufacture new, “green” industrial hardware and do it with American labor, and sell it to the world, reversing the greenhouse effect of burning fossil fuels here and everywhere, and rebuilding our economy in the process.
+
Our nation’s long-neglected infrastructure is falling apart, from bridges to levees to water systems and sewers. Let’s fix them and engineer-in the capacity to add rail lines in the future, if we can’t include them now. If only we could get back the money we gave to bail-out the banks, and spend it fixing things that matter. Since we can’t do that, let’s legislatively force the banks to loan money at 3% more than they paid for it, or tax them into oblivion if they won’t loan it. Any enterprise that employs new workers to make or rebuild things gets priority for the money.
+
Back to Robert Reich. His new cause to boost economic recovery is appealing: the first $20,000 of annual income should be exempt from taxation – for everyone, regardless of how much or how little you make. Rather than add to the deficit, he says it easily could be paid for, by allowing the Bush tax breaks for the rich to expire on schedule.
+
We’re advocates for Reich’s “first-$20,000” amnesty, and for going back to the tax rates that were in place when Bill Clinton was president, when the economy enjoyed low unemployment and unprecedented growth. That was before we allowed the unions to be killed by the mass exportation of jobs, and before we were cemented into military excursions, occupations, saber-rattling, and a new, horrendously expensive permanent expansion of the military.
+
Importantly, it was before we had a military that outsourced nearly all its non-combat jobs (MOS – Military Occupational Specialties) to private contractors, something often done with noncompetitive no-bid contract “give-aways” to a few favored companies. It’s important, because in today’s terrible economy, the military has become the employer of last resort for many young people who cannot find anything else – and unlike past eras, the jobs they find in the military are wholly unlikely to have any transferable skill sets to future civilian employment (unless they plan to become mercenaries or work for the police bomb squad.)
+
The cause of labor is multifaceted, and in all its aspects, it is something that really matters, just as the quality and safety of the workplace matter, just as the nature of industry matters, just as what we do and what things we make (or don’t make) matters.
+
A once-popular bumper sticker proclaims, “Thank the Unions for the Five-Day Work Week.” You don’t see that bumper sticker so much these days, since there aren’t as many people working. Clearly, in the face of a set of disturbing facts – a record number of Wall Street Billionaires; Bush-era no-bid contracts for supposed work in Iraq and Afghanistan; the disappearance in those two countries of billions of US dollars in cash – on forklift palettes, no less; and unemployment, foreclosures, and generally declining shares for everyone else here at home, we see that the struggle faced by the American worker – and those who want to have, but cannot find, career employment – is not over.
+
So enjoy your annual barbecue, and go hear some live music performed by a working musician. But remember that nothing is free so long as it can be taken away, and stay motivated to protect the gains of generations of labor struggle, even as they erode all around us. Do it for yourself. Do it for musicians like Anne Feeney. Do it for your offspring. Do it for all of us.
.
.
===
.
.
4) MILLPOND MUSIC FESTIVAL WILL BRING TUNEFUL END TO SUMMER
+
From Friday through Sunday, September 17-19, the 19th annual “Millpond Music Festival” will bring a wonderful lineup, with SLAID CLEAVES, THE JOE CRAVEN TRIO, “STRAY CAT” LEE ROCKER, JO HENLEY, THE BILLS, CELTIC FIDDLE FESTIVAL, LOS PINGUOS, THE ADAM BURNS BAND, OLD COYOTE MOON, OLD MAN LUEDECKE, THE MASANGA MARIMBA ENSEMBLE, IDLE HANDS, MARC ATKINSON QUARTET, SAGE ROMERO & ACA MYA DANCERS, DAVID JACOBS-STRAIN, RICHARD SMITH & JULIE ADAMS, and more – acts are still being added, at press time. The event returns to Millpond County Park, 5 miles N/NE of Bishop, at the foot of the majestic eastern escarpment of the High Sierra.
+
“So,” you say, “that sounds great, but it’s 270 miles from here!” Yup. But, hey, if you go skiing at Mammoth, this is up the same highway, and closer than that. And it’s a wonderful festival. This one always has lots of prominent folk-Americana artists who headline other festivals, and it offers a celebratory last hurrah for summer. Your editor named it in FolkWorks, in his annual “Best Of,” as one of the Best Events of 2008.
+
In fact, the annual MILLPOND MUSIC FESTIVAL prides itself on presenting “an eclectic and fine collection of music,” and bringing it to one of the most intimate outdoor festival surroundings imaginable. They’re being accurate when they say it “cross[es] ethnic and cultural lines in a celebration of life in all its diversity,” and they add that “you can immerse yourself in an exotic mix of music, surrounded by the stunning mountains at autumn’s first blush.” Eastern Sierra weather and temperatures are ‘purt near perfect in mid-September, so go, then extend your stay and go hiking in the beautiful High Sierra.
+
Most people camp. Bishop area lodging, restaurants, and other info at www.bishopVisitor.com. You can call, visit, or email (in advance of the festival) the Inyo Council for the Arts, 137 S Main St, Bishop 93514; phone 760-873-8014; email InyoArts@Inyo.org
+
Advance tix and more info are available online at www.inyo.org/millpond.asp. Full Weekend Pass is $80 (adult); Student (ages 5-18) $25. Senior (age 65 & above) $65. Order in advance. AT THE GATE, it’s $90 for the full weekend, adult; a Single Day Pass for Friday, adult is $25; Saturday, adult is $35; Sunday, adult is $35. Student, Single day is $15. (Inyo Mono students through grade 8 admitted free with adult.) No firearms or generators, no solicitation on the grounds during the festival.
+
Your editor says it’s like a small version of Telluride. It’s an enthusiastic a “SHOW-OF-THE-WEEK” pick. If you go, you’ll find it full of happy memories.
+
There’s more in the Guide’s event listings, including the schedule for each day. (Check our Sep 17 events.)
.
.
===
.
.
5) WE’D LIKE YOU TO MEET… THE WHITES
+
CHERYL & SHARON WHITE’s music story begins in Texas. It was there that their dad, BUCK WHITE, started his musical career shortly after the end of World War II, working the dance halls and radio shows in a succession of bands. In 1961, looking for “a more wholesome environment,” The Whites moved to Arkansas. Within weeks, Buck and his wife Pat formed the first version of THE DOWN HOME FOLKS with another local couple, and as Sharon and Cheryl grew up, they joined the band, too.
+
After a positive experience performing at BILL MONROE’s festival in Bean Blossom, Indiana in 1971, The Whites decided it was time to move to Nashville and pursue their music more seriously. THE DOWN HOME FOLKS recorded five albums and toured steadily on the bluegrass festival circuit, and then they were invited to back up EMMYLOU HARRIS on her “Blue Kentucky Girl” album in 1979, and going on the road with her as an opening act.
+
By the early 1980s, they were performing as THE WHITES and receiving plenty of national attention. They had a succession of Top 20 hits, including “You Put the Blue in Me,” “Hangin’ Around,” “Give Me Back That Old Familiar Feeling,” and “Pins and Needles.” The latter was produced by Sharon’s husband, RICKY SKAGGS. Of course, such accomplishments are heady stuff. A major recognition came when THE WHITES were invited to become members of the Grand Ole Opry in 1984.
+
Their contributions to the “O, Brother Where Art Thou?” film soundtrack brought THE WHITES a second round of world-wide media attention, including “Album of the Year” awards from both IBMA and the Country Music Association (CMA) in 2001, and an “Album of the Year” GRAMMY and the Academy of Country Music (ACM) top award in 2002.
+
Live performances and television appearances followed, including the popular “Down from the Mountain” multiple-city tours in 2002, enabled by the success of “O, Brother Where Art Thou?” and the popular rediscovery of Americana roots music. The “Great High Mountain” package tour followed in the summer of 2004.
+
THE WHITES received the IBMA “Distinguished Achievement Award” in 2006. Plenty more followed. In 2007, after blending their voices on the stage of the Opry and in their living rooms for years, THE WHITES teamed up in the studio for the first time with RICKY SKAGGS on the album, “Salt of the Earth.” It won a GRAMMY for “Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album” and a “Dove Award” for “Bluegrass Recorded Album of the Year.” In 2008, BUCK, SHARON & CHERYL WHITE were inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame.
+
Of course, THE WHITES continue to tour and headline at festivals.
+
On September 30, CHERYL & SHARON WHITE join JERRY DOUGLAS, their band mate from THE WHITES, as co-hosts of the International Bluegrass Music Awards (IBMAs) in (and broadcast from) Nashville. See the Feature Stories in the last edition of The Guide about the upcoming IBMAs, and last week’s “We’d Like You to Meet” feature on JERRY DOUGLAS. They are News Features #1 and #9, respectively, and you can read them at http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2010/08/acoustic-americana-music-guide-aug-28.html
+
For more on the September 30 IBMA Awards show or other “World of Bluegrass” events, go to www.ibma.org. IBMA Award Show tickets are on sale now at their website, and at the Ryman Auditorium box office in Nashville, or call 888-GET-IBMA.
.
.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.
THE LATEST FULL EDITION of the Acoustic Americana Music Guide is always available at
www.acousticmusic.net or at
www.acousticamericana.blogspot.com or by links from the News-only edition at www.nodepression.com/profile/TiedtotheTracks
or by following any of MANY links on the web to get to one of those sites.
.
.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Entire contents copyright (c) © 2010, Larry Wines. All rights reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.