G&F Singers

A Dozen Wintry Songfests

December 19, 2019

 

Every December since 2007, the G&F Bluegrass musicians and singers have entertained patients and staff at the Children’s Hospital and on the psychiatric ward of the University Hospital.

 

These sing-along performances of seasonal tunes are annually favorite gigs with our band members and vocalists who not infrequently must overcome snowy roadways to get to the venues. For these special Yuletide occasions, a generous nurse sews surgeon`s caps with holiday decorations that are gifted to the kids and siblings at the Children`s Hospital.

We are privileged and abundantly blessed to yearly entertain these patients, families, and care-givers. The G&F musicians and singers wish all our faithful BRC website visitors a Prosperous and Healthy New Year.

G&F Band

184/mo+1.07M=Thx x2

December 2, 2019

Ten years ago this month, the Gainor & Friends band began performing regularly at the famly-friendly Broadway Brewery on behalf of the Children’s Hospital. The staff and patrons have been generous in their support of our weekly Sunday afternoon benefit jam sessions. In the last year, our tip donations to the Children’s Miracle Network have averaged a remarkable $184 per month. Eight years ago, the Banjo Rehabilitation Center was established and went online, and website search engine hits have passed well beyond the 1M mark. The BRC founder and the G&F Bluegrass band thank our supporters for their year-round friendship and generosity.

Seated next to the BRC founder with her cello in the above group photo is a welcomed guest musician who occasionally joins our jam sessions. All assembled wish each and everyone of you a joyous Holiday Season filled with music. With the approaching New Year, take a few moments to check-out the below link connecting to a website profiling the “Banjo Rehab Center” which was constructed last month as a project by four university Journalism School students. Enjoy. https://nreijmer2.wixsite.com/banjocenter

 

Art Shows

Interconnectedness

November 18, 2019

The concept and mystique of the Tree of Life spans millennia, cultures, and religions. In the autumn, trees shed their leaves and look dead in the winter. But, in springtime, buds appear on the naked branches, and soon the tree is renewed with a fresh garment of resplendent foliage. For the community Holiday Season art show this year, the BRC founder submitted a Tree of Life banjo to the exhibit offering a motif that we are all interconnected.

Bronze, brass, silver alloy, and mother of pearl trees are linked by a continuous network of roots on the peghead and fretboard. The pot displays a sine wave curve of dark cherry and black walnut sinuously coursing through a field of brightly toned ash wood like an endless cycle. The banjo was marketed via an online auction, and the new owner reported in the auction`s Feedback Profile, “Gosh, what a wonderful piece of “art” this banjo is. A pleasure doing business.”

As a class project, a team of university students from the School of Journalism attended the exhibit’s gala opening reception to interview the BRC founder about his curious banjos and Bluegrass music endeavors. They videotaped his band performing for the Children’s Hospital at the nearby brewpub and photographed the banjo builder in his workshop. Pictured below, the students stand beside a rare WWI poster published in 1917 by the university Journalism School, as this original document resides in the BRC founder`s military history memorabilia collection.

On Thanksgiving weekend, let us all take pause on our journeys and enjoy a moment with friends and family in the shade of the Tree of Life while gratefully sharing our interconnectedness.

G&F Band

Hearts of Gold

November 4, 2019

Each summer for more than a dozen years, Jeanne has organized a sprawling parking lot festival for kids at the Harley Davidson dealership to benefit our Children’s Hospital. To entertain these crowds, she would invite musicians, dancers, popular university athletes, and set-up games of family fun like dunk-the-doctor for wanna-be baseball pitchers. Parents, patients, and hospital staff would attend the street party. In the springtime, Jeanne would organize a gala dinner with a Roast-a-Doc evening extravaganza on behalf of the Children’s Hospital. Families and staff would attended to watch nurses and doctors gently poke fun at a favorite physician.

Last month, however, Jeanne announced her retirement. As always, Gainor & Friends performed Bluegrass music welcoming arriving attendees to her final fund-raiser, a farewell dinner dance party. She holds a bouquet of flowers in the center of our above band photo.

After our pre-dinner performance, the band adjourned to a nearby restaurant for our annual family and guests meal together.

During the yearly repast, we reflected on Jeanne`s generosity of spirit and boundless energy. All will miss her precious heart of gold.

For as many years, the G&F Singers have entertained quarterly on the pediatric ward. A few days before the above festivities, the quartet performed an autumn fun-filled songfest in the play room to the enjoyment of kids, parents, grandparents, and staff.

Thank-you ladies, for your heartfelt and golden group vocals.

Art Shows

Pegasus

October 21, 2019

For the 60th Annual Boone County Bank Art Show, the BRC founder submitted his “Pegasus Rising ” banjo to the autumn exhibit among over 200 paintings, sculptures, fiber, wood, and glass works. This creature from Greek mythology is the winged horse that heroic Bellerophon rode to defeat the monstrous Chimera.

During World War II, the image of Bellerophon astride Pegasus was adopted by the British paratrooper corps as their sleeve insignia. During the D-Day Invasion in 1944, the British 6th Airborne Division captured a vital French bridge near Caen amidst bitter fighting, and the span was forever renamed the Pegasus Bridge.

At the art show, the banjo garnered a ribbon and promptly sold as indicated by the red dot on the tag.

The British 16th Air Assault Brigade still wears the unchanged Pegasus sleeve insignia today, depicting a white steed and bold warrior on a field of crimson (below right).

A life long student of military history, the BRC founder crossed the English Channel in 1984 with a tour group of D-Day combat veterans inorder to share with them the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion. They walked the sands of Omaha Beach together and attended commemorative ceremonies at Pegasus Bridge.

One of the tour group members recounted piloting a LCVP (Higgins boat) during the desperate June 6th assault ferrying tense platoons of infantry through troubled seas to landing beaches raked with shot and shell. He had since lived a quiet life in Miami and was active in administrating the annual Orange Bowl parade and festivities. He gave the BRC founder a souvenir stick-on fabric orange blossom that has adorned the truss rod cover of the banjo builder`s favorite mandolin (below left) ever since.

Pegasus, a prominent constellation in the northern sky, is signified by a mother of pearl sun and star on the truss rod cover of the BRC banjo. This theme is repeated on the heel of the 5-stringer with a winged horse bracketed by the sun and moon, and this signature mother of pearl locus is for the eyes only of the musician.