Foghorn just returned from a wonderful tour of the Southeastern United States. We have always felt so welcome there, and are always pumped full of inspiration from the history, landscape, and mostly, from our good buddies down there who we are lucky enough to share good times and music with. It’s still true that you can learn the most from a musician hero of yours by staring down a campfire with him or her than trying to capture some tune on tape and lose the whole context.
We started our trip in Nashville after a red-eye flight from Portland. Talk about jumping right in! We played at our friend Brian Christianson’s fiddle shop, called the Fiddle House . His shop is in the front and the listening room/ gallery of violins is in back. It’s a nice and intimate setting to see a show in for sure, and if you ever need a fiddle, that’s the place to find one in Nashville. After the show we ended up around the corner at the 5 Spot, which was like a mini festival in a bar! Welcome to Nashville! Thanks to Todd Grebe and Angela Oudean from Bearfoot for letting us stay with them. It’s always good to hang out with Alaskan friends, and man, Grebe can write a song!!
From there we were off to Whitesburg, KY and met up with Brett Ratliff who played with us all night on banjo at the Summit City Lounge. Thanks again, Brett, for letting us use that killer banjo for the rest of the trip. The next day we headed up to the Mockingbird in Staunton, VA, then Bristol TN and VA, and then to Knoxville to play on WDVX’s Blueplate Special and later, for a contra dance at the Laurel Theater, with the righteous “Mayor of Knoxville”, Matt Morelock on banjo. Thanks to Leah, Matt, and Hollis! Y’all rock!
It was time to leave TN for a few days and head to NC and spend a couple of days off in Canton, NC with the Stuart Brothers and up to Mt. Airy with Chester and Nick McMillan and Kelley Breiding. They all play in a band together called Backstep. Check out Kelly singing in her band, Kelley and the Cowboys!. Chester brought enough beans, cornbread and chowchow to feed all of Round Peak and we played all night!! The next day we got to play 4 or 5 songs on WPAQ, a dream come true for us. Pretty much all of our music heros have played in that studio and/or over those airwaves. Thanks to Nick and Kelly for setting that up.
Later on that night we played a great outdoor square dance, called by Anna Roberts-Gevalt, in Roanoke, VA that was put on by the public library. They provided BBQ for all, catered by a local BBQ joint and everyone danced until after dark. Then we headed back to Johnson City,TN where we played the Down Home with our old pal Adam Tanner’s band, Twilite Broadcasters. Check ’em out! The next day we spent all day being tourists in downtown Asheville, NC with help from Michael and later tore it up all night at the Jack of the Wood, with special guests the Stuart Brothers on fiddle and banjo and Emolyn Liden clogging away. It was an amazing scene! As you could imagine, we were licking our wounds a bit the next day but headed over to Chattanooga to play the at the Barking Legs Theater. Thanks to Bryan Hamilton the great folks who came out on a Sunday night and hooted and hollered and had some laughs along with us. Next time we’ll have to make it to the music school there called the Folk School of Chattanooga. Then it was off to Nashville….
IBMA IN NASHVILLE
The Foghorn Stringband was chosen to play an official showcase this year at the IBMA World of Bluegrass Week in Nashville, TN. It was the perfect time to introduce our new guitar player and singer, Reeb Wilms, from Bellingham, WA. She has been a friend for years and we are super excited to have her on board with Foghorn. We have some good times ahead! We’ll all be doing a bunch of dates together starting in January. A new recording, perhaps?
We were there at IBMA along with the other bands on Quicksilver Productions‘ roster, including our oldest buddies in Portland, Jackstraw. We’re super proud to be working with Martha and Rob from Quicksilver Productions. Along with our official showcase in the Convention Center, a highlight was the Martin Guitar Showcase at Robert’s Western World right on Broadway in Nashville, sharing the bill with Michael Cleveland and the Del McCoury Band! We were supposed to play for half an hour, but got to play for a full hour thanks to such an enthusiastic response from the audience. Thanks to Larry and George from Martin and to all those rowdy folks in the crowd! The showcase for Quicksilver Productions was a hoot as well. Caleb also works with Quicksilver Productions and got to feature his country stuff with Reeb, Nadine, Sammy, Frank Solivan and Jason Norris from Bearfoot backing him up. Another highlight was a fiddle panel Sammy got to be a part of, hosted by Matt Combs, with other fiddlers, the legendary Buddy Spicher and the powerful April Verch. We had an all around great time at IBMA! Thanks to all who encouraged us and to the new people we met while we were there. Special thanks to super bass player and equally nice guy Mike Bub for hooking Nadine up with a beautiful Kay!
Foghorn Stringband at IBMA
Just A Little
Sud de la Louisiane
Shortenin’ Bread
BACK HOME AND BACK OUT AGAIN
Sammy, Caleb and Nadine will be off again soon to Austin and Lousiana, playing a bunch of gigs in the following bands: the Foghorn Trio, Caleb Klauder Country Band, Jesse Lege, Joel Savoy and the Cajun Country Revival. Check the schedule and see you soon!