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Bio, BRC Activities

Family Fun

February 1, 2025

Whenever the Texas grandkids and their parents sojourn to our lakeside BRC domicile in Missouri, it is a busy time of family activities.

As in past visits, our son (front above) picks guitar at the weekly Thursday evening jam session.

Our granddaughter, an award winning soprano in her high school choir, sings with us on stage during our Sunday afternoon G&F gig at the brewpub where all tips are donated to the local Childrens Hospital.

Meanwhile, our grandson (below) explores his dad`s guitar.

From the BRC: Have a Happy Valentines Day.

Bio

A Milestone, A Memory, and Sunshine

March 1, 2024

The BRC craftsman passed another calendar milestone this week, and so he again shares with readers his all-time favorite birthday card sent to him long ago by a sibling:

Playing the banjo for well over 60 years, he has bought, sold, and built many 5-stringers. The only instrument that he ever regretted selling was a circa 1963 Gibson J-200 sunburst guitar that he purchased for $300 while exploring the blues idiom during his college days. Soon drifting deeply into the Bluegrass genre, however, he sold the dreadnaught 6-stringer to a school chum for the aforesaid purchase amount. Although this vintage instrument retails online nowadays for up to $18K, what he nostalgically remembers is the unforgettably deep rich tone of this magnificent guitar pictured below in an archival 1967 home photograph.

To paraphrase Missouri`s favorite son Mark Twain: Good judgement comes with experience, and experience comes with having made bad judgements. Within a year of selling the iconic J-200, the BRC craftsman procured a circa 1964 Gibson SJ (Southern Jumbo) guitar for $75 that he has faithfully kept ever since. It is valued online these days for around $4K. At a recent jam session, a fiddler pointedly admired the marvelous tone of the SJ flat-top.

Felicitous greetings to all website visitors who share a birthday this month with the BRC craftsman and are likewise a year older and wiser. Shortly after this aforesaid calendar milestone, the BRC craftsman and spouse babysat the grandkids` dog at our home while the youngsters visited cousins in Chicago. One morning at daybreak, the hound reacted with barking when a hot air ballon passed over our backyard lake whoosing its hot air jets. The sunrise shared its skyline with another orb as photographed from our upper back deck.

For other photos of dawn at the BRC, enter sunrise in our homepage search engine.

From the BRC: Wishing all our readers a sunny long life, good health, and the very best of pickin` and song.

Bio, Jamming

Ojai Again

July 8, 2023
After a covid hiatus, the BRC craftsman and spouse journeyed last month to California to renew their attendance of the annual Ojai Music Festival. The 2023 invited Musical Director of this 77th annual Fest was banjoist Rhiannon Giddens. Known in the 5-string community as an eclectic folk musician, a focus of Ms. Giddens` artistry has been to give voice to the voiceless. With her praiseworthy agenda of humanism, she assembled a marvelous admixture of international musicians whose diverse instruments blended together per her prediction like “cousins talking” and sharing their heritages.
Pictured below in the Ojai community center, the banjoist/musical director had an afternoon city park performance moved indoors during the Fest because of briefly inclement weather. She was accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi on percussion.
A versatile musician, composer, and writer, Rhiannon plays violin (below center) amidst some instruments from foreign lands. She is currently authoring a series of children’s books. Her varied creative works have won a MacArthur Grant and two Grammy Awards.
Although initially known as a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops folk trio, Ms. Giddens has a seraphic opera-trained voice. She demonstrated her spell-binding vocal skills singing (below far right) with the Attacca String quartet. During this collaboration, a dog and a coyote had a barking dual in the ravine behind the outdoor stage. The performers and audience were undeterred.
Rhiannon`s voice also joined the chorus (below) in the performance of the Pulitzer Prize winning opera “Omar’s Journey” that she had co-authored with Michael Abels. The libretto chronicles the true story of a slave kidnapped in Africa and brought to America.
With a host of gifted international musicians at the Festival, Ms. Giddens sang in English, French and Italian. She was accompanied by her partner, the astonishingly powerful pianist Francesco Turrisi. Spanning several octaves, she sang ragtime, pop tunes, and arias.
After she rendered a particularly tender love song in Italian (below) that was woven with his keyboard underpinnings, Turrisi dabbed an eye and confessed softly in his microphone, “She made me cry.”
The Musical Director also sang in Japanese and Chinese during the festival further underscoring a world rich with overlapping musical traditions. With Giddens on the banjo and Wu Man playing the Chinese lute, the two musician demonstrated (below) that music is borderless.
Ojai proved again to be a multifaceted learning environment. As the township is an artists` community, the Music Fest coordinates yearly with an open house tour of artists` homes, so festival goers can visit the studios and galleries of local painters, sculptors, and artisans. This educational program is especially valued by the BRC spouse who is a painter.
The annual four day event was concluded with a rollicking evening jam session presented by the visiting international artists who again confirmed the communicative language and fellowship of music. For past postings on previous BRC visits to the Ojai Festival, enter “Ojai” in the homepage search engine.
In the spirit of the annual Ojai Fest, the BRC traveler revisited a familiar local jam session of Bluegrass pals to experience again with them the mutual joy of music and song.
A very special thanks is owed to the guitar craftsman (far left) who again graciously supplied a banjo for the visiting BRC musician to pick during the weekly Sunday afternoon jam at the nearby Oak View Community Center.
 From the BRC: We hope our readers and the good folks pictured above, had a restful Fourth of July holiday and enjoy a splendid summertime.
Bio, CD songs, Jamming

Springtime in the Ozarks & more

April 15, 2023

With March winds and April showers, our Spring season in the Heartland has been wet and blustery. Despite cool and rainy days, the neighborhood daffodils and tulips have bloomed, trees are leafing-out in the countryside, and turtles have re-surfaced in the lake behind the BRC workshop. This week, temperatures surprisingly crept up into the low 80’s, and our Wednesday afternoon jam session in a village nestled in the foothills of the Ozarks was convened at an outdoor pavilion in the township`s municipal park. Although a very breezy day, bluegrass pickers and singers cheerfully gathered as the sun spilled down around us. School kids merrily romped in the adjacent playground while fitness walkers paused to enjoy the music, dance with our clogger, and sing-along to familiar gospel tunes.

It looks likely that the pavilion and its lively greening environs will become our regular jam session venue for the months to come.

Between 2004 and 2006, the BRC craftsman wrote and recorded 4 solo CDs of original music. Three of the discs benefitted our local Children`s Hospital, and one disc was in support of Health Volunteers Overseas, a medical philanthropic international organization.
 
Three young sisters, all grandnieces of the BRC songsmith, provided back-up vocals for the author`s tunes.
 
The foursome was reunited recently in Chicago at a reception for the BRC founder`s eldest daughter who was having a book-launch celebration.

 

From the BRC: All good wishes to you for sunny days of music and song as summer draws nearer, and have a happy Earth Day on April 22nd.

Bio, BRC Activities

Amongst Kith and Kin

July 23, 2022

The week before the Fourth of July holiday, our out-of-state offspring converged with their families on the lakeside BRC home, so the grandkids could attend a nearby horseback riding camp. Included in the visiting assemblage was a large dog that slept everywhere and anywhere. During the week-long equestrian tutorial, the youngsters frolicked in the refreshingly cool waters of our backyard lake after each long sunny day in the saddle. The canine proved itself to be an ardent swimmer. Picking, singing, and fishing followed in the evenings. The BRC father and son (dark shirts) attended the weekly Thursday night local jam session as seen in the below photo taken by our fiddler host.

Our Texas granddaughter, who soon starts 7th grade, entertained us after dinners with a crystal clear songbird voice that had won her a place in the high school Varsity choir. Proficient on the ukulele, she is a 4th generation musician in our family tree.

Two of the Chicago grandkids joined their grandad`s Gainor & Friends band on stage for a song at the local family-friendly brewpub during a weekly Sunday afternoon benefit gig for the Children`s Hospital.

From the BRC: The arbor of family and friends is a precious and leafy tree.