Americana Gazette April/May 2011 Issue

MERICANA GAZETT E A April / May 2011

Feature Story: Rodney Crowell Steph Elkins Amy Speace Electric Blue Fayssoux McLean Belleville Fundraiser Matraca Berg Bellamy Brothers Susan Werner Lynn Biddick Phil Lee Tim Carroll

AMERICANA GAZETTE Greetings: Here we are with Spring upon us once again!!!! Boy, it’s been a long winter. January and February found Andy and me spending a lot of time shoveling snow.

Ok, mostly Andy shoveling and me and the dogs playing in it. (Yup buying Andy that snow blower for Christmas that one year was the best present ever for him and ME!!!!)

On Valentine’s Day my honey surprised me with long stemmed red roses! Who says the romance is gone after 30+ years of marriage??? And I didn’t even get the bill in the mail for them.

In April Andy, his sister, Heidi and her husband, Todd and I are taking a trip down to Nashville. We are going to visit a few friends, deliver some cheese and New Glarus Beer, and take in some sightseeing. This will be my Heidi and Todd’s first trip to Nashville, so this should be a great time. It sure will be entertaining for Heidi and I to listen to Andy and Todd insult each other during the 10 hour road trip. My little niece, Lexi is staying behind to hold the fort down. Really she has to attend school!! I’m sure I will be bringing her back some goodies from the South. I will tell you all about it in the next issue.

Be good and be watching for the Easter Bunny……

Till next time, Joyce Ziehli Publisher

PUBLISHER Joyce Ziehli • jziehli@advisorymgt.com SENIOR EDITOR Andy Ziehli • aziehli@advisorymgt.com STAFF WRITERS/PHOTOS Rob Kosmeder Litt Dubay Robert Hoffman Jim Smith Rosemary Ziehli Frye Gaillard Deb Shaer Anne Miller Bobby Westfall FACEBOOK Rob Kosmeder CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ric Genthe • rgenthe@charter.net The Americana Gazette is printed by: The Print Center • Brodhead, Wi. 53520 AMERICANA GAZETTE % Andy & Joyce Ziehli P.O. BOX 208 • Belleville, WI. 53508 OFFICE: 608-424-6300 Andy Cell: 608-558-8131 Joyce Cell: 608-558-8132

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Welcome to

Americana Gazette TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE STORY 16 Rodney Crowell WHERE TO LOOK: 3

1/2 Notes

4

Litt DuBay’s Slant

5

Women In The Round Steph Elkins

6

Amy Speace

8

Electric Blue

9

Dansynergy

10 CD Reviews 11 Fundraiser for Belleville 12 A Pet Note 13 Matraca Berg 14 Bellamy Brothers 16 Rodney Crowell 18 Tim Carroll 19 Great American Icons 20 Susan Werner 21 Masterclass

We are doing any and all repairs and adjustments on guitars, basses, and mandolins. If your instrument needs to be setup, fine tunes, or repaired give us a call at 608-5588131 to set up an appointment. We are also selling guitars, basses, and mandolins. Please get a hold of us to see what we have in stock. Many are priced between $125.00 - $300.00. All are professionally setup and ready to play.

1/2 Notes A benefit has been scheduled for Gary Gruenenfelder (brother of Mark,Paul,and AL of the Greenfield Brothers) for Saturday May, 14 2011 at Country Side Lanes Hollandale WI. Gary is recovering from brain surgery. Music starts at approx. 1:00 p.m. and goes until 11:00 p.m.

Many local bands and artists are taking part in this event.

Please make plans to attend.

Ryan Krueger and Sara Rupnow (Amber Skies) are getting married! The wedding will take place on Saturday October 29, 2011. Congratulations to Ryan and Sara!

Tony and Beth Kille had a baby boy Gus in February.

Safe to say Gus will be a musician. Congratulations Tony and Beth!

New Glarus is having community fest again this year the weekend of May 28, 29, 30th with a beer tent, craft sales, a food stands and some of the best music you will hear all three days. Check the Chamber of Commerce website for updates and playing times.

Congratulations to Aaron Williams and Mark Croft on being named top guitar players by John Urban. Both of these guys are fantastic musicians and songwriters.

The MAMA’s are coming up. The Madison Area Music Association (MAMA,Inc.) is a 501(c) (3) organization. Its mission is to put musical instruments in kids’ hands and to fund music education programs for Madison-area youths. There are several key changes being made with the MAMAs this year.The most notable, and the one that should please artists the most, is the elimination of the $10-per-entry fee that artists paid to enter their music.

The MAMAs charged this fee to keep the organization solvent during its start-up years and to cover the lack of corporate sponsorships due to the economic downturn over the past several years. Now the award categories will be sponsored by area businesses. This allows the MAMAs to replace the lost revenue with smaller,more affordable sponsorships.

The membership donation of $5 remains for the time being. This money is the chief means by which the MAMAs does its charitable giving (The MAMAs is a 501 (c)(3) exempt organization whose mission is to provide musical instruments for Madison-area youth and to further their music education. To date the MAMAs have given nearly $35,000 in funds and instruments).The $5 membership is a donation that goes to a separate bank account and is not mingled with other operating funds.

The $5 membership also provides a disincentive for those who would attempt to manipulate the online voting system.

8th Annual Madison Area Music Awards Will Be June 4, 2011 The Madison Area Music Association will hold the 8th Annual Madison Area Music Awards on Saturday,June 4th at the Capitol Theater in the Overture Center.

The Green County songwriters CD is coming along and will be released in May. All proceeds from the sale of this CD will benefit Special Olympics in Green County. The Americana Gazette would like to thank all the songwriters who donated songs for this CD. Sugar River Productions is in the guitar repair business.

21 Needle Drop 22 The Drivers Seat 23 Four Of A Kind, Part 2 24 Lynn Biddick 25 Robert’s Ramblings

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However if you would like a copy mailed to you, please fill out the following information and submit a check for $15.00 to:Americana Gazette, P.O. Box 208, Belleville,Wi. 53508.

26 Phil Lee 28 Creative Community...

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Date:______________________________________ 3

Litt DuBay’s

Rant!

by Litt DuBay

Hey ya’ll Ole Litt Dubay here with another round of popular speak and no damn political backwash! I don’t know if you all in other parts of this great big ole world we call home know what is going on here in Wisconsin. Our Governor Scott Walker and those two Fitzwhatever Brothers have taken the state hostage! That’s right hostage! They are wiping out our education system, canceling organized labor, blaming teachers and public employees for all the states troubles, and locking down the State Capital!!!

What the hell is wrong with those rascals?

The people of the state of Wisconsin will not stand for this and have not. I tell you if they are not the three stooges reincarnated I don’t know who is.

Those Fitzwhatever Brothers got their daddy a new cushy job as head of the state patrol. Walker got his fat cat business buddies big tax breaks (not to be confused with the Fat Cat buddies getting into other people’s business and breaking the rules of the coffee shop), and all we got was screwed!!!

Rush, Glen, Newt, Dick, and the rest of the Republican big shots and loudmouths seem pretty happy about this. Hopefully they have room on their couches for those three from Wisconsin to bunk on after we run them out of the state!

You know that Phil Lee fella was back in Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago for a concert the Ziehli’s put on. He made no bones about the fact that he and Joyce had a thang goin on right in front of everyone at the concert. Poor Andy lost his wife to a man that doesn’t weigh as much or is as big around as one of Andy’s thighs!

I hate Green Ford Taurus’s with woman drivers who text at the same time! This is the third time in a month this crazy wench as crossed the center line and almost hit me head on down on the flats at the bottom of the Spring Valley Hill. Texting away not even looking at the road!

Where is a cop when you need one? Oh I know they are at the State Capital keeping those unruly protesters in line!

I did not get nominated for a Grammy again nor did I win a Grammy yet!

I see Todd Snider is coming back to Madison to play a show. Hey Todd how come you never get me a free pass to see you? I’m cool! I’m hip!

I’m bigger than Elvis! Throw me a bone! (And one for the Mrs.)

Ziehli’s niece Lexi was at the Fat Cat with her folks the lovely Heidi and her tag along husband Todd for coffee a couple of weeks ago. While Heidi & Todd were visiting the big guy Lexi’ who is seven was spying on John Miller the owner of the Fat Cat writing down her observations of what he was up to. Before she left she shared them with the Big Guy and he shared them with me. Lexi wrote “John has gray hair that is very messy. He does not comb it. He walks around a lot and looks in the refrigerator too much and does not take anything out of it. He does not look like he likes his job very much!” Truer words have never been written!!! (Memo to self-send this on to corporate headquarters of the Fat Cat so it can be included in John’s year-end review) The Big guy told everyone at coffee that the first thing he does when he gets up in the morning (after scratching and adjusting) is to insult himself in the mirror. That way no one can say anything the rest of the day that he has not already heard. He said it makes him feel better. John Miller said that he started doing the same thing every morning (insulting Ziehli in the mirror) and it does make him feel better too!

Well you know earlier I was telling you about this concert that Phil Lee and the boys from Nashville played to help raise money for Miss Sara and the Music Dept., but I forgot to tell you what ole lard butt (the Big Guy) did at the show.

After the first act was finished he came out to move some stuff from the stage. What he did not know was that he had a hitchhiker on his back side. Somehow Ziehli got a piece of paper stuck to his butt that said open and close with arrows pointing both ways. Everyone was laughing and pointing at him. His first thought was that his zipper was down and something was escaping so he reached for his groin.

Joyce was yelling at him to stop it and to turn around. She rushed the stage and removed the paper from his wide ass to the glee of everyone in the hall. Good thing they are married because after that stunt I don’t think he would have gone out with her again! I’m pretty sure that Phil Lee put that paper on him!!!

Lastly I got to gripe about one more thing, and that is the lack of good quality dirty jokes anymore! When my Grandma was alive she and her friend Tillie held the market on dirty jokes! In fact at her funeral the Priest said he did not know where he was going to get any new material because my Grandma had passed and she had been his number one supplier in that department. My mom is getting pretty good at sending me them on the internet. You just don’t hear them in public or at the tavern anymore.

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Another thing you don’t hear is racial jokes about Norwegians anymore either. Is there a conspiracy out there?

Are the two events linked? Is this an episode of Fringe and I did not realize I was in it? What world am I in? Is Pacey Witter going to sleep with Joey Potter? Is Tom Cruise going to stay in the closet on South Park?

Will CBS figure out that Hawaii Five O is not the same with a dwarf playing Danny? If I’m really good the rest of my life will that increase my chances on getting into heaven? Will mass ever go back to being 35 minutes? Where the hell is Paoli? Is it more than a state of mind?

Is Texas for real, and if so why? How come I get more hugs and kisses from hot babes now when I’m old and fat,than I did when I was young and skinny? Is sex really better the second time? Finally if Scott Walker’s political career fell in a forest would anybody care?

Litt Dubay

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WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO WELCOMES “SIMPLY FOLK”

WITH STEPHANIE E. ELKINS

quest songs specifically to say welcome and thanks for keeping the show going.And they’ve also asked for songs to honor past hosts.This community of listeners is engaged with the show, and they’re sharing some great ideas and music.That said,the folk umbrella is very broad,and not every listener enjoys every single song.

Joyce: Steph, you are an amateur singer and guitar player with a love of renaissance, baroque and folk music, and have hosted classical music on Wisconsin Public Radio since March 2007. Tell me how you got involved in this profession.

Steph: Just like any other field I guess – so much of it depends on who you know or who you meet: I was living outside of Allentown, Pennsylvania in the mid-nineties, when a new NPR radio station was established. I happened to sing with one of the founders of the station, who asked for on-air volunteers.

To qualify for training, you had to be able to pronounce foreign words, and they also wanted to know if I could

Joyce: You are also the music announcer and co-host on The Midday with Norman Gilliland on WPR’s News and Classical Music Network, Monday through Friday at noon. On The Midday, you and Norman interview some of the world's greatest musicians and showcase Wisconsin performing ensembles. This must be very interesting and exciting. Who have been some of your more “entertaining” interviewees?

Steph: The famous flutist, Sir James Galway, came on with his wife Lady Jeanne Galway.

He has recorded over 50 CDs and appears with the best orchestras around the world.

I asked how he’d like to be addressed and he replied, “Just call me Jimmy!” Jimmy and Jeannie were loads of fun.They had brought their 14k gold flutes into the radio studio and played a duet, then he pulled out a tin whistle and played an Irish tune. It was magical. And just a few days ago, we had five cellos in the studio – that was amazing – I literally absorbed the music viscerally.

Joyce: Now, let’s talk about the new gig, Simply Folk.

Simply Folk is on Sunday evenings from 5:00 p.m.to 8:00

Wisconsin Public Radio music host Stephanie Elkins was named host and producer of Simply Folk after the recent retirement of the show’s former host,Tom MartinErickson. "Any time a beloved, longtime host leaves, there's the challenge of how to move forward...how to honor the history and traditions of the show, while allowing a new host to develop a strong hosting presence and musical point of view,” said WPR Music Director Cheryl Dring.“Because of her great love of folk music, I've asked Stephanie Elkins to host Simply Folk. We look forward to exploring the exciting possibilities ahead.”

Exactly who is Stephanie Elkins and what is this new show all about?

Well, I had the opportunity to visit with Steph and find out what this is all about.

Joyce: Hello Steph. Congratulations on the new gig. How is it going so far?

Steph: It’s been absolutely wonderful!

Joyce: Have your listening audience been receptive to you?

Steph:The Simply Folk community has been unbelievably warm and welcoming. I’ve even had listeners rew w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

play some of my own CDs because their library was so small! I auditioned and was lucky enough to get one of the on-air spots.

p.m. On Simply Folk, you play a wide range of traditional and contemporary folk music and interview Wisconsin and national performers. Tell me a little about this show.

I was just getting comfortable on the air when we moved to Wisconsin. Fortunately, Madison’s community radio station,WORT, had an opening and I started hosting a 5 to 8 a.m.show that I called Baroque for Breakfast.

Steph: Simply Folk is in its 33rd year and I’m only the fourth host in that time.The show has a long tradition of continued on page 7

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Amy Speace...

East Nashville Song-writer Releases Third Album “LAND LIKE A BIRD” AVAILABLE IN STORES ON MARCH 29TH Last September when Andy and I were in Nashville at the Americana Music Conference, we attended a showcase at The Station Inn featuring Amy Speace. I had never heard of her before or ever heard her sing,. Boy were we both impressed. Amy has a beautiful voice. Of course I went up and introduced myself and asked about a possible future interview. What better time to do the interview along with her releasing her third album,“Land Like a Bird”. Cary Baker, her publicist sent me her CD and I absolutely loved it. I would recommend this CD to anyone – it is great!

Here’s a little bio on Amy to get you up to speed, then my interview follows: Born in Baltimore and raised in small-town Pennsylvania, Speace initially had her sights set on a career as a playwright/actor, graduating from Amherst College and toured with the prestigious National Shakespeare Company. After moving to New York, she had roles in various off-Broadway productions and independent films, ran her own theater company, and taught Shakespeare in the New York City school system. After teaching herself to play guitar, she began setting her poetry to music, and quickly found songwriting to be the most creatively fulfilling thing she’d ever done. She soon began performing as half of the female duo Edith O. Speace made her solo debut with the 2002 release Fable, recorded with $5000 donated by fans and released on her own Twangirl label. Giving up her hard-won acting career to become a full-time musician, she hopped into her car and hit the road, booking herself into every club, café and college that would have her.After catching a performance at the SXSW music industry festival, Judy Collins’ manager brought Speace to the attention of Collins, who signed her to her Wildflower label. Her debut for the label, Songs For Bright Street, received warm praise from critics, including those in Europe, which has enabled her to build a strong touring base there.

Amy’s 2nd CD,“The Killer In Me” (WILDFLOWER RECORDS, 2009), found the New York-based singer/songwriter forging into a deeper, darker lyrical and musical terrain, borne largely out of relationships gone wrong, then right and wrong again.

“This is the record that I needed to make,” Speace states.“In many ways, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.And in some ways, it was the easiest.Writing the songs was emotionally difficult, deep and intense–it was kind of an exorcism. But in the end, the songs flowed pretty quickly.You write the things that you’re afraid to say out loud.”

Most of the album was written in the rural isolation of a rented cabin in the Catskills after her final separation from her husband.“It was just me, some books, my journals, my guitar and the songs, with no phone and no TV,” she explains.“I spent a lot of time reading and hiking and chopping wood for the stove, and wrote the songs that form the emotional center of this album.”“The situation,” she continues,“forced me to sit with a lot of silence, fear and confusion and make a kind of peace with them by writing songs to keep from going crazy.That’s when the album started making sense to me and became a whole different thing. Something shifted when I realized what was going on in the world outside mirrored what was going on inside of me, and I wanted to write songs that bridged that divide.”

Now Amy Speace is releasing her third album,“Land Like a Bird”. This CD was written with her life in a state of transition. Having spent many years in Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey, surrounded by concrete, taxi horns and rushing trains, Speace suddenly found herself in the South. She’d done quite well as a New Yorker: she was awarded an NPR “Song of the Day”; and she toured with Collins, Nanci Griffith and Shawn Colvin.The city’s WFUV-FM named her song “Weight of the World” the #4 Folk Song of the DECADE “But life takes its twists and turns and as much as I loved Manhattan, I felt the ending of one chapter and the beginning of another. Relief and anticipation went hand in hand with the grieving,” she says of the change.

Speace began writing Land Like a Bird as she bade farewell her Jersey City apartment with the view of the Statute of Liberty and lower Manhattan (inspiration for the song “Manila Street”). Many of the songs were goodbyes to people and places (“Had to Lose,”“Ghost,” Ron Sexsmith’s beautiful “Galbraith Street”). She brought

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these songs and unpacked them in her new East Nashville home.

The new album was produced by Neilson Hubbard (Kim Richey, Matthew Ryan, Glen Phillips, Garrison Starr) at Mr. Lemons studio in Nashville. Hubbard played bass, keyboards and vibes. Speace and Hubbard first met seven years ago while performing on an Arizona TV show and discovered their simpatico musical directions. However, they did not remain in touch.When Speace moved to Nashville last year, they were reintroduced, immediately co-wrote a song, and decided to collaborate on what would become Land Like a Bird. Kim Richey sang background vocals on “Land Like A Bird,”“Half Asleep & Wide Awake” and “Real Love Song.”

Joyce: Hi Amy. Are you in Nashville right now?

Amy: Nope, I’m actually driving home to East Nashville. I’m somewhere in Virginia.

Joyce: Amy let’s start out by you telling me a little bit about your background, growing up etc.

Amy: I don’t necessarily come from a musical family, although my family loves music.

Nobody’s a professional artist of any kind. I started playing piano by ear when I was 3 years old. I think my grandmother had a piano and I would sit down and play it.

Just like most kids, my parents put me in lessons. I played a variety of instruments, played in the high school band and orchestra. I was drawn to music so that’s just what I kind of did. I didn’t follow it as a career path at first. I started singing and playing but I wasn’t writing music. I went to college and studied English and Theatre. I was interested in being a playwright, a director or a professor. I kind of followed this strange path, I acted a lot in college. I went to New York City after college to study acting and worked with the National Shakespeare Company for a couple of years. At that time I was dating a guy in a band so I started picking up the guitar and was learning by ear. Following that breakup, I wrote about 10 songs in 2 weeks. That’s what started my songwriting career.

Joyce: Well talking about your breakup as the start of your career is a great thing to discuss today on Valentine’s Day. (we both laugh) Amy: I’m the perfect person to talk to on Valentine’s Day. If you listen to any of my records, I’m the anti Valentine’s Day girl. Oh, that’s not really true. This record is a love letter. It’s a love story.

Joyce: You moved from Manhattan to Nashville. What was this like?

Amy: I lived in Manhattan for 6 to 8 years, then I lived in Jersey. I’d been going down to Nashville, not a lot, but once in awhile. I had friends there, people I used to write with so I’d go down once in awhile for conferences and my lawyer was there.

I loved it. I never considered it a place I’d want to live. I felt like a New Yorker. w w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

Then I went through a divorce, changed my management company and they were from Nashville and it felt like things in my life were shifting. A door opened and I walked through it.

Joyce: Let’s talk about your songwriting? Where do you get your song ideas from?

Amy: Just about everything, whether a road sign or a street name, a conversation I over hear while eavesdropping. (laughs) I kind of filter that through whatever emotional problem I might be trying to solve in my own life. Then there is at least some part of me in the song. I just mesh it together. I think of my songwriting the same as play writing. It’s to tell a story. Putting together a variety, truths and fiction, all that stuff to make a story happen.

Joyce: Do you have a favorite song on this new CD? Amy: It would be between “Real Love Song” and “Ghost”.

Joyce: Any stores behind these two songs you’d like to share?

Amy: “Real Love Song” is what the record is, the endcap, the coda. I feel like that captured everything we wanted it to say and knew it would be the last song on the album. It’s a true love song.

women in the round... continued from page 5

highlighting Wisconsin artists and songs that resonate with our lives in the Upper Midwest. On any given Sunday, you might hear music about maple sugaring, sailing on the Great Lakes or something from a young Bob Dylan. We also have a long tradition of recording and rebroadcasting live concerts, giving listeners the experience of having a front row seat in Wisconsin coffee houses and concert halls.

I’ve added a couple of new voices and features: Sile Shigley joins me every third Sunday for a look at new releases, and Jeff Durkee joins me every last Sunday for an indepth look at the coming month’s calendar.

I’ve also added live interviews and performances to the show.

Joyce: What other interesting jobs have you been involved with in your radio career?

Steph: I’ve hosted several different classical music shows, and I served as WPR’s interim marketing director for over a year in 2009 and 2010. (That kept me pretty busy, because we do over 40 shows from scratch every week and broadcast over 50 channels on three different networks around the state and online.WPR is one of the oldest and largest public radio organizations in the country.)

Joyce: When and if you ever have spare time, what do you enjoy doing? I hear you dabble in photography. Do you do this on a professional basis or just for fun?

“Ghost” is inspired in part by my Grandmother’s marriage, how I’d imagine she’d feel after my grandfather died, the fact that he was such a strong presence in her life, even 50 years after his death, that I never knew him (he died when my mother was very young) but that his specter was always around and my grandmother was waiting, in a sense, to die to meet him again in heaven.

Steph: Southern Wisconsin is a beautiful place to live – it’s inspiring to all kinds of artists. I’ve done art and landscape photography professionally in the past and sold quite a few images. But right now, it seems like all my creativity is going into Simply Folk. Once things settle down a little, I hope to pick up my camera again!

Joyce: Do you play a lot in Nashville, and where do you tour?

Joyce: I also heard that you like to sit around a campfire and sing. Have you ever thought about doing a Steph Elkins CD?

Amy: I’m out touring on the road a lot. I play Nashville and I play New York 3 or 4 times a year. I play at the Bluebird Café, the Basement, other places in Nashville, but mostly I make a living on the road.

Joyce: Is music your main job?

Amy: I haven’t had another job for a few years. But I also do workshops. I teach at Rocky Mountain Folks Festival Song School and things like that. I used to work as a temp, a legal secretary, a paralegal, a bartender, a waitress, Lainie Kazan’s personal assistant, an actress. But this is all I’ve done for awhile.

Joyce: Amy, do you have any hobbies?

Amy: I love to run, do Yoga and ride my bike. I read a lot, a lot, a lot!!!!

Joyce: What are your future goals?

Amy: I’d like to keep making music as long as I can breathe.

Joyce: Well, I hope that is a very long time.

Amy: Me too, knock on wood! Yup, that’s my goal – to keep breathing.

Joyce: Any plans on coming to perform in Wisconsin?

Amy: I don’t know. I was supposed to play in Wisconsin last December, but a little thing called a blizzard happened.

Joyce: Yea, we have those once in awhile. Anything you’d like your fans to know?

Amy: Come visit me on my website and blog.

Joyce: Any advice for women going in the music business?

Amy: (laughs) You are asking me this the night after the Grammy’s. After I watched everyone in their crazy outfits. Yea, they should get a really fabulous Gold Lamay dress!!!!

Seriously, if they want to be famous and rich, be between 13 and 22 years old, get a personal trainer and a great stylist. If you want to make a life as a songwriter, write the best songs from the most honest place and play wherever you can play to hone your craft. And study great songwriters. GREAT songwriters. Like Guy Clark and Townes and Darrell Scott etc.

Joyce: Great advice Amy!!!

Thanks.Amy: Thank you.

Steph: No! My singing is just for fun right now.

Joyce: You have been very active in the community, sitting on Boards, etc. What are you currently involved within the community?

Steph: I’ve had to resign from many of the boards I was active with due to such a heavy schedule and six-day commute.That said, I’m still supporting organizations in other ways, such as emceeing events and doing public service voiceovers.

Joyce: Your husband Roy owns/operates Broadjam. Are you involved in this business with him?

Steph: Roy and I co-founded Broadjam together and I ran operations for a couple of years, but I haven’t been involved with the business for about five years now except to write or edit something here and there. It’s been a long and challenging journey,but Broadjam now hosts well over 100,000 musicians and over a half-million songs from around the world.About 80% of its members use Broadjam’s services at no charge – I’m so proud of the company’s commitment to independent musicians.

Joyce: What are some of your future goals? What will or do you hope we will be reading about Stephanie Elkins in the future?

Steph: I hope you’ll be reading about the vibrant Simply Folk community in Wisconsin –one that’s connected and supportive of independent musicians. I hope you’ll be reading about gatherings all over the state sponsored by Simply Folk that feature Wisconsin songwriters as well as national and international stars.And I hope you’ll be reading that Simply Folk listeners are making more of a difference than ever in their communities.

Joyce: Steph, before we go tell us when and where readers can find out more information about your new show, Simply Folk. The Website, etc…

Steph: Simply Folk (www.simplyfolk.org) and Simply Folk on Facebook (www.facebook.com/simplyfolk) Joyce: Thank you for your time and I wish you the best in your future endeavors. I will be tuning into your new show and hopefully so will some of our readers after they read this article. Best of luck to you!

Steph:Thanks very much, Joyce. I appreciate the opportunity and love what you and Andy are doing with the Americana Gazette! It’s an honor to be included.

Story by: Joyce Ziehli Photos supplied.

For more information about Amy Speace, check out her website @ www.amyspeace.com Story by: Joyce Ziehli Photo supplied. w w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

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The “New” Electric Blue Electric Blue, one of Southern Wisconsin’s hottest Bands just went through a major overhaul and has emerged stronger and tighter. Longtime Lead guitar player Duane Sies and keyboardist Franz Jaggi left the band on great terms in January to pursue other interests. Their original drummer Derrick Hendrickson left a year ago and the band played on with substitute drummers for much of 2010.

Needing to fill the void left by three departures, remaining members Scott Hare, Dale Freidig, and Tony DiPofi sat down and decided that what they had built was too good to let go so they went looking for new members who could play the kind of music that the three remaining members of Electric Blue wanted to pursue. Music with more of an edge and boogie to it. What they found was two of the best musicians in Southern Wisconsin, Tim Haak from Oregon on Lead Guitar and Bob Winkelman from New Glarus on drums. Both these fine players have a long pedigree of experience and class behind them.

of music that features our guitar, harp and vocals. Work away from the Classic Rock a little. You know, replace it with more driving danceable material. We plan on bringing in some original material later this year.

Hare: One thing I want to say that is unique about this outfit is for all the years we rehearsed we would say that the material was good enough and let it go at that. These guys Tim and Bob won’t let us get by just being good enough. We have to learn it right.

They are perfectionists and it has really helped us evolve into a tight better band.

Bob really keeps us focused. He uses terminology that we have never heard a band context before. (Everyone laughs) They are more than five letter words! He is especially hard on us on endings. He asked us how we were going to end a song last week and we said we’ll just look at each other. Bob then said”that’s okay for you four but all I’m seeing is your asses so how am I going to tell when your done? (Laughter erupts again) AG: Bob the first time I met you was back in the 70’s and you were playing with Midnight Flyer. Playing Marshall Tucker and Outlaws stuff. I use to go see you guys at the Church Key all the time. Who else have you played with?

Winkelman: I’ve played with Marshall Law, I was in Nighthawk for 12 years, and there are a handful of others in-between there too. I’ve been playing for 35 years!

Haak: Wow you’re old!

AG: Almost as old as Tony! Tim we know your history. I can just take that from that last interview I did with you! (Everyone laughs loudly.

Tim was in Country Twist and I did a cover story on them and they replaced him as soon as the story went to press, so he thinks I jinxed him.

He was very, very apprehensive about letting me talk to him again!)

Acutely Tim is one of the best rock guitar players in Southern Wisconsin.

He has few peers! His style is precise, cutting edge, and downright dirty when it needs to be! His speed on the fret boards is incredible. One of the hottest guitar slingers going today!

I got together with Scott, Dale,Tony, Tim, and Bob and talked about the new electric Blue and what was ahead for them this year, and to clear up the mysterious 2.

AG: Is the name of the band going to remain Electric Blue?

Hare: Yes, without the 2.

DiPofi: We don’t want to confuse anyone. We are confusing enough on our own without putting it in writing!

Hare: We used the 2 one night because we were not sure where we were going to end up as a band. I don’t like it when a band regroups and they end up not playing some of the same music and you are disappointed when you go hear them, so we did not want to do that to our fans so we added the 2 for that one show.

We’ve kept a lot of the music the same, just pushed it a little harder so keeping the name Electric Blue made sense.

AG: Let’s talk about the “new” guys here.

DiPofi: They speak for themselves!

AG: Bob Winkelman on drums, and Tim Haak on guitar. So how did you find these two? I know how you found Tim. He was standing on the corner with a sign that said will play for work! (Everyone laughs) Hare: Back in the 80’s I was in a band called the Big Ideas and Bob was the drummer.

Tim, were did we find you?

Haak: You wandered into my workplace and asked my sister if she knew of a guitar player that worked there.

Hare: Yea that’s right. I asked her if she knew a guitar player named Tim. I did not even know your last name at the time and she said,“oh my brother”.

AG: I know when you first mentioned Tim as a replacement you asked me if I would give a reference on a guitar player. I said not if he was better than me. You said he was better than both of us and then you said Tim Haak and I told you to run for the hills! laughs) I know him run!!!

AG: Are you going to keep the same music?

DiPofi: You know what we do is really driving dancing music. We play a little slow stuff, mostly blues oriented. The push for the future is to keep the best rock stuff from the past and add more up tempo boogie blues,materiel like J.Giels,Lamont Cranston,types

8

AG: So what’s the future for Electric Blue look like? Bar band or festival band?

Freidig: A little of both. We love playing bars and being close to the people. Festivals are nice though too. An even mixture of both would be perfect. We are a great beer tent band. That’s where we shine.

Haak: The cool thing is that all our heads are in the same place and going the same direction musically which is hard to do at times.

Hare: We are very fortunate to be able to play so many different kinds of music and play them well it gives us the opportunity to take a wide variety of jobs and be successful at them. It’s a true testament to the talent all these guys have.

AG: I have to say that when I saw you down at the Dam Bar for the music crawl you guys blew me away. I told Scott on a scale of one to ten you guys were a twelve! I really mean that. You guys were incredible.

DiPofi: We really try to keep everyone in the band interested in all the material. Everyone brings in three or four songs and we give them a try. The ones that work we keep the others we just put on the back burner. We want everyone to play some of the music they really love. We don’t turn anything down.

Hare: That’s not entirely true. Tony brought in an old crusty Moby Grape album and we did not go near it! (Everyone laughs loudly) DiPofi: I have not given up on that yet!

AG: How far are you guys booking out so we can let people know when you are playing and if you have dates available to book?

Hare: We are booked out a year for some dates. We are booking just a couple dates a month so we don’t burn out and it keeps it fresh. We still have some open dates some months, but it’s filling in nicely. Our first job is April 1st at the Dam Bar. Written and photos by:Andy Ziehli

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“DANSYNERGY” AT THE CHAPMAN CULTURAL CENTER Every once in awhile in this magazine I have mentioned my friend, Fayssoux McLean from Spartanburg, South Carolina. She is a talented songwriter with a beautiful voice. If you ever listen to Emmylou Harris albums, you have probably heard Fayssoux singing harmony with her.

I checked in with Fayssoux to see what she has been up to.

She has been a very, very busy lady.

What’s next for Fayssoux?

Fayssoux is always ready to try something new and different to broaden her scope and ability.After her exciting debut singing with the Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra in December,she was back to doing club dates and music venues, when Ballet Spartanburg Director Carlos Agudelo approached her about having some of her music choreographed. He had seen her perform at a Ballet Spartanburg fund raiser at Spartanburg’s Hub Bub Show Room, and suggested then that it might intriguing. When he called to confirm his interest in the project, she gave him her CD “Early” to listen to, and fellow musician Freddie Vanderford’s CD “Greasy Greens” to help with music choice. From those recordings, 6 songs made the final cut for “Dansynergy” an exciting evening of dance and ballet. With 2 more musicians Franklin Wilkie, bassman for The Marshall Tucker Band, and Kym MacKinnon, well known blues/rock guitarist, the band was complete.

Four songs from CD “Early” were chosen: “Blackest Crow”, Paul Craft’s“Walkin’ Home in the Rain”,“Amen”, and ‘Save It, Save It”.

From the CD “Greasy Greens”, songs “Lost Mind”and“She Can Cook Good Sallet”were chosen.

The first visit to ballet rehearsal was thrilling! Hearing Peter Cooper’s opening sparse guitar notes on “Blackest Crow” in that big open practice room, then seeing close up the incredible pas de deux of the sinewy lyrical dancers moving to Carlos Agudelo’s fine tuned interpretation of the song was all but overwhelming! Fayssoux and Freddie will be playing their music live onstage from an elevated platform with dancers all around them! What a huge thrill!

Information and photo provided by: Fayssoux McLean.

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CD Review Band Of Heathens ♪♪♪♪♪ Top Hat Crown & the Clapmaster’s Son BOH Records Style: Americana/Rock Two years ago I named the Band of Heathens One Foot in the Ether my favorite CD of 2009. It’s early in 2011, but I’ll have to say the Band of Heathens and their new Top Hat Crown & the Clapmaster’s Son is looking pretty good to repeat that feat!!!

These guys are incredible! The CD kicks off with Medicine Man written and sung by Gordy Quist. It is a smoking good time!!! Cool guitar licks, great piano fill on the chorus and a hook that will not let go. The video on You Tube is way too cool! Should have Known, Polaroid, and I Ain’t Running follow and bring forth fantastically good music with them. All three main writers Ed Jurdi, Colin Brooks, and Quist have matured and brought forth some excellent work here. The tight rhythm section of John Chipman and Seth Whitney has grown tighter and funkier over the last couple of years. The CD is filled with fantastic songs, great hooks, and incredible instrumentation. There is not a bad song on this CD. Producer George Reiff did a wonderful job allowing the Heathens to play the way they do best. He is a smart enough producer to stay out of the way and let the music happen naturally. The CD was recorded at Top Hat Studios and the Finishing School in AustinTX. A true Austin vibe runs deep through this music. It’s funky,smoky,tight, lose, and wild and free all at the same time.

some cheddar cheese, and hot cup of jo. So take the drive over to Fort and visit the Carpe, have a sandwich and enjoy some great music and pickup this CD. If you are lucky Bill might get up and sing a tune for you. It’s worth the trip! Hey while you are there pickup Old Bones for the ride home and desserts in the future!

Review by:Andy Ziehli

Tom Morley ♪♪♪♪ The Raven’s Wing Flying Frog Music Style: Folk During the course of his long and successful career, Tom Morley has played the fiddle just about every way you can play it. In the 1980s, while a session man in Nashville, he toured for with country singer John Anderson and won a gold record for his work on Anderson’s CD,“Wild and Blue.”Later, he became a fixture in the jazz clubs of New Orleans,and more recently,was a founding member of the Celtic group, Mithril, which has toured extensively from Alabama to Michigan.

In a back-up role, Morley has shared the stage with artists as diverse as Pete Fountain, Ray Price, and Emmylou Harris, and now he’s released his own CD, “The Raven’s Wing,” which offers an impressive display of Morley’s virtuosity.

Some of these compositions are his own, most movingly,“Georgiana Starlington Waltz,” which Morley wrote at an exit on Interstate-65. He didn’t realize until later that the exit he picked led directly to the hometown of Hank Williams, perhaps the most hallowed musical ground in Alabama.

There are also songs by old-time fiddlers Henry Reed, Bill Monroe and Sarah Armstrong, and by such contemporary artists as Liz Carroll of Chicago, Peter Ostroushko of Minnesota, and Leila Hobbs of Alabama. On this CD, Morley is backed strategically by his own all-star cast of musicians, including steel guitarist Buck Reid, now a member of Lyle Lovett’s Large Band, and accordion player Jeff Taylor, who tours with Ricky Skaggs and Elvis Costello.

This is, all in all, a diverse and powerful collection of songs, running the gamut from Irish jigs to Texas swing, with a bit of bluegrass, old-time folk, and jazz in between.All of it has been delivered and arranged by one of the unsung masters of the fiddler’s craft.As a native Midwesterner, who has spent much of his musical career in the South, Morley has absorbed a wide array of influences, and on this album, has managed to make them distinctively and beautifully his own.

Reviewed by: Frye Gaillard

Kevin Gordon ♪♪♪♪♪ Salvage & Drift, Previously Unreleased Live, Studio, and Home Recordings Vol. 1 Style Roots Rock & Americana

When they first arrived on the national scene the Heathens were compared to Little Feat and the Band. From this point forward new bands will be compared to them!!!

Take it from me, this is one CD you will, hell you must have for your collection!!!

Review by:Andy Ziehli

Bill Camplin ♪♪♪♪ Old Bones Tool Room Records Style: Americana It’s not very often that another artist hands you a CD and says you should listen to this. That is what happened and it is how I came to hear Bill Camplin’s CD Old Bones. Phil Lee handed it to me and said “I think your going to like this” and he was right! For those of you who don’t know who Camplin is, he is the Owner with his wife Kelly of the Café Carpe in Ft.Atkinson. The Carpe is one of the premier music venues still catering to folk and roots acoustic music in Wisconsin.

I heard Camplin play live at the Carpe last June with John Seager, Phil Lee, and Tom Mason. He blew me away with his song styling and picking.

This CD is a collection of covers and traditional songs. Writers like Hank Williams, Mickey Newberry, Ian Tyson, and Leon Payne adorn this collection. Backed by musicians with the chops to put new life into these songs Camplin spins an Americana journey through times and troubles. Randy Sabien, Satchel Paige, Brooks Williams, Zak Trojano, David Goodrich, Jeffery Foucault, Kris Delmhorst, and Pete Urban add their voices and musicianship to this fine CD. All the songs here are top notch tunes that will get your feet tapping and bring a smile to your face. This is a perfect after dinner CD enjoyed with a piece of homemade pie,

10

Kevin Gordon is an American Treasure! There I said it! A poet with a Master’s Degree who can write with the best of them, and then show the rest how to play. Gordon is an East Nashville musician who is awe inspiring to watch live as well as to listen to on CD. This CD is a collection of treasures that did not make his earlier releases.

Some are rough, some smooth as ice, but all Kevin Gordon!

I’ve seen Gordon play live many times and I am always blown away by his stage presence and the way he delivers a song. He is not flashy; he is consistent in playing the best songs you will ever hear. If I had to compare Gordon,I would say if you love gritty roots music ala Dave Alvin or early Springsteen you will love Gordon.

Find my way is an excellent home demo on this CD. It shows Gordon raw and dirty just him and a guitar. Pure music! My favorite cuts are Illinois 5 A.M. a live cut from a show back in October 2005, X-Country Promo a little ditty for a commercial, and City of Refuge a rollicking shuffle. This CD is filled with a treasure trove of classic roadhouse rockin tunes along with heartfelt ballads.

Gordon will probably never be at the top of the charts not because he does not have the talent, it’s because his music is way too cool for the masses to get. Straight ahead rootsy rock and roll. Nothing more nothing less. Kevin Gordon rules!!!

Review by:Andy Ziehli continued on page 18

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SUCCESSFUL FUNDRAISER FOR BELLEVILLE VOCAL MUSIC PROGRAM

On Saturday, March 5th, 2011, the Belleville High School Auditorium was filled with the sounds of music as musicians volunteered their time and talent to help raise money for the Belleville High School Vocal Music Department. The Americana Gazette sponsored the fund raiser.

Headlining the event were Peter Cooper, Eric Brace, Phil Lee,Tim Carroll and the East Nashville Review.

The evening started off with a great trio from the Edgerton area,The Bathtub Mothers.

What a delight to listen to them play their original music as well as the special treat of their rendition of the classic Irish ballad Johnny Jump Up. Next up was New Glarus resident and Belleville High School teacher Matt Belknap doing some originals that will be featured on his new CD being released on March 15th. Rob Kosmeder joined Matt on stage to do a few guitar licks. Matt was more than delighted to help out with this cause. To everyone’s delight Matt’s son Nolan helped out with vocals from his seat in the front row!

The Raindogs gave us a taste of some bluesy rock music! What a great variety of songs written by Marc Barnaby. The Rain Dogs are based out of the New Glarus area. Marc Barnaby is an amazing singer and has the “hottest” fingers on the guitar in Green County.Tony DiPofi in action reminds me of the “Blues Brothers” on tour. John Miller kept the beat on drums and Bassist Lindsay Feuling filled the hall with his great bass licks!

Amber Skies blew away the crowd with some incredible harmonies performed by Sarah and Steph Rupnow. John Fahey is always a local favorite with his smooth voice. w w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

A real treat was when drummer Matt Sarbacker sang“Fox on the Run.” Andy Ziehli was smokin’on the organ,Andrew Pulver on guitar and Rob Kosmeder on lead guitar added to their fabulous sound.

At 9:15 headlining the show and playing for the next 1 ½ hours were Peter Cooper,Eric Brace,Phil Lee,Tim Carroll,Bones Hillman and Patrick McInerney from Nashville. Many of you have heard Eric and Peter perform before here in Belleville and New Glarus.

They are such wonderful singers and songwriters. An added evening treat for everyone was the performance of Mr. Phil Lee. Phil is a wonderful talented songwriter and not a half bad comedian. He is a great performer and very entertaining to watch. Just ask anyone who attended. Tim Carroll is an extraordinary songwriter with many hits to his name as well as being one of the top guitar players in the U.S. Playing drums was Patrick McInerney who is part of Nanci Griffith’s Blue Moon Orchestra and has been for 23 years. Bones Hillman from Midnight Oil laid down the bass lines, and kept the music all together. For $10.00 it was one hell of a show.

The Americana Gazette wants to thank all the musicians for their time, the many people who helped set up and tear down equipment,the people attending the concert,the people working at the event, the Belleville High School for letting us use their auditorium, the Sugar River Bank for selling tickets, and for the special donations given by Scott & Lisa Hare of Wild Hare Foods, Chuck Biegler of Puempel’s Olde Tavern in New Glarus and Russ Bethke of the New Glarus Glarnerladen. Hats off to these fine businesses for stepping up to the plate and making these generous donations of support for this event. The Americana Gazette was able to raise $1,500.00 for the vocal music program! Thank you everyone!!!

Written by: Andy & Joyce Ziehli Photos by: Joyce Ziehli

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A PET NOTE

BARNES & NOBLE A National Bookstore?

NOPE …

Just Two Wild Little Kittens

Barnes & Noble, unique names? These are the names of the two little yellow kittens that belong to my mother-in-law and father-in-law,Rosemary and Paul Ziehli. (Rosemary is also one of our writers for this magazine.) Right after Rosemary adopted these critters, Andy and I had taken Rosemary out on an errand to Madison and she was telling me all about her cute little kitties. She informed me that when she is gone she puts them down in the lower level and shuts the door to the upstairs as they tend to get into more stuff upstairs. I was really excited to see them upon our return home from the trip. Well, when I walked Rosemary to the house and she opened the door, what do you suppose was standing on the upper floor staring at us???? Two adorable yellow fur balls!! My they looked so innocent. First words out of Rosemary’s mouth were,“What are you two doing up here?” The little stinkers somehow got the door open. Apparently they felt they needed the run of the whole house and weren’t going to be subdued to one floor! And I was very impressed with the rearranging of household items they had accomplished in such a short time. And so it began……………….

need repotting? This is usually the time I see Rosemary getting out the squirt bottle full of water giving them each a little squirt while hearing“naughty kitties”. Where one goes, the other is sure to follow. Seems like they are two peas in a pod, doing everything together. Every night around 9:00 P.M., they sit and wait for Paul to get out the laser flashlight and play laser tag with them all around the living room. They love it when he shines the beam down the hall and they chase it. I guess this is one way to wear them out so they sleep at night.

Barnes and Noble, brothers which Rosemary named after her favorite store. (Rosemary is a retired librarian, so it’s not hard to believe that Barnes & Noble is her favorite store. She is an avid reader, and she passed this wonderful trait onto my husband, Andy) The kitties were born in June of 2010, making them about 10 months old at the time of this writing. When I ask Rosemary how the kittens are doing, it’s always the same answer – they are a lot of fun, but they sure do get into a lot of mischief. Oh my they are busy!

The duo were quite similar and sometimes hard to tell apart when they were smaller.

In order to keep their identity straight, Barnes wears a red collar and Noble wears a blue collar.This is the only way I can tell them apart. Rosemary says now Noble is a bit bigger than Barnes in length and height. They are quite the pair, but I know they give much joy and entertainment to Rosemary,even though the squirt bottle still comes out on occasion!!! When you run into Rosemary on the street, ask her how Barnes & Noble are. I bet she has enough stories to write a book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Barnes is much more feisty than Noble. He really gets into a lot more mischief. One of their favorite things to do is to play in the dirt, actually having tipped over most of Rosemary’s house plants. What a mess they can make! Maybe they think the plants

Story and photos by: Joyce Ziehli

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Now I have an older cat named Mulder and on his 14th birthday I bought him a “kitty tunnel”, thinking he might enjoy playing in this. Mulder took one look at it, sniffed it and walked away. It’s not like he has an attitude? So I decided to take it over for Barnes and Noble. This was like their most favorite toy. The pair was entertained for hours on end. My niece Lexi had a grand time with the two and this tunnel on last Thanksgiving Day.

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Matraca Berg: The Dreaming Fields For a decade or more, as she pursued her career as a Hall of Fame songwriter, Matraca Berg thought she might never make another record. Or at least if she did, she finally decided, it would be the album that she wanted to make. Meanwhile, the songs kept coming, springing from a dark and complicated place, the melodies sad, the lyrics shot through with longing and loss. But she found a measure of beauty in that, a redemption of sorts as she wrote the stories of her family and her life.

There was,for example,“The Dreaming Fields,”telling the story of a Wisconsin farm that held the memories of her childhood summers, and even her teenaged loss of innocence. And there was also “Oh, Cumberland,” which began to take shape sometime early in the 1990s, when she was trying to make a record in California and was caught in the snarl of an LA Freeway.As Merle Haggard sang“Big City”on her car radio,Matraca found herself weeping from the sadness of it all, that feeling she had of being out of place and wanting simply to go back home.

Raised in Nashville, with family roots in Kentucky and Wisconsin,Berg was born to the songwriter’s life. Musicians were everywhere in her family. Her aunt, Sudie Callaway, was a successful backup singer in Nashville, and her uncle, Jim Baker, played steel guitar and ran Mel Tillis’s publishing company.And back in Kentucky, two more of her relatives – Colleida Callaway and Clara Howard – were regulars on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance. “They sang like angels,”Matraca remembers. But almost certainly it was her mother, Icie Berg, who supplied the earliest inspiration for her art. Icie was a native of Harlan County, Kentucky, “Bloody Harlan,” as it was known in history, where deadly labor strikes in the 1930s, and again in the early 1970s, had inspired a legacy of musical protest.The legendary Aunt Molly Jackson, a folk icon of the Great Depression, sang with eloquent, unmistakable rage about the brutality inflicted on Harlan County miners.

It was, however, pain of a much more personal kind that drove Matraca’s mother from the scarred hillsides of her Harlan County home. In 1964 as a pregnant teenager, she set off alone for Nashville, determined to make her mark as a singer.She never did.Instead,she took a job as a nurse and set about raising her brown-eyed daughter, who seemed early on to have the songwriter’s gift. Matraca wrote her first hit at the age of 18, and Icie wept with a mixture of gentle envy and pride. A year later she was dead,the victim of lymphoma at the age of 40,and for Matraca the pain never quite went away. It seemed, instead, to color and deepen her understanding of life, the melancholy of a young poet’s heart, and even today you can hear it in her songs. Certainly, it is there in“The Dreaming Fields,” her CD set for release this spring.This is Berg at her best – a powerful collection of Americana music, built around memories of a Wisconsin farm, and a river that flows through her home in Tennessee. “I made this record with many of my closest friends,” she says,“after being out of the recording business for nearly 13 years.This was the only way I could have done it.”

Berg has always worked closely with her friends, co-writing most of her major songs.

It was a habit that began when she met Bobby Braddock, one of Nashville’s most successful songwriters, recently inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She was just a teenager at the time, writing a few songs, often with coaching help from her mother.Through her family connections, she had met a couple of Nashville’s finest – Red Lane,who had written“Til I Get It Right”forTammy Wynette and“New Looks from an Old Lover” for B.J.Thomas; and Sonny Throckmorton, who had written for Emmylou Harris, the Oak Ridge Boys, and Jerry Lee Lewis. “I was hanging out at Tree Pubw w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

lishing,” Matraca remembers. “I felt good about going over there. We were passing the guitar around one day, and I played something and Bobby Braddock said,‘Do you know how good that is?’This was the guy who had written ‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E,’ so later that summer a group of us young writers, who followed him around like puppy dogs,were over at his house.I was playing his piano and he sat down, and together we wrote ‘Faking Love’ in about 20 minutes.

“In 1983, it went to number one for T.G. Sheppard and Karen Brooks. I was 18. I thought, ‘Oh, no, I’m not ready for this.’”

About that time, she joined a top 40 band in Louisiana –“I fell for the keyboard player,”she explains – and for the next little while she wrote what she calls“a lot of mediocre pop songs.”But then her mother got sick, and when Icie Berg died in 1984, it was, for Matraca, like losing a best friend – an “all encompassing” kind of grief that, among other things, left her with a whole different feeling about songs. “I got serious after that,” she says.“I started trying a little harder.” In 1987, Reba McEntire hit number one with Matraca’s “Last One to Know,” and over the next several years some of the biggest stars in country music –TanyaTucker,Ray Price and RandyTravis – began to turn to Berg for material.With her visibility on the rise, she cut her first album in 1990, but the release of“Lying to the Moon”ushered in a double-edged time in her career.Two singles from the record made the country charts, but her label, RCA, saw Matraca as a pop singer, and the album that followed,“The Speed of Grace,” fell into an artistic no-man’s continued on page 30

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THE BELLAMY BROTHERS STILL GOING STRONG AFTER 35 YEARS

Growing up on a little southwestern Wisconsin farm, I had the opportunity to listen to a lot of country western radio stations while helping with the milking.

One duo group I always enjoyed listening to was the Bellamy Brothers. Little did I know years from then, I would be talking and laughing with David Bellamy.

For some of you younger bucks that might not know who this pair of talented men are, I inserted some info from the Bellamy’s bio provided to me by Katrina Tsang from Absolute Publicity out of Nashville. After the bio, read all about my interesting conversation with David Bellamy.

For more than 30 years, the Bellamy Brothers have been an unassuming picture of consistency in Country music, crafting honest, heartfelt songs that connect with millions of listeners around the world. Even more remarkable is the fact that they’ve remained relevant in a genre that has become increasingly enamored with style over substance, glitz over grit, and fleeting celebrity over artistic vision. Yet Howard and David Bellamy have weathered the trends admirably, enjoying enormous success throughout their career with numerous No. 1 hits on both the Pop and Country charts.

Evidence of the Brothers’ continued popularity today isn’t hard to find. In 2009 alone,“Let Your Love Flow” received the distinguished BMI Five Million Performance Award and was listed at No. 68 on their Top 100 Songs of the Century.

It was also prominently featured in the critically acclaimed AMC television series ‘Breaking Bad.’ The ‘70s smash even broke into the Top 20 on the UK Country charts again – 33 years after it was first released!

2009 also found the duo partnering with another set of famous siblings, the Bacon Brothers. The unlikely pair teamed up in Memphis to shoot a video for the song “Guilty of the Crime,” the Brothers’ new single from their forthcoming 35-year anniversary collection,Anthology Vol. 1. It’s yet another example of the forward thinking philosophy that helped the modest brothers from Darby, Florida, make the leap to legendary performers.

Howard and David Bellamy were influenced early in their career while touring with R&B acts like Percy Sledge, Eddie Floyd and Little Anthony & the Imperials. Later, the duo benefited from the blossoming Country/Rock scene in Atlanta, Ga. After moving to the West Coast in the early ‘70s, however, the Brothers developed their own sound and scored perhaps the biggest hit of their career in 1976 with “Let Your Love Flow.” The song was a smash in both the U.S. and Europe, shooting to the top of the Pop charts and helping establish an international fan base that still eagerly awaits the Bellamys’ annual pilgrimage overseas.

The Brothers continued to produce No.1 hit after No. 1 hit in the years that followed, totaling 14 chart-topping singles in the U.S. and Europe to date. “If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body (Would You Hold It Against Me),”“Sugar Daddy,”“Dancin’ Cowboys,”“Do You Love As Good As You Look,”“Redneck Girl,”“When I’m Away From You,”“I Need More Of You,”“Old Hippie”“Kids of the Baby Boom,”“Too Much Is Not Enough,”“Crazy From the Heart,”“Santa Fe” and “I Could Be Persuaded” are just some of the Bellamys’Top Ten hits that populated the Pop/Rock and Country charts from the ‘70s into the ‘90s.

As the last decade of the millennium gathered steam, so did the Brothers’ creativity. They started their own label (Bellamy Brothers Records) in 1992, producing six independent albums throughout the ‘90s and several more for exclusive release in Europe on Jupiter Records. It was also a period that produced a record number of nominations at the CMA and ACM Awards in the Duo category since 2000 – another highlight in a career that has unmistakably influenced many of today’s most successful duo acts, including Montgomery Gentry, Big & Rich and Brooks & Dunn, to name just a few.

Today, the Bellamys’ healthy domestic and international fan base continues to allow the legendary brothers to tour around the globe at their leisure, having performed for fans and military personnel in just about every country imaginable. It’s a routine that has yet to get old for the pair.

The Bellamy Brothers’ success and longevity in the Country and Pop genres is a feat that few acts have duplicated, though one many have envied. What began as an unlikely duo from Darby, Florida has emerged 35 years later as one of the most successful and respected groups in Country music history. And they’re still going strong…

Joyce:You have been in the music business for 35 years now. How did you and Howard first get involved in the music business?

David:Well, we did come from a musical family, but it wasn’t really a traditional musical family. We grew up on a ranch, on a cattle ranch in central Florida. Our Dad did play music and raise cattle. That’s kind of how we grew up. We really didn’t know you could make a career out of music; we got lucky along the way. Hopefully we had a little bit of talent.

I wrote a song in the early 70’s for Jim Stafford called “Spiders and Snakes” and that sold 3 million copies for us. This was very fortunate for us. It kind of got us in the door and paid the rent for a little while so we could get us a record deal and get going. I moved off the ranch and lived in Los Angeles for 5 years, while we were getting things going.

That’s when we did “Let Your Love Flow”. It became a big world wide hit . That really kind of started the whole thing off.

We still live on our old ranch in Florida now. We travel so much, we’ve toured in 60 countries, so we decided to live at the ranch and be centralized to where ever we need to

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go. We never moved to Nashville or California, been at the ranch since 1979.

Joyce: Other siblings?

Joyce: Do you and Howard actually work the ranch?

David: I have an older sister, Howard is in the middle and I’m the baby. I’m the 60 year old baby. (laughs)

David: Yea,we are involved in that. We both like ranching a lot and gardening. Howard was actually a cattle buyer before we had a hit. He was a buyer for a meat packing company back when we were still playing clubs around the Southeast. We kind of grew up in that business. I learned the music business as we went along.

David: Wow, that’s the place to be!

Joyce: Which one of you does most of the writing?

Joyce: Have you had other jobs or always been a musician?

David: We do write together and separately. We do it all different ways. We really don’t have a formula. I’ve written a number of hits. Most of the songs we record are our own songs. We do record some outside songs if we run across a good one we like.

David: I have always done music. Howard had the other jobs. He tells everyone he is the more responsible one. He worked more, which is probably true.

Joyce: I’m the middle child, with four brothers.

Joyce: We will be able to read all about this in the book, right?

Joyce: Tell me about your new CD,“Anthology Volume 2” that came out in September.

Has 4 new songs on it?

David: Yea, it has 4 new songs. We wrote one together and I wrote the other two and actually Kevin Bacon wrote one of the songs. On “Anthology Volume 1” which was released in 2009, we did a duet with the Bacon Brothers, Michael and Kevin. Kevin had this song he kept playing while we were doing the video, so we cut it on the new album, the song “Strung Out”.

David: (laughing) Yea, of course. I was in my first band at 16. We played clubs, dances all over Florida and the South. We played together, Dad, Howard and me. Had a band called, Jericho for almost 2 ½ years. I worked the circuit until I was about 19. I’ve been in a band a long time. Howard says I did this to keep out of real work. The problem is I didn’t realize how much work it was to be in the music business.

I have been married twice. My wife now and I have been married 20 years and she likes going on the road with me. She handles all our merchandising. It is nice to be able to do this, because it is a whole different life.

Joyce: Where do you get your song ideas from?

David: They kind of come from all over the place. Sometimes you see something going on and it’s more than an inspiration, it’s like you’re a reporter standing back and reporting on it. Other days it’s a beautiful woman. We had a song called, “Sugar Daddy”. I actually saw a man and woman fighting over a car. This woman had a really old junker car in a parking lot in Knoxville,TN. Her boyfriend was trying to fix her car. He said to her,“What you need is a new motor in your car.” She replied, “No, I need a sugar daddy.” (we both laugh.)

Joyce: I have to ask, how did“If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body (Would You Hold It Against Me) come about?

David: I heard that line a lot of times. That line has been around since the cave man.

I heard Groucho Marx use it on a television show called “You Bet Your Life”. When I lived in Los Angeles they would show the reruns every night. I always watched it. I loved Groucho and I heard him say it one night to a contestant. I thought that’s a really good song title. I shaped it into a melody.

Joyce: How are the CD’s going over?

David: They are going great. Volume 1 & Volume 2 were released in 2009 and 2010 to go back to back for our 35th Anniversary. The 1st Volume has gone gold in Europe, it is #1 in Norway and Switzerland. It is going good in the States also. Volume 2 came out in the Fall and is starting to do well. We have our first big YouTube hit from the “Jalapenos” song. We have had over a million and a half hits in 6 months.

Joyce: Where’s the best place you ever played at?

David: We have played a lot of great jobs, mountain tops in Switzerland, the South Pacific, etc. Probably the best was a French island, New Caledonia in the South Pacific, We got all set up, it was beautiful, but no one was there. I thought oh this is going to be a bomb.

Promoter kept saying come eat, drink and people started slowly wandering in. I thought OK this will be Ok, we will play for at least a few people. Two and a half hours later, people starting emerging from their houses on the hills, and soon the place was full and the promoter said, OK – let’s start the show now. No time schedule for them, in fact they don’t have clocks there!!! It was fantastic!!!

Joyce: Thanks for rubbing that in. Here in Wisconsin we had a blizzard yesterday with 20 inches of snow, and 35 below wind chills.

David: I didn’t want to tell you, but I’m sitting by a pool for this interview. (laughs) I think we are the only place in the US without snow.

Joyce: What do you do for fun?

David: Howard has 2 catfish ponds by his place. I grab the rod’n’reel and the frying pan and off I go.

Joyce: Pretty optimistic to take the frying pan along?

Joyce: Wow! Good for you. Working on another CD? David: (laughing) I usually always catch something.

David: Actually we are working on a book right now. Hoping to put it out next year, kind of a recap of our 35 years in the business. It will talk about how we grew up and our unique families, career, etc.

( I mentioned to David about the catfish pond on Tom T. Hall’s place.)

Joyce: Are you and Howard writing this together?

David: Tom T. Hall is my hero. He is my one of my favorite songwriters of all time. I got to play golf with him one time at a celebrity tournament. It was a big treat. We even smoked some of those back woods cigars!

David: I do most of the physical writing and I call Howard my consultant. I go to his house, (we live on the same ranch so I literally drive the golf cart over) and I ask him for details on events. He’s older than me, but I think he has a better memory.

Joyce: Well, thanks so much for the interview and take care.

Joyce: Will all of these “events’ actually be printable?

David: Thank you. We will be staying busy with doing 180 shows a year and we have full lives, I have 5 sons and Howard has a daughter. We keep pretty busy. Hope to meet you someday.

David: (laughing) Yea, it will be all printable. I’ll edit those parts.

For more information on the Bellamy Brothers, visit www.bellamybrothers.com Joyce: Good thing you two get along so well.

David: Lot’s of people find this strange. We grew up where our parents left us chores to do on the ranch and those chores had better be done. We were really a close family. Always got along well.

Also the Bellamy Brothers are coming to Evansville,Wisconsin on June 4th for the Big Red’s Backyard Bash – Wounded Warrior Project! Check their website for more details!!!!

Story by: Joyce Ziehli Photos supplied.

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The Master, Rodney Crowell I don’t think anyone has influenced me as much as a songwriter than Rodney Crowell. My bands have been playing his music since 1980. We were into Rodney before Rodney was cool! His third album Rodney Crowell was loaded with songs that are still bar room staples here in Southern WI. Songs like Stars on the Water, Old Pipeliner, Shame on the Moon, and Til I gain control again. He has written hit after hit for everyone from Emmylou Harris to Waylon Jennings. A top notch producer who has produced Bobby Bare, Rosanne Cash, and countless other greats.

A true gentleman in all aspects. Best of all though is that he is sooo cool and yet sooo nice to talk with.

Joyce and I have been trying since we started the paper to get an interview with Crowell. His busy schedule kept him just out of reach for us until a month ago when all the planets lined up and I got to talk to the man himself. Crowell is the consummate professional. Nothing was out of bounds to talk about and he answered all of my questions very openly and honestly.

He has just released his memoirs Chinaberry Sidewalks. It is an excellent read about growing up in East Houston TX in the 50’s and early 60’s. It is an excellent insight on how Rodney the poor kid grew up to be Rodney the man. He hides no details of his family’s dysfunctionalism, in fact he waves it proudly and admits that it helped shape him in to the man he is today. The book is a must read for anyone who loves his music and loves a great love story. For a more visual look into this life check out You tube and there are a number of videos of Rodney describing the book and videos of songs from his last three CD’s that tell the story in pictures.

Also see Rodney’s website and check out his interviews.

I have to say that it was an enormous joy to interview Crowell. He is witty and not afraid to poke fun of himself. Below is this interview. I hope you enjoy reading it half as much as I did writing it!

AG: What’s more satisfying for you, being an author, songwriter or performer?

Crowell: The satisfaction I got from completing this book was very high. Just being able to complete it in a timely manner and having the determination to do so was good. However when you pull yourself away from the stamina part of writing the book the reviews and comments I have gotten on it make it very satisfying that I wrote it. It is all the same as an artist. Sometimes I get up and make myself a cup of tea and look out the window and say wow I’m creating again. I’ve done this my whole adult life. Writing songs, performing, writing stories I’ve really done this my whole life. Listening to other writers like Tom Waits or watching a Hal Holbrook play is just as satisfying as writing to me. I just love art! I love stories!

AG: I saw on the website during an interview where you said you started the book eight years ago, but threw it out and started all over from scratch.

Crowell: A lot of revision. I had read somewhere that great books aren’t written they are rewritten.

AG: I had read that that is how you approach your songwriting, always rewriting until its cut? Doesn’t that take a lot of stamina to do that? I write and so do many of my friends, but we don’t seem to operate that way. Usually a song is finished pretty early for us.

Crowell: When I’m done I’m done. There are songs that have just blasted through me like that. Yet there are songs that I wrote in 1979 that were hits that I still dapple with and change now. Honestly.

I know when I got it right. Some are just more stubborn than others. After writing this book I realized that I have what it takes to do this the rest of my life. When I was younger I wanted to do this forever, but it took a while to figure that I could do it forever.

I’m glad I get to because I love it!

AG: Was growing up poor an advantage to becoming the man that you have grown into?

Crowell: Absolutely! I’ve had some people who read the book say“God you had a tough childhood”and I say I did not think or look at it that way. It was just the way things were. It was the perfect thing for me. It was like I beamed into this nuthouse, but it was the perfect nuthouse for me. I think the people around me were absolutely gorgeous. They were crazy and so was I. It just worked out. What a blessing it was. To think anything else I would have missed the opportunity to be myself.

AG: Being a songwriter as long as you have been, is it hard to become inspired compared to what it was like 30 years ago when you started out?

Crowell: Well 30 years ago the brand of inspiration you got was a young man’s inspiration. Those earlier songs were about the times and life I was living. The inspiration was so pure I could not screw it up! Now when I get that blast of inspiration I’m better at capturing it and recording it in a mature way, with a different set of eyes. It doesn’t mean that the inspirations not as pure as it was when I was 22, 25, or 28 it just means that I have a load of experience to bring with it today to help move it along.

AG: You have been a record producer in the past. Was it hard for you to step aside and let someone else produce your records of late?

Crowell: Hell no!!! (He laughs) It was the best thing I ever did in my life! I should be taken out and flogged for even thinking I could or should produce records! Somebody should have taken me out behind the barn and beaten me with a belt for producing my own records all those years!

It was so easy with Joe Henry producing this last record. I got to be the songwriter and guitar player. It was the best experience I

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had in music. It was like “hell why didn’t I know this before?” Brian Ahern produced my first record.Then I got talked into producing my second. I produced Rosanne’s record then it just took off from there. So I fancied myself a producer. I guess I’m okay at it. I can do it and people seem to like the results. Sometimes I’m good at it. I got seduced into believing that I could produce. Some stuff turned out pretty darn good.

AG: You are a very good producer!

The wealth of material you have done speaks volumes of your talent and ability in that role. Your work stands tall over the test of time. The Bobby Bare album you produced is one of my favorite albums of all time both as a collection of songs and the production of the record.

Crowell: Well thank you. I’m glad that you say that. That record has to be one of my favorite records I ever produced. Bobby is so good to work with. It was a blast.

AG: In the late 80’s and early 90’s you and your buddies were kind of the Kings of Nashville. You were all over the airwaves playing on all these records, what was it like back then?

Crowell: I guess it was okay. I wasn’t having as much fun as I am having now.

Lately I’ve been having a blast, specially the last 12 years or so! The late 80’s were not so much fun for me. It was just the time of life I guess. There was a lot of stuff happening, not all good and fun. It took awhile to resolve some of the stuff that happened back then, and to be able to move on gracefully. I wasn’t enjoying it as much as people thought I was.

cessity because I had to start making better choices in my life! My whole strategy is that I just need to be smarter!

AG: Your style of writing is very cerebral in a good way! You write material people can understand and relate to, is that a conscious way to write or does it just happen?

Crowell: I don’t know if I like the cerebral handle on my writing (laughs)! I’m on record for saying that I don’t think the brain is an aid to songwriting. It’s a pretty good editing tool. I think the engine for all good story telling is the heart. So if I’m coming off cerebral I need to work on my art more!

AG: When I say cerebral I don’t mean at a PhD. Level. I mean that you are able to turn phrase, set the hooks, and lay the story right out there for everyone to understand. You are not a June, Moon, Spoon songwriter. Your material is much more heartfelt and easier to relate to than other songwriters.You have intelligence to your writing. It makes you think!

Crowell: Thank you! I like that description much better! That’s a good answer!

You think with your heart! Make’um think with their hearts! I like that! That’s my new motto! (laughs) AG: If you could let people know anything about you that they don’t know, what would that be?

Crowell: I want them to know that I’m funny! My wife says that I’m pretty funny. My children would say that I’m crazy! I think I have a great sense of humor, especially in a relaxed atmosphere. I come from a long line of people who once the craziness settles down we look for what is funny. In my book I touch on that a lot. I choose to tell dark stories with a touch of humor to them.

Hey humor is all we got so we might as well use and enjoy it!

AG: Well today you have a different perspective on it.

Crowell: Yea. I enjoy the work a lot more now. I don’t have to prove myself to anyone but myself anymore.

AG: You always have a talent for finding super musicians to play with, Michael Rhodes, Stuart Smith,Vince Gill. How do you continue to do that? Do you think it’s because of who you are and what you do, that that kind of talent searches you out?

Crowell: I think that it goes back to being a member of the original Hot Band. That was such a souped up version of any band. Albert, James Emory the whole bunch was so damn good! Just being association with players like that helped. The die was cast for that kind of sensibility. When I first met Stuart he was in a New York studio. He wore me out just watching him tune up his guitar. I looked at him for about three seconds and walked over to him and said “you and I are going to make a lot of music together!”, and we still are. I’ve just learned to spot them!

AG: What songwriter today do you find interesting and maybe even inspiring? Are there any of the new songwriters around today that maybe inspire you to write more?

Crowell: Hank Williams, Lightning Hopkins,Tom Waits, and Bob Dylan (he laughs) the same ones that were inspiring me 50 years ago. I don’t think anyone has made it sound as natural as Hank Williams, as beautiful as Tom Waits, as intelligent as Dylan, or as out there raw as Lightning Hopkins or Chuck Barry! Roger Miller, Guy Clark,Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, they were and are masters. I have not heard anything from the new crop of songwriters that can match Guy Clark yet. If they had I would be bowing at their feet. It goes back to the beginning with Hank and Lightning for me.

AG: Do you ever imagine that you would have accomplished as much as you have when you first left Texas to strike out as a performer?

Crowell: No you don’t when you are trying to figure out just to take the next step. The career strategy did not happen until I was a 50 year old man.That happens out of new w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

AG: What’s the legacy you would like to be remembered for by people in 100 years from now?

Crowell: I guess I hope my legacy is that my passion for creating true art outweighed my ego needs. Just that I was an artist.

AG: What’s the best gig you ever played and what’s the worst gig you ever played?

Crowell: The best gig? There are so many! Actually it was a fundraiser in Mauro Bay California for Sterling Ball’s foundation in honor of his daughter.It was the first one they ever had. It was Steve Lukather, John Ferrer, Jim Cox, Sterling, and some others. The people were literally dancing on the table tops! We were just jamming! The Casey Lee Ball Foundation has raised over $, 9,000,000.00 so far for Kidney research, but this was the first and there were only about 150 people there having a hoot!

The worst would have to be one we played in Aspen CO. in the off season to eight people. It was not a bad gig just a very, very low turnout. My trio and I put on one of the best shows we ever did; it was just not well attended! (Laughs) It was heartbreaking to play to such a small crowd,but we played our asses off and those eight folks got their money’s worth! So big time Aspen folks you missed a great show!!!

Written by:Andy Ziehli Photos furnished.

Front cover:Alan Messer

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Tim Carroll,

cd review... continued from page 10

Susan Werner ♪♪♪♪♪ Kicking the Beehive Sleeve Dog Records Style Americana

The Kind of Musician I wish I was.

Joyce gave me this CD to review, which is odd because usually when she gets one she loves I have to pull it out of her car when she is not around! She fell in love with Kicking the Beehive and you will too. Produced by Rodney Crowell this is one hell of a collection of fantastically written and recorded tunes. Hey I love it too!!! With great musicians like Keb Mo, Stuart Smith, Paul Franklin, and Vince Gill helping you out how can you loose?

The CD kicks off with a great little uplifting title cut Kicking the Beehive which really sets the tone for this CD. It is a finely crafted CD with Werner herself providing some of the best instrumentation herself playing piano, acoustic guitar, and vocals. The song My Different Son is a moving written song about Autism which is a very touching song.

It is not a tear jerker; it is a song of hope.The song Red Dress has fun written all over it. It is a rockling goodtime tune with that classic Crowell shuffle guitar on it.

This CD is an excellent example of a project that really works when you get the right artist with the right producer. Crowell does not have to prove to anyone that he can produce records so he stays out of the way and lets Werner do her thing, and she does it well. I hope you will search this CD out and get a copy. It’s that good!!! Not heavy, just right for spring. A fresh voice in a new season, Susan Werner is a name to watch for in the future. She’s that good!!!

Review by: Andy Ziehli

Paul Thorn ♪♪♪♪♪ Pimps and Preachers Perpetual Obscurity Records Style Style Americana/ Blues

Sometimes when you listen to as much music as I do both for pleasure and for review you forget about how good someone really is as a musician, performer, writer, picker, and as a person when they are out of the spotlight and playing in a supporting role.

That dawned on me this past weekend when the boys from East Nashville came to town and played at Puempel’s in New Glarus and at a fundraiser in Belleville. Not taking anything away from Peter, Eric, Phil, Bones, or Pat as musicians or as great people, but I remembered why I love Tim Carroll and his music and guitar playing besides being one of the nicest folks I know!

Carroll does not need to take a back seat to anyone in his guitar playing, songwriting, or performing but continually does so to make his friends and his wife Elizabeth Cook sound so damn good! A class act guy and musician Carroll is the perfect addition to any ensemble. He picks, he sings, he arranges, he directs, and he stays out of the way when others are performing only stepping forward when prodded to do so. There are a lot of hot shot guitar players out there but few as classy as Carroll!

Carroll is a top notch songwriter and recording artist on his own with seven CD’s to his name and numerous cuts on others records including John Prine. He led the great New York Punk Country band the Blue Chieftains in the early 90’s. He is an in demand session player and has played on the Grand Old Opry. He has also played all over the world, and best of all he is married to one of the coolest Americana singers today Elizabeth Cook! The boys got game!!!

What I like most about Carroll is he is a super guy! The kind of person you want in your band! The kind of guy you want to hang with! After hearing him play some of his songs this past weekend I dug out my Tim Carroll CD’s and gave them all a spin. It was pure joy to my ears again! Carroll’s songwriting is witty and fresh. His guitar playing inspiring, and his vocals refreshing. How can you not love songs like I want a girl that’s hip, Punk Rock Honkey Tonk Girl, If I could then I would, I think Hank woulda done it this way, and Every kind of music but country! So if you love good Country Music with a rough edge and funky twang get on over to Amazon and check out his CD’s and Mp3 downloads. Carroll’s music is a treasure that needs to see the light of day and should be played loud and clear for all to hear!

Paul Thorn has been around for a few years and released some great records. This is my first taste of his work and I have to say I’m impressed. Pimps and Preachers is a Sultry Southern Gothic tale kin to a Faulkner Novel set to music. Greasy guitars, wurly Hammond Organ, slide guitar like a razor cutting through steel, and the smoothest smoky backwater vocals you will ever hear.

Thorn is a master writer and knows how to get to the heart of the listener quickly. He hooks you and reels you in fast! The CD starts off with a killer tune You’re not the only one, a song about everyday life that everyone can relate to. Pimps and Preachers is a very, very cool tune laced with tremolo guitars and Hammond Organ from hell! Love Scar is a really nice ballad with a nice chord pattern and hook. My three favorite songs areYou might be wrong,I Hope I’m doing this right and I don’t like half the folks I love.

These three tunes are well written fantastically good songs. The message of you might be wrong is one everyone can relate to. I hope I’m doing it right is a redemption song and there is nothing wrong with hearing one of those these days. I don’t like half the folks I love is one of my favorite songs of all time. Take a listen and you’ll soon find yourself agreeing to every word.

Thorn is a fantastic songwriter and deserves a much bigger following. Hopefully this CD will give him that. If it was up to me this CD would be blaring from every speaker in America!!!

Review by:Andy Ziehli

Yea I wish I had the class, musicianship, talent, and twang factor Tim Carroll has! But just knowing the man and calling him my friend is pretty cool too!!!

Written by:Andy Ziehl

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Two Great American Icons Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood Captain Kangaroo It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.The beginning lines of a song written by one of the most beloved man in the history of Television. Mr. Fred Rogers. He is the man who created and hosted the Mister Roger’s Neighborhood TV show for children.The show ran from 1968 to 2001. There were a total of 895 episodes. Anyone who watched TV either as a child or a parent will remember this man. He actually got into TV because he hated it. He wanted to show that there was a better way of using this form of instruction and entertainment for children.

Mr. Rogers began his show each time with coming in the house, changing into sneakers and a cardigan sweater. He would always have a down to earth conversation with his television audience.That was one of his attributes. He always talked to his audience as an adult. He reminded each and every one of us watching that we made each day special just by being ourselves just as his grandfather told him when he was growing up.

If you remember,each episode included a trip on the trolley that would take you to Mr. Rogers “Neighborhood of Make Believe.” You would meet such characters as King Friday XIII, and Queen Sara.

Queen Sara is named after Sara his wife. Sometimes on his show Mr. Rogers would feed his fish. They were named Fennel and Frieda. I remember this because my grandmother’s name is Frieda.

Some interesting facts that I learned about Mr. Rogers are that for the last 30 years of his life he weighed 143 pounds. He came to see that number as a gift. He said that 143 stood for I Love You. It takes one letter to I – four letters in LOVE, and three letters to say YOU. Put them together and you get 143.

I also learned that all the sweaters that he wore on his show were hand knit by his mother, and that Mr. McFeely, the postman on his show, was patterned after his grandfather McFeely.Who was a great influence on his life. Fred Rogers’s middle name was McFeely his mother’s maiden name. Mr. Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister. He wrote all the songs performed on his show.There were over two hundred of them in the shows lifetime.

He was honored with the George Foster Peabody Award in recognition of 25 years of “beautiful days in the neighborhood” in 1987 and among his prestigious awards is the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002 by President George W. Bush for his contributions to children’s education. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in1999.

One of his sweaters was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution which has it on display as a “Treasure of American History” Fred Mcfeely Rogers died of stomach cancer on February 27,2003 at his home with his wife by his side.

The Man with the Big Pockets Captain Kangaroo made his entrance to the Treasure House for the first time on October 3, 1955. A white haired man with a black coat with big pockets to hold many things. His real name was Bob Keeshan and he was not really an old man with white hair. He was twenty-eight years old.The show was based on the warm relationship between grandparents and children.”

Capt. Kangaroo was a big hit in our family. He had high standards for the show he created and was very adamant about the commercials that were presented during the time the show was on the air. He stood fast on any commercials that were inappropriate for children. He had very high morals. He introduced us to many characters that entertained and taught the right thing. It was in the treasure house that the Capt. would tell stories, meet guests and participate in silly stunts and antics.

Remember Mr. Moose and Bunny Rabbit? Each time that a joke was told golf balls w w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

would rain down on the Capt.’s head. Mr. Moose and Bunny Rabbit were both puppets. His friend Mr.Green Jeans,who was a farmer on the show, would bring in live animals and tell kids in a way they could understand, why it was so important to be good stewards of the land.

A cartoon character was introduced by the name of Tom Terrific.Tom wore a funnel on his head for a cap and from time to time steam would escape from the funnel. He could change shape into anything he wanted and did so from time to time to save his dog Mighty Manfred from the villain Crabby Appleton.

Some times the Capt. had guests visit to entertain or instruct in some project of interest.The Capt. stressed putting your kids on your lap and reading to them.A favorite story at our house was Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.

It was also one read by the Capt.Captain Kangaroo’s show ran from Oct.3,1955 to Dec. 8, 1984, making it the longest running TV program of its day. Mr. Green Jeans died in 1997,The Capt. Died in 2004.

These shows taught kids to be kind to animals, good manners, and show respect for others.These men were true spirits of Americana who helped make every day a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Written by: Rosemary Ziehli

WELCOME GUS KILLE

Last time we featured a picture of Beth Kille in the Americana Gazette, she was very much pregnant!!!! Madison singer-songwriter Beth Kille and her husband Tony welcomed their first child into the world on February 17th. Gustaf Robert Kille was born at 6:35 P.M.at 7lbs 7oz and was 18 inches long. Mom, Dad & their dog, Buddy love having little Gus around and are doing great despite their sleep deprivation.

We wish them all the best. Congratulations!!!

Americana Gazette Staff

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SUSAN WERNER SINGER-SONGWRITER FROM THE WINDY CITY RELEASES NEW CD – KICKING THE BEEHIVE - MARCH 1, 2011

Alisse Kingsley of Muse Media out of Los Angeles, California sent me this terrific new CD,“Kicking the Beehive” by Susan Werner. Kicking the Beehive is an 11-song collection of provocative, poignant, lyrical originals that are infused with the rustic roots of American folk, blues and country music. Produced by Rodney Crowell, recorded in Nashville and featuring such all star-guests as Vince Gill, Keb' Mo' and Paul Franklin, Kicking the Beehive is a personal project where Werner intuitively explorers the full impact of looking beyond the superficial and delving into soulful honesty.

After listening to this just once, I contacted Alisse top see if I could have an interview with Susan. I have gathered some information from Susan Werner’s bio off her website just to give you a little taste of what she is all about. Then I did have the opportunity to speak with Susan as well. Please read on.

Susan Werner made her first public performance at age five, playing guitar and singing at church. She began playing piano when she was 11, and after earning a degree in voice from the University of Iowa, she completed her graduate studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, where she performed in recitals and operas. While she'll still on occasion perform "Madame Butterfly" to close any one of the 125 club dates she does annually throughout the U.S. and Canada, she opted to forgo a career as an opera singer and dedicated herself to songwriting, performing at coffeehouses from Washington D.C. to Boston.

Werner launched her recording career with the self-released Midwestern Saturday Night in 1992, which was followed by Live At Tin Angel in 1993.The second album impressed executives at Private Music/BMG,which released her major label debut Last Of The Good Straight Girls in 1995. She also received critical accolades for her subsequent recordings Time Between Trains (VelVel, 1998) and New Non-Fiction (Indie, 2001). She has toured the nation with acts such as Richard Thomson, Keb Mo and Joan Armatrading, and was featured in a 1998 Peter, Paul and Mary PBS television special as one of the best of the next generation of folk songwriters.

Over the course of her colorful career, singer songwriter Susan Werner has cultivated a reputation as a daring and innovative songwriter with a killer live show. She boldly endeavors to weave old with new to create altogether new genres of music when existing ones do not suit her muse,and she regularly keeps audiences guessing and laugh-

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ing simultaneously. Most of her work infuses traditional music styles and methods with her unmistakable contemporary worldview, constantly challenging listeners to experience music from a fresh and unexpected perspective.

In her 2004 release I Can't Be New, she delivered her modern contribution to the Great American Songbook by writing originals in the style of Gershwin and Cole Porter, but from a present-day woman’s point of view. It was for her work on this album that The Chicago Tribune called her "the most innovative songwriter working today." The album went to #1 on Amazon.com, the song "I Can't Be New" was included in iTunes Cabaret Essentials and Werner appeared on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz and A&E's Breakfast With The Arts.

In 2007, she blended faith and doubt in her "agnostic gospel" recordThe GospelTruth - a collection of original songs drawing on gospel music traditions from Folk/Bluegrass to Americana to R&B/Soul/Spiritual, and presenting lyrics that have been praised by religious believers and non-believers alike across the country. The Gospel Truth was named 2007 Top Folk Album of the Year by NPR/Folk Alley and WUMB, and Susan Werner was named Best Contemporary Folk Artist at the 2008 International Folk Alliance music conference.

Joyce: Hi Susan. I listened to your new CD and absolutely loved it.

Susan: Thank you. By the way I am playing in Madison on Friday,April 1st at the Brink Lounge.

Joyce: Wow, this is very close to me. I’ll be there! This CD was produced by Rodney Crowell. I wanted you to know that Rodney is our Cover Story this month.

Susan: Rodney is a great guy, great artist, the real deal. Part of what makes an artist is talent, physical talent and the other thing that makes an artist great is the amount of feelings and humanity that’s in their work. By that measure, Rodney should be in the Hall of Fame. He’s just exceptional. Rodney really cares about everything you do.

Joyce: Susan, where are you at right at this moment? continued on page 29

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MASTERCLASS - Life for some after Good'N'Loud At 5:15pm on a Wednesday in February, we pulled up in front of Good 'N' Loud Music on University Avenue.The windows were covered with 'store closing' signs now barely holding fortress around the rich history of decades. I was a guest, not familiar, but flooded as we headed downstairs to the practice rooms, with the relentless stench of passion.You might say that's just the end-of-the-day smell of adolescence, but one brief hour told me more... I had invited myself to the guitar lesson of 13-year old Patrick Desmond, an 8th grader from Verona. The lesson was given by 42-year old Peter Piwonski, originally of Shelby, Michigan. Patrick, at 13, has managed to make a world for himself in this age of technology which is based in reverent reference to THE fabulous four.

Peter, having transplanted himself from Shelby three years ago, is now the chief driver of MASTERCLASS- an organized chance for his and other guitar students to present their talents as professional musicians do- on stage, usually at high noon at High Noon Saloon on an occasional Sunday.Youngsters, teen-agers, mostly, from both Good 'N' Loud locations gather before their audience of loved ones for a recital of sorts- a recital grounded in the true kind of genuine that can only come with "playing out" in a tavern. A special genuine benefitting both the recital-givers and receivers alike.

Peter warms Patrick up with 'Let it Be' ("ahhhh, published 41 years ago.." Patrick says, "2 years after you were born, Peter" whose 43rd birthday will be this month). Patrick marks the chord, sways with his head: easy; thoughtful; finally as a teen-ager, comfortable. Peter strums the beat for him, calling out the parts the teacher has broken into numbered sections for pupil- Patrick plays the solo while he does. Without looking up from his fret work, Patrick makes a reference to his fingers bleeding. They both depart the Beatles and break into Bryan Adams' SUMMER OF '69. Patrick lets Peter know he's in the wrong key- he can do that- identifies musical keys correctly by ear. Burdened is this kid by this skill, limited only by whatever his own original reference to a tune is; in this case, the movie OLD DOGS, as if everyone shares this reference. Peter's grin spills past Patrick to me. "Funest half hour of my week."

Peter patiently allows Patrick a detour or two from focus, but not until Patrick hits every chord correctly in KRYPTONITE even if out of time, does Peter invite him to pull out his IPod and play along. Then, finally, we shared a visit. Two generations, some similar perspectives.

AM:What is your current gig?

PD: I'm in the process of developing one, but looking forward to starting a band next year when I get to high school.

PP: I have two gigs, actually. I'm about to open Music Makers Studio on March 1st. I'll be teaching, there will be a song-writer's class, we'll sell stuff the kids will need and we'll do repairs.The other is, I work as a therapist for kids with autism. I'm lucky, I have the two best jobs in the world.

AM: How long have you been doing what you are doing?

PD: I have been taking lessons from Peter since June of 2009 , so 1 year and 7- no 8 months.

PP:Well this store is just about to open, but I did that in Michigan, too.And I've been a therapist for two years.Teaching moved me here, the therapist gig came later.

AM:Who or what is the influence you hold responsible for helping you into music?

PD:Well two people in the same band, and one from another: John Lennon and George Harrison of the Beatles, and Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day PP:My uncles.They were in old Italian wedding bands.They'd sit me down at the piano or with the guitar and say "play!" You don't say no to Italian uncles. I might have been, eight.

AM: Did it come naturally to you?

PP It did, it came naturally, but through a lot of work, I practiced everyday.

AM:What's the thing that scares you the most?

PD:You mean other than my parents? (He hadn't missed a beat, consummate professional) Well, I'm claustrophobic, like, if I was at the water park on a tube ride, I might be worried that like if water filled the tube,you know,I uh,might not be able to breathe or something.

PP: Justin Beiber. (We laughed for quite a while) Or not being successful, but mostly Justin Beiber.

AM: If you hadn't made the right hand turn into music, what would the left hand turn have looked like for you?

PD: If not guitar, then probably I'd be playing more tuba. If not music, then I'd probably own my own business,with say,someone in their forties,with a goatee, and longish brown hair, who teaches guitar...(he looked hopefully at Peter, who chimed in with 'you never know, maybe I'd hand over the reigns to you') PP:Wow, all I've ever done is music- like I said, I've got the two best jobs in the world, teaching and being a therapist. w w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

Needle Drop Before you even get to that, you'd rifle through the cardboard vinyl album covers with their distinct smell, right? All the albums at our house have a damp, basement-y smell.

Then there's the bright bold imagery that takes you instantly back to wherever you were in life when that image (red lipstick on the candy-o cover) became ingrained on your mind.There is a tension that builds between the wash of relieving familiarity and the history since younger days...choose it. Pull out the smooth vinyl disk with its civilized grooves,too many rings to count fast signaling plenty.Spin the turntable and drop the needle and you hear what? Static.Clear,somehow,making its eloquent introduction of whatever you chose to listen to.That recording won't be punctuated by iPod clicks; won't be riddled with the repeating skips of a scratched CD fallen under your car seat too many times; won't sound all mono and boomboxish like a cassette tape needing to be flipped for the B sides, no. No matter how many times you've listened those moments between the static and the first note or drumbeat of your selection never fail to deliver an anticipation so sweet it can only be quenched by the full stereo sound of that chrysalis reading the grooves in the vinyl. Its so simple, first comes the static, then the groove of the sound takes over.That's just like everything in life isn't it? First comes the static, then you gotta groove.

Read more from Anne Miller at her website: takeascavengerhunt.com Written by: Anne Miller

AM:What's on your favorite T-shirt?

PD: (He thinks for a while, I can see him sorting through all of them in his mind) It's black, with a stick figure on it playing guitar, with "I ROCK" at the bottom.

PP:Well I do love the Green Bay Packers...but probably the one with Mickey Mouse rapping on it.

AM:What's the best place in the world you've ever been?

PD: (Yes, the 13-year old) You mean other than a strip club? (Funest half hour of my week, too.) Actually, probably, home. Because that's where your family is, that's where you are the most accepted, you know everyone there, it's...comfortable.

PP: He was grinning, generous and proud at the same time, also reverent) Same thing, he's right, home.

AM:What's the best place you ever played?

PD:Well, High Noon.

PP: I opened for The Romantics at Freedom Hill, that was fun. (Me, thinking, finally, a reference to an experience only we 40-somethings will share, until my high school memories were interrupted by the 13-year old again) PD:You opened for The Romantics? Awwwwesome! (Music is the universal language) AM: If you could jam with one great, living or dead, who would it be?

PD:Well,The Beatles, of course, or Billie Joe from Green Day PP:My uncles,for sure.It's been about 15 years since I have,or,my brother Arthur,who plays the drums.

Peter and Patrick posed for a picture when our time was finished. Peter carries on his teaching and MASTERCLASS through his new/continuing venture at MUSIC MAKERS STUDIO at 6692 University Avenue,Middleton,WI.53562. I'm so grateful to them both for their generosity.

Read more from Anne Miller at her website: takeascavengehunt.com Written by: Anne Miller

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Sitting In The Drivers Seat As the blue and white Chevy crossed the finish line at the season closer for NASCAR in 2010 something very special happened. Jimmy Johnson was holding the championship trophy for the fifth time. This was a history making moment. If you are a NASCAR fan you are well aware of the ups and downs that racing team had last year.

Jimmy’s pit crew appeared to have lost its edge and was creating position losing pit stops for him race after race. I secretly began to wonder if someone on that pit crew had it out for him or was being influenced to reduce his performance just enough to allow another team to win. Jimmy overcame again and again the setbacks that were given him. He kept things steady behind the wheel and took a good team to great heights.

The other day I was pouring espresso shots for the bunch of folks who were gathered at the Fat Cat Coffee Works in New Glarus and the topic of discussion turned to drummers and the inevitable drummer jokes. “How can you tell if the drum riser is level?

The drool comes equally out both sides of the drummer’s mouth”. Ha ha. “What do you call a drummer without a girlfriend? Homeless”. (See previous Ha ha) From behind the counter I could feel the steam coming out of my collar matching the steam coming from the stainless steel wand used to aerate the milk in the making of a latte.

Why does the musical and non musical community feel so free taking pot shots at the drummer? Who was the first to say,“That band is four musicians and a drummer”?

What gives?

As you more than likely have guessed by now, I am a drummer. I have been a drummer all of my life. I vividly recall being placed on a thick gray padded blanket with a plastic container in front of me. In front of that was a thin pie plate nailed to a stick on a small wooden base. I had two Lincoln logs in my chubby little fists. I was creating my first of many drumming experiences.

What is it about drumming that has the general public thinking that we are not musicians? Is it because we do not play notes? (We do.) Is it because we do not play melody? (We do.) Is it because you “can’t” sing a drum fill? (You can.) Is it because there is not a minor chord to make you feel sad in our playing? (listen to my new special effect cymbal and feel the longing.) Or is it because it was John and Paul who wrote all the cool songs,not Ringo.

I was offended by the comments so easily shared as jokes by this group of musicians and non musicians in the coffee shop that day. While I understand the humor and a good joke is a good joke, I found it intolerable that this drum prejudice is still out there. Heaven forbid if you are a female drummer as then it’s a double whammy.

In 1980 four men in Athens, Georgia, decided to join forces and create one of the most influential modern rock bands of our time: REM. The records that began as jittery and mumbled efforts quickly evolved into ground breaking new sounds and songs. REM went from Indie darlings to major label champions without losing their religion. Then in the fall of 1997 it all changed. Drummer Bill Berry decided to step out of the band as the direction they were heading was to include drum loops and percus-

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sive experiments. With Bill no longer providing the heartbeat for REM the band came very close to disbanding. The records that were released after Bill’s departure made one thing perfectly clear.

While Michael had the odd look and the interesting vocal style and Peter provided jangly guitar sounds, it was Bill’s drumming that made REM what it was. The music the three remaining members have created has been interesting but never as great as when Bill was driving the band. Most people might not even know that there was a change in the members of the band but would just say, “You know after NEW ADVENTURES IN HI-FI I just did not like the band as much any more”. Bill was the “feel” of the band. Bill is what made REM great.

I am not in any way attempting to loft myself to the same accomplishments as Bill Berry nor to his contributions to modern music.

I am a self taught drummer. Rhythm is not something I needed to learn as it was always as close to me as my next breath. I hear rhythm in everything. The pinging of the tires as they roll down the highway provide the drum track to your adventure. When you engage your turn signal the very erratic rhythm sound from your tires turns into a skilled drum corps snare drummer giving perfect quarter notes in perfect time. When I am filling my car up with fuel I know the rhythm of the different gas pumps around town. They all are different and evoke a different emotion from me. Sure, there are drummers out there playing who should not be playing. Just like in any walk of life there are those who have it and those who don’t. The “it” is just that very special something that takes everything that rests upon it (all other musical structure) and lifts it. Great drumming is not defined by what is done but by how good what is done feels.

I had a very rewarding moment last evening. No, they finally did not get the drum riser level, or I did not find a companion to provide housing for me.

The lead singer of the band I am currently working with turned to me after our version of “Crazy” and said,“I loved that little double part you did in the middle”. I play a very simple cross-stick click with a brush providing the pulse on the snare drum only. She was listening and could feel the difference in the two parts. The people dancing more than likely did not notice, but you know what? They were dancing. That meant I was doing my job well. The fact that Briana noticed and commented told me she was aware of what a drummer is to a band. I was floored and deeply moved. She was actually listening to and feeling my effort. That sort of thing does not happen to drummers very often.

There is something that is often quietly said in musical circles. I wish to say it rather loudly here.

1 - A great band with a sub-par drummer is ordinary.

2 - A good band with a great drummer is amazing.

The drummer like so many other roles in life is not appreciated until something goes wrong. How many times do you think of your plumber when you turn on your kitchen faucet? Never until it is squirting water everywhere. Switch out a drummer in a band and it will either soar or come apart at the seams. No other member change effects a band as much as a change of the guy in the driver’s seat.

If you are the parent of a lad who has expressed interest in becoming a drummer, hear me. He or she will be the reason whatever musical endeavor they decide to associate with either is brilliant or ho-hum. Please do not say that they should consider another instrument to be considered a respectable musician. Sure it will be noisy in your home for a while as they figure it all out. Let me tell you, my exploratory banging was better than my sister’s bad French horn notes any day of the week. The drummer provides the heartbeat of the band or orchestra. It is the thing that creates the most emotion in music.

Pay attention the next time you are listening to music that you enjoy. I bet that if you honestly stop and consider what it is that makes you feel so good (or whatever emotion your music provides) you will realize it is the rhythm that is speaking.

So to the guys in the coffee shop, go ahead and poke fun.

Go ahead and yuck it up. Pick up your guitar or sit at your keyboard with someone who has a passion for making great music in the drum chair and he or she will make you sound pretty darn good.

Written by: Jim Smith w w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

FOUR OF A KIND

Part 2

In the last issue of the AMERICANA GAZETTE I began a story of memories about four pretty remarkable women that I knew. In part one I wrote about my Grandmother Grace and my neighbor Minnie. Part two which continues below is about the final two women of my ‘FOUR OF A KIND”.

Phyllis was also a neighbor of mine when I lived on Third Avenue. She and her husband Alfred lived down the block from me. My dad knew Alfred as a fellow farmer and from meeting him at the feed mill. Thus when we moved to town the two former farmers now neighbors shared a special connection. They soon were on the same bowling team together. I knew of Phyllis, but our paths had not really crossed much. I had known her one daughter from high school forensics,and I knew there was another daughter then living somewhere “out East”. But as it always does fate entered the picture. My mother had a custom of a duck dinner for New Year’s Day. We were the first in our immediate family to have a television set,and with the arrival of NewYear’s Day and the Rose Parade,she invited some relatives to come join us to see the parade and have dinner with us. She roasted duck for the occasion and made many wonderful side dishes with homemade pie and homemade cream puffs the conclusion of the meal. It was our first New Year’s Day in town that an overnight snowstorm caused our invited guests to call and say they would not be coming for the party at our house. The ducks were thawed and ready to roast,and many of the side dishes were already prepared,and the desserts made ready the night before. My mother then called Alfred and Phyllis to walk up the street and join us. We had a wonderful day. We soon discovered what great guests they were! It was the custom that I came up with some zany games for the afternoon lull between parade and Rose Bowl game. Our neighbors got into the spirit of the games, and our living room was filled with laughter. It was pretty obvious that we were a good fit,and it was at that moment that our social circle included Alfred and Phyllis. We exchanged visits and took rides in the country and ate out together. We played the zany card games with much enthusiasm. We later learned that they had almost turned down our original invitation because Alfred was not keen of duck. He had had a bad experience with it earlier in his life,and he was not sure he wanted to attempt eating duck again. But he decided to give it a try, and he later told us how good it tasted on that day.

Fate soon took Alfred from us as he was bowling with my dad in attendance. Alfred had thrown his last bowling ball and made a strike in the process.

It was then that Phyllis became more of a part of our family. She was alone, her family all out-of-state, and she had few relatives in the area. She did have a great array of friends, and she had a great ability to surround herself with friends that really looked after her needs. We included Phyllis in our social life just as before. I soon learned special ways to be her friend: she had holiday customs that she wanted to continue, and so I drove her car so she could make the purchases and arrangements for those customs. She wanted her car to be clean of salt all winter long, and so I drove her and her car to car washes. She was proud of her rose garden,and in spring I would help get it ready for a long blooming season. Somehow I sensed when she might be a bit lonely,and I would then come up with some crazy activity to chase those blues away. Some time or other I discovered that she loved an ice cream drink called the grasshopper. I would make a batch of them in my blender at home, insert the blender into a large brown paper bag, walk down the block to her house, and surprise her with a grasshopper. The brown paper bag was to give our neighbors some speculation on what I had in the bag. We made airport trips to pick up her daughter and grandson,I made trips taking her

to meet her Illinois family for holidays. I took her to special events in the area---mainly church dinners or luncheons. We included her in family events. She was fun to have around. She was open to meet new people and to try different events---plays in Spring Green or programs at the Civic Center. She was always generous and paid her way and often paid mine,too. She comforted me and looked after me when tragic moments came to me. We went to her eye appointments in Madison, and we laughed all the way home with her dark glasses and a towel on her passenger window to block out light. She was a celebrity in disguise!

Suddenly the years sped by, and now on a few occasion Phyllis would call me at various hours of the night frightened by something. She then decided to move to assisted living, and she accepted this change in her life with ease and grace. It was then that I increased my visits to her,found ways to take her for rides,walk with her outside and later wheel her wheelchair outside,and on a couple of occasions took a blender of grasshoppers to her.

A personal favorite of hers was the supper time rides to go “deer hunting” as she called it. We would drive to a root beer stand and buy a take out supper. I would drive to a county park where we would sit and eat our supper while enjoying the view and nature herself.

Then as it was close to sunset we would head for back roads and look for deer out for their evening grazing. I was pretty good at spotting them, and she was always excited at each spotting as though it was the first she had ever seen.

Phyllis was a great friend. I learned so much from her. She judged no one,she accepted everyone,she saw good everywhere, and she was proud of her family and proud of any accomplishments I told her about. When she lost most of her eye sight, she never complained, and she asked her visitors to read her mail to her over and over again. When she decided to sell her house, she asked me to arrange a meeting so she could meet for that purpose. After the family had taken household items of their choosing, she asked me to find a way to auction what was left. That was her trust; she was the most trustful person that I ever met. When I told her that I was moving and building a new countryside home,she wanted to visit the land first,and then she came several times during the building process to see the progress,and she visited several times once I had moved into it. On one of those visits,she handed me an envelope. Inside were some money and this note,“Use this money to buy and plant some pine trees. When the wind blows through them and when you hear that wind, think that it is Phyllis whispering to you.” Now these many years later the trees are very tall, and she whispers to us a lot. She was a very good friend.

Betty is the last of “my four of a kind”. She was my aunt. She was 18 years younger than my mother and only a few years older than me her nephew. We were playmates during our younger years. When she became school age,she did not want to go without me. Her understanding teacher agreed to let me come along even though I was not of school age. I sat quietly in the classroom with Betty,and the other students made seatwork for me and gave me pictures to color. When we moved out of the area,visits to her house or her visits to ours became special times for me. I could hardly wait for the time of arrival,and I hated departure time.

We would make a code to make the parting easier. We would both plan to listen to a certain radio show that night, and at a given time in the show we would shout a hello to each other. On some occasions I would continued on page 31

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Singer Songwriter Lynn Biddick from LaCrosse, WI Releases her 4th Record " Ghost in the Bed"

My friend,Lance Cowan from LC Media out of Nashville asked me if I had ever heard of Lynn Biddick? He said she is up from your neck of the woods. He offered to set up an interview with her. Below is some information on Lynn’s background obtained from her website: www.lynnbiddick.com

Lynn: Both my Grandparents played music in some way. My Grandmother played in Livingston,Wisconsin. She was the silent movie piano player lady. (we both laugh) My parents are great appreciators of music. I started playing at 5, I was a musical nerd all the way through. I went to school for music. It was always what was easy for me.

Lynn Biddick was born in the upper Mississippi River town La Crosse WI,and started playing the piano at age 5.She wrote her first song at the age of 9 while riding a bicycle.She says,” My creative work has always had a multi-tasking element running through it. I have never done just one thing at a time.”

Joyce: You moved fromWisconsin to Boston to Nashville back to LaCrosse,Wisconsin. What was this like?

She moved to Boston MA to attend Berklee College of Music where she majored in piano and composition. When she moved out of the dorms, she taught herself how to play a mountain dulcimer, which became an important part of her performing and songwriting.

She was a street musician in Boston and Cambridge, and eventually moved into the clubs and coffeehouses in New England.

Her interest in songwriting eventually took her to Nashville, where she founded the successful Born To Cook show along with Grammy winner Gillian Welch. Gillian penned the song“I Don’tWantTo go Downtown”and debuted it at one of the shows,but never recorded it. Lynn does a piano version of it on her new album,Ghost InThe Bed. While in Nashville, Lynn recorded an EP with producer Brad Jones (Josh Rouse,Jill Sobule) and one of the songs on it “Open Road” would go on to win the songwriting contest at Merlefest in North Carolina.

She has included a piano version of that song on Ghost InThe Bed also,which was recorded in La CrosseWI,and co-produced with Grammy winning mastering engineer Brett Huus (Bill Miller, Cedar Dream Songs). She currently lives in La Crosse where she continues multitasking as a singer /song writer, piano, voice and classroom music teacher, choir director, and harmonium player in the Coulee Celtic Band.

Singer Songwriter Lynn Biddick released her 4th Record "Ghost in the Bed" on the newly formed "Momentous Records" The Record which is available at www.momentousrecords.com has 12 songs, 11 of which were penned by Biddick. The 12th tune is a previously unrecorded song by Grammy winning Nashville pal,Gillian Welch.

Joyce: Lynn,how did you get involved in the music business?

Lynn: Straight out of school,I played my music on the street making my money that way. It seemed romantic at the time. Sooner or later we went inside. I plugged away in New England writing until about 1992. That’s when I decided to go to Nashville. Writing has always been the thing that moved me the most. I was in bands in Boston, Rock Bands and I had my own little Lynn Biddick coffee house thing going. I went to Nashville because I heard there was a songwriting community there. I have followed this dream my whole life but it hasn’t made a whole lot of financial sense to me. (laughs) I stayed in Nashville for 9 years. I met Gillian Welch early on and we became friends. We started a show called,“Born to Cook”;a woman’s songwriting show. Gillian became very successful and very busy, so we invited other women into the show. I ran the show for years in a little downtown club called,“Windows”on the Cumberland. I talked to producers and wanted to be a staff writer writing country music. It took me awhile to figure out that this is not what I really wanted to do.

In Nashville I also did tons and tons of writers nights and "writers in the round". I did many of them, including some at the Bluebird Cafe. I felt like I was writing and then testing the songs out all of the time.Nashville is SUCH a rarified place for that.People there care about songs! And they really really listen to every word and it is a great challenge for a new song.

My time there was extremely important to my growth as a writer.

Another thing that happened while I was in Nashville was that I connected with the very small world of professional mountain dulcimer players.David Schnauffer was the leader of that pack and he passed away several years ago. But I transcribed CDs of dulcimer music that became 2 different dulcimer books- one by David and one by another excellent player named Lee Rowe.At the time when I met those guys I was a rare bird in town who played dulcimer myself and had familiarity with that instruments, but also had the skills to transcribe and write (by hand, I might add) the music down.It was nice,paying work. continued on page 30

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w w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

Robert’s Ramblings

Not making the news these days is the war going on out here on our hill in Exeter Township. Apparently the news of the various governmental changes and conflicts in Northern Africa and the Middle East and the budget debate in our own state Capitol merit more and better news coverage than the Exeter Clash. It is a simple line drawn in the snow around my bird feeders! Squirrel stay away! Now I don’t mind sharing a bit of the food with them as the long snowy winter no doubt has been hard on them, too. However, the feeders are called bird feeders, and that is why I put them up, clean them, and fill them---for birds. Birds not squirrels! Now if a squirrel with common sense and showing some common courtesy should arrive, he or she would be welcome. My beef is the destruction they do to the feeders and all the feed they scratch out of the feeders. They simple take too much of the food. Apparently sharing is not part of their make up. No doubt my neighbors must wonder what all the shouting and clapping is about each morning when the war begins for a new day-man vs.squirrel. We did have a wonderful reward for our feeding efforts last Saturday during a snowfall. At least 16 male red cardinals were in the trees near the feeders. A few at a time would swoop down to eat and then fly back to the trees. Some flew back-and-forth between the two feeders located on two sides of the house. Luckily there was a cease-fire at that point,and the cardinals were not scared off by the battle of man vs.squirrel.

Award season is over? The annual award season is supposedly over with Sunday night’s Oscar show. Actually they are fun to watch and often have some pretty entertaining moments IF you do as I do. I tape them and watch them at my leisure. Usually I start watching 90 minutes after the starting time. I can fast forward what I do not want to watch including acceptance speeches, commercials, and categories that have little interest to me. I have three favorite award shows: THE GOLDEN GLOBES, GRAMMYS, and the OSCARS. The Golden Globes are fun because they combine movie and television awards and they split categories,and they seem to come up with some “strange” nominations each year. The Grammy’s are fun because of the uniqueness of the “stars”. What is most entertaining is what is worn to the show. Conventional clothing is rare. You get to see some beautifully dressed folks to the extreme of you wondering what it is they are wearing. It may look like Lady Gaga is wearing an egg. At one time a few brave folk came to the Oscars dressed“differently”. Barbara Streisand and Cher come to mind almost immediately. But with the Red Carpet shows of today the Oscars don’t encourage much variance from the norm of formal wear. Also the Grammy’s are fun because they blend together some seemingly abstract acts and songs,and they usually turn out quite amazing. Their musical numbers seem to work and entertain. And for me the Oscars are my personal favorite. I have always followed that show. I began listening to it on the radio, and I have not missed a single telecast once it went to television. I usually have my personal favorites that I hope will win, and I have even entered and won some Oscar prediction contests. This year I was seven for seven on my predictions. I try to see the nominated movies and performances before the award night.

well done. I enjoyed how they worked the two hosts into all the nominated ten movies. It was clever and fun,but the Emmys did the same thing, so this was not really original. I thought the two hosts did the best they could. Once the opening is done their job is purely introducing the next presenter or next award. There are not many ways to make that fun. I have one thing that I really miss on the Oscars,and that is there are no longer big production numbers to break up the awards and speeches. At least they have found a painless way to announce and highlight the various technical awards.

Looking to rent a different off-beat movie? I would recommend CITY ISLAND. It stars Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies, and Alan Arkin. It is a story of an Italian family living on City Island,which is part of Brooklyn,NewYork. Like many families communication is lacking, misunderstandings abound, each family member smokes and thinks no one else in the family knows it, and each family member has a special dream. Let me give you a few clues about the movie: The dad is a prison guard secretly taking acting lessons,his wife thinks he is playing poker and hopes that is true and that he is not really having an affair,the young teen age son is obsessed with overweight girls and women,the college daughter has been kicked out of college and her parents don’t know, and she is pole dancing to earn money to go back to college next semester. Now throw in one more bit of a plot part: the prison guard discovers that an inmate is his son from a long forgotten affair. The inmate could be released if a family member would take him,and the guard is his only living relative. You can imagine the plot twists because of this character. I remember reading reviews of this movie when it came out,and I sadly it did not go well at the box office. But it makes a good rental movie. Consider it.

Ah,packing. I need to go complete my packing for my eight day

Florida vacation in the sun on the Gulf. What are your packing tips? I have followed the suggested plan to lay out a week in advance what you think you will pack, and then each day you go and look over what you laid out. If anything seems marginal,remove it. Don’t add anything unless it is something really vital that you forgot--like clean socks.

Luckily you can now buy clothes that you can rinse out in a sink and the material they are made of will dry over night. And less is best in packing.

There is no book recommendation this issue.

I have read a handful of books since the last issue, but none of them moved me enough to make a special suggestion that someone else might want to read any one of them.

Okay, first robins of the spring, we are looking for you. And for us on the hill,bluebirds are often early arrivals to greet us bringing hope of an early spring.

Written by: Bob Hoffman

There were things about this year’s Oscar show that I liked. I thought the opening was very

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Phil Lee On the Road Again & some other stuff I first met Phil Lee in the eighties in LA. His friends ranged from slightly frayed to successful and even famous and they let him crash for a night or two. He didn’t mind bedding down on a mattress with a few springs poking out, given that his options were somewhat limited at that time.He was very adaptable to new environments.

He used to carry a note pad and a copy of the French Literary Review and,most unusual for LA,he walked mostly everywhere. Needless to say he was very fit. Sometimes he got lucky, like when he was staying in Downtown LA with a guy calledWoods. Woods lived in a massive warehouse and Phil Lee did a gig there one night and that was when I first heard him play. He had a full head of hair then, a raspy voice and he played guitar, drums and harmonica.

He looks different now but he sounds just the same and we’ve just finished a phone interview. I’m in London and he’s in Nashville.Here’s how it went….

D: How long have you been doing gigs?

D: Tell me a memorable experience you’ve had on the road.

Phil Lee: There are so many of them. One was when we stayed in a hotel in England. It was like FaultyTowers and the guy at the desk was really drunk when we checked in. Our room was up on the third floor and I noticed there was plaster in the tub. The ceiling had collapsed. I said,“There’s plaster.”And he said“Don’t worry about that mate, there’s no water on this floor.”

That’s not the end of it. There were two bathrooms. No bathrooms in the rooms which we’re very much accustomed to inAmerica. There was a bathroom on each end of the hallway but one toilet seat that had to be shared. It had to be carried from one bathroom to another.

D: So,after that experience,when are you coming back to the Europe?

Phil Lee: I don’t know. Me and my Scottish promoter pal are trying to put something together.

Phil Lee: Since I was twenty but mostly on the road. For the past five years it’s been really hard and heavy. I don’t even think about whether I make any money or not,it’s just so much fun. I get to go to strange countries,like England,Spain and Norway.

D: You were in Florida recently. How was that?

D:Is it a gruelling experience and physically demanding?

Phil Lee: Well anytime you wind up in a hot tub with two young ladies is a great experience.

The best part about it is Grampy goes back to his room to watch Matlock. It’s like,“Oh he’s a nice old man.” It’s like the grandfather they never had or something.

Phil Lee:Yes it’s hard work. But I don’t drink, I don’t take drugs, I don’t party ‘til the break of dawn. I just do my job. And afterwards it’s not like hopping on a jet. We’re in a van. We just ride around and sometimes we just have enough time to get to the next show. Sometimes overseas there are a lot of trains and pack mules.

I’ve got a lot of young fans, for some inexplicable reason.They want to be able to meet musicians and I’m so not like their parents or grandparents. I don’t try to give them any faulty advice or tell them how to run their lives. ‘Get out of the hot tub with Grampy Lee,’ that would be my first bit of advice.

D: Where do you get all your energy from? How do you stay fit?

D: Where are some of the places that your fans appreciate you the most?

Phil Lee: I think I’m genetically lucky. But I don’t do anything to slow myself down. I’ve got the metabolism of a humming bird. I have to eat a lot. That’s why I weigh 108 lbs. I have to keep stoking the coals. Something’s gotta give. You can’t be sixty years old and runnin’ like hell to catch a train with two guitars,a suitcase and a tambourine in between your teeth.

You gotta learn how to do it because doing a show,that takes whatever energy is left. That goes into the show and people can tell when you’re about to keel over.

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Phil Lee: Holland; the Netherlands is great. In the UK I seem to do all right. In Spain I’m just starting to make a little headway there. That whole scene is fantastic; heat and everything and it’s right on the Mediterranean.

We just got four or five shows there. A lot of times we would go to a restaurant and they’d w w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

move some tables back and we’d just start playing our guitars like we were a mariachi band.

It was fantastic. It wasAugust and brutally hot and cooled off 2 degrees when the sun went down.

D: What about gigs where you’ve played closer to home?

Phil Lee: The best place I’ve played is a little shack in the middle of the Mississippi Delta, ‘The Po’Monkey Lounge’. Country people and black people say po’for poor. The guy who runs it who is in fact the Po’ Monkey as the legend has it, though I’ve never actually heard him back this up, is that all the kids were named after animals and he was named the Po’ Monkey. I personally call him Mr.Seaberry.

He’s been running this place since he was fifteen. He works the cotton field and then he has this little juke joint at night and he has blues bands, and all the great blues guys have played there. It’s like something from another era.There’s a picture of me on my website standing there. I just love the guy. Every time I go there I bring him a pair cowboy boots ‘cause he loves them.

Phil Lee: Yes. I wrote this song and he’s a friend of mine. He’s a rockabilly singer who had a great band called The Planet Rockers. We’d hang around Nashville together. I wrote this song about a trucker;another story I read in the newspaper,like‘25 Mexicans’. This trucker didn’t stop in time and he ran into the back of a school bus and took out a bunch of kids.

So I spoke to Sonny,who was in fact a truck driver,like myself and I told him I was going to use his name in a song and he thought that was a good idea. [Except that he didn’t know what the song was about or that‘he’was the trucker!]

D: You play,acoustic,electric guitar,drums,harmonica and trumpet?

Phil Lee: Yes. I played trumpet on the Farmer Jason Records and I played trumpet on my song,‘Taterbug Rag’.

D: I love that,it’s my favourite song.

Phil Lee: Thank you very much,it’s mine too actually.

D: What doesTaterbug Rag mean anyway?

The Delta is what the south was like when I was growing up. My show was filmed there and I’ve got a song onYouTube when I was playing‘NeonTombstone’. It looks real tiny from the outside but on the inside it’s like DoctorWho’s phone booth. It’s huge,with pool tables and a little stage. I gotta say,that place tops my list of memorable gigs.

D: Do you write down your experiences in a journal?

Phil Lee: Yes,song ideas,grocery list,drawings and stuff,observations.

D: You write your own lyrics and music. Where do you get your inspirations from with the words and the tunes?

Phil Lee: Melodies are funny. I don’t know where they come from. And sometimes they come first. It’s harder to put words to music. It’s great when it all comes together, like ‘25 Mexicans’it all came out at once. You know,I don’t know what causes that to happen. My little music room is like a salvage yard. I’ve got bridges and stuff all tagged up on a shelf over there and little choruses and a line or two. But if I write it down I don’t forget it. And if it’s a real good line I don’t forget it anyway. But sometimes they just come out all at once. Sometimes I get a little musical idea or a lyrical idea,and I’m not above working on something for thirty years.

Phil Lee: It’s got nothing to do with my dog Taterbug nor is it a rag. It’s a dirge. I don’t know why I called it that. It has absolutely nothing to do with the song.

D: The song is also on the compilation album ‘East Nashville’. What distinguishes East Nashville from other parts?

Phil Lee: It’s where all the hipsters move to. The rents are cheap. There are a lot of young creative people.

D: Is that where you are,East Nashville?

Phil Lee: No. We sold our house and moved to the West side. I was a pioneer. I lived over there for fifteen years and we’ve just moved [with Maggie,Mrs Phil Lee].

D: Don’t you miss your friends in East Nashville?

Phil Lee: Nashville’s a teeny town. I see them as much as I ever did. I travel and my East Nashville buddies travel with me. It’s not like getting from one side of London the other.

D: Well how far away is it?

D: I recognise one of those old songs,‘We Cannot Be Friends’.

Phil Lee: It’s a golden oldie, you’re right. Because of the approach I take, nobody knows if I wrote it yesterday or thirty years ago.

Phil Lee: I would say ten minutes. You cross the bridge,you go over the bridge,now you’re on the east side. I may have been a little generous on that ten minutes.

D. It’s not like London.

D: Woodie Guthrie is one your musical heroes. Is that right? What was it about him and his music that you wanted to emulate in some of your grass roots material?

Funnily enough, my first exposure to Woodie Guthrie was like everybody else who’s born in the fifties. The Weavers had a big hit on ‘So Long It’s been Good to Know You’ which is the title of my last record and I do a version of it. Woodie Guthrie wrote the song himself about eight different ways.

D: Is there some identification with him because you both grew up in the south?

Phil Lee:Yes,I would think so.

D: Tell me about Sonny George.That’s quite an intense story. Is that for real? w w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

Phil Lee: Are you kidding, it takes hours to get from the outskirts of London to the middle of town,and have to pay dearly for the service.

D: So when are you on the road again?

Phil Lee: It looks like I’m headed to Memphis thenTexas and after that,the Mid-west.

Sounds like it’s almost ready to fill up the gas tank and load up the van. So,the journey continues for the outstandingly accomplished,uncomplicated and affable,Mr.Phil Lee. A lot of roads have been travelled since those LA walkabouts.

Interview by:Deborah Shaer Photos provided.

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Creative Community Organizing, Si Kahn; Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.; San Francisco

In this deeply-felt memoir, internationally acclaimed folk-singer Si Kahn recalls the role that music played in his work as an organizer in the South.

Kahn grew up in Pennsylvania, a rabbi’s son who drove to Arkansas in 1965 to become a part of the civil rights movement. He spent his first summer in the delta country just west of Memphis – a volunteer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in a part of the world where the threat of racial violence was an everyday companion.

He found it a macabre piece of symbolism that when he came to the town of Forrest City, the safest place for the SNCC workers to sleep was in the back room of a funeral home.They shared crowded quarters not far from the corpses,and late at night as the darkness slowly descended on the delta, the terror seemed to settle in with it.

“It was with us every minute,”writes Kahn. But there was also the music – the freedom songs they sang as a group, the young SNCC workers and the African-American people of Forrest City. All through the summer, they would gather for meetings at the chapel up the road, and in between the speeches about voter registration, they sang all the standards of the civil rights era:“We Shall Not Be Moved,”“Eyes on the Prize,”“Ain’t Nobody Gonna Turn Us Around.” And then, writes Kahn, at the end of the evening, the people spilled from the pews to join hands and sing the most powerful anthem of the times,“We Shall Overcome.” Later,he would learn the origin of the song,how it had once been a hymn transformed into a protest anthem during the labor movement of the 1940s.A generation later, in 1960, a white folk singer named Guy Carawan sang it at a civil rights march in Nashville, and it quickly became the movement’s theme song.

But even before he understood all of that,Kahn saw the power such music could exert.

Somehow it seemed to drive away the fear, providing a kind of cultural glue that held people together. It seemed to be true everywhere he went, from the Arkansas delta to the coal fields of Kentucky to the textile mills of North and South Carolina.

In his new book, Creative Community Organizing, Kahn recounts the evolution of his calling, both in personal and historical terms. He saw the victories of the civil rights years,and later the progress against Black Lung,the dreaded disease so common among Appalachian coal miners. Later, he worked as an organizer in the mills, helping lead the fight against Brown Lung, the textile equivalent of the coalfield killer. Working as a reporter in the South, I found myself writing from time to time about Kahn. I was struck by the passion he brought to his work – a passion reflected in the pages of this book – but the thing that made the deepest impression was how it all came together

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in his music. Kahn was and is a friend and protégé of Pete Seeger, a spiritual descendant of Woody Guthrie and the Appalachian folk singers of the 1930s, and more recently perhaps, a musical soul brother to Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash. “I was particularly impressed by the ability of these singers and songwriters to describe the lives of poor and working people,” writes Kahn,“their hardships, heartaches, anger, pain, dreams and struggles. In songs of apparent simplicity and directness, they conveyed rich layers of emotion and meaning.”

In his own music, Kahn set out to do the same, singing on porches as well as concert halls, using his songs as an organizing tool, raising his voice in the cause of social justice. He proudly describes himself as an activist, a non-violent crusader for the working class, seeking to expand the meaning of democracy. In a time of political polarization, when slogans too often replace dialogue, Si Kahn at the age of 65 has offered a clear and honest look back – and forward – into the human struggles that defined him. Creative Community Organizing is an important testament to the music and ideology of that vision: a populism, as Kahn understands it, that sprang so powerfully from the soil – and also the songs – of the South.

By: Frye Gaillard w w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

werner... continued from page 20

Susan: I’m home in Chicago today.

(I laugh)

Joyce: How did your music career come about?

Joyce: Do you like to tap dance?

Susan: When I was growing up in the early 70’s, Franciscan nuns were playing guitars in church. Sister Marie Claire was teaching guitar lessons at St. Mary’s Elementary School. My older brother learned how to play guitar and brought the guitar home. I was 5 years old. I said how do you do that? He showed me 3 chords and my course in life was set.

Susan: Yes, but I’m horrible at it. There’s a class I go to here in Chicago. I have my own tap shoes. I have a bowling ball too.

Joyce: Are you good at bowling?

Susan: Terrible at it, but I have my own ball.

(we both laugh) Joyce: You are very good at music, so you can’t be good at everything!

It’s the truth. It was more fascinating than anything else!

Joyce: Do you play any other instruments?

Susan: You have to give yourself room to do things. People have expectations. Otherwise it’s not really a hobby, then it becomes a profession. No danger of either my tap dancing or bowling becoming a profession for me.

Susan: The piano. I have the good fortune to have a pretty good ear. I can figure out pretty much any instrument if you give me 10 minutes.

Joyce: So I won’t have to look you up on YouTube for a video of your tap dancing?

Joyce: Do you write by yourself?

Susan: Yea, it’ll never be there.

Susan: I write by myself and it produces a certain kind of ideocentric song. That’s probably why I haven’t had a lot of big revenue covered versions of my tunes done out there. I do have the rare satisfaction of writing something that no one else might get to write.The upside of being an independent artist!!

Joyce: Any words of wisdom for women getting into the music business?

Susan: Write songs that are so compelling that people have to hear them.

Joyce: Who are your favorite musicians?

Joyce: I love your song.“Red Dress.” Tell me about this.

Susan: Isn’t that a fun song? Lots of people read different things into that song. I’ll just leave it float out there. One thing about recording that song, as I looked across the studio, there’s Stewart Smith, Rodney Crowell and Vince Gill all playing their guitars at the same time and grinning their asses off. So funny! So great!

Susan: I met Mavis Staples.The other day. That was pretty cool. I’m a big fan of Richard Townsend. He stays creative and productive. Elvis Costello is interesting.

Hey, did you know that James Taylor is giving guitar lessons online? That’s great.

There’s always a place in the world to learn lots of lessons.

Joyce: I love all your songs. Do you have a favorite one on this CD?

Joyce: Anything else you want your fans to know before we say goodbye?

Susan: “The Last Words of Bonnie Parker” is a special song. I didn’t know where it was going when I started writing it. It’s one of those songs that is like a maze, you don’t know where you are going or how you are going to get out. I knew when I first started writing, it wasn’t me speaking, maybe someone a little like me or maybe someone I would understand. But the voice was definitely not me.

Susan: Check out my website www.susanwerner.com and come to my concerts. I will try to guarantee 0% boredom at any show. You got to be willing to reveal something about yourself, sometimes putting yourself at risk!!

BE SURE TO CHECK HER OUT AT THE BRINK LOUNGE IN MADISON ON FRIDAY APRIL 1ST, 2011!!!!

Joyce: Where do your song ideas come from?

Susan: The best songs are made of things that either fascinate you or moves you deeply.

The subject matter has to take the meter on feeling or it’s probably not worth taking the time to write. I don’t believe in songs that are a pleasure cruise. It has to be something like a car up on two wheels going around the corner a little too fast!

Story by: Joyce Ziehli Photos supplied.

Joyce: Susan, where do you usually play at?

Susan: If you check out my website, www.susanwerner.com ,my tour calendar is carrying me from Long Beach, California to Toronto to Maine to Florida to Seattle.

Joyce: I take it this is your main job/career?

Susan: This is all I do. I’ve been doing this for 20 years.

Joyce: Any future goals/dreams?

Susan: One goal is to remain fascinated by my line of work. I’d like to find new kinds of music to fall in love with. That’s when all the best stuff happens.

I feel very lucky that I get to do this. I am very fortunate.

Joyce: Where do you do most of your recording at, Nashville?

Susan: It depends on the music. I go where the musician pool is right for each individual project.

Joyce: Any fun hobbies?

Susan: I tap dance badly. w w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t

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biddick... continued from page 24

I came back from Nashville having been pretty "dulcimer focused."And I went back to school here to finish an ed degree, and I ended up at a school here that had many 1900's era Steinway pianos that they were in the process of restoration, one by one. I was playing some of them regularly,and these are really great instruments.It threw me back into my love of the piano,which has been a love since I was a small kid.So...some of the songs on my Ghost in the Bed CD were written on piano,of course.But some were written on dulcimer, and I rearranged some of those for piano, just because I thought it would be fun.I write on both instruments, but what seems to be happening more and more is that I write something on one and then take it over to the other one.And most often it has been dulcimer to piano.

Joyce: Do you prefer to write music or perform?

Lynn: I enjoy doing both of them. I’m getting more comfortable as a performer as I’ve aged. I always wanted to do the performing piece,maybe even more than the writing.

Joyce: Where do you perform at?

Lynn: I’m starting to get around the state,just locally, I’m figuring out where to go. I do a lot of "hired gun" kinds of playing and singing that gets no public recognition (fine with me) that doesn't fit into my "LynnBiddick.com" zone of business. But nonetheless it is musical work that pays and for which I am grateful. I get hired to play the piano for all kinds of things.I sing variously, sometimes in a spectacular hired choir for special religious events.I play harmonium in a Celtic band here in town and we are out in a pub every week,aside from playing gigs pretty steadily in the region.

So I'm kind of an artistic chameleon with lots of skills and I'm probably trying to do too many things at once.But that seems to be how I "do" my art.The one thing stimulates the other thing,and on and on.I'm enjoying the process.We will just see where it all goes.

Joyce: Your song,“Devil’s Lake”,did that come from the actual Devil’s Lake in Wisconsin?

Lynn: Yea,I’ve been to Devil’s Lake a number of times. I actually learned how to swim there. I kept driving past the sign in my travels, so between the sign and the lake, that’s how the song came about.

Joyce: Any advice to women looking into getting into the music business?

Lynn: Be sure that you love it,be creative and be positive!

Joyce: What are some future personal goals?

Lynn: I’d like to do more and more performing. I’m working on my next CD as we speak.

Joyce: One last question. If you had an opportunity to perform with anyone,whom would you pick?

Lynn: Joni Mitchell.

Joyce: Thank you Lynn. Good Luck Lynn in your music career.

Lynn: Thank you.

Check out Lynn at www.lynnbiddick.com or contact Lynn at:lynnbiddick@earthlink.net Story by: Joyce Ziehli Photos supplied.

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matraca... continued from page 13

land.“It was neither fish, nor fowl,” she says, and in her disillusionment with the process, Matraca waited three years to make another record. Even then, the results were disheartening. Measured by its artistry alone “Sunday Morning to Saturday Night” was a brilliant piece of work. Released in 1997 on Rising Tide Records, it contained one of most Berg’s memorable songs, “Back When We Were Beautiful,” a haunting ballad about a woman growing old. I guess you had to be there, she said.

She handed me a yellow photograph and then said, see this was my greatest love, my one and only love and this is me back when we were beautiful, see.

It was a magical moment when Matraca sang the song at the CMA Awards, and for people who were there it was hard to imagine that she wouldn’t be a star. She looked so beautiful, for one thing, with her long brown hair and large, dark eyes and the trace of a smile both confident and shy. But it was her voice that people remembered that night, so silky and strong and so full of heart. “Matraca Berg nearly stole the CMA Awards,” declared Entertainment Weekly. But her song never made the country charts, for almost as soon as the album was released, Rising Tide Records went bankrupt. “I definitely wondered about my record karma,” she says looking back.“I also felt like maybe you get signals you are barking up the wrong tree.” But if she grew ambivalent about recording, she was more and more committed to the art of writing songs. And on that front there was no ambiguity about her success.The string of number ones that began in the ‘80s continued through the ‘90s with songs like “Hey, Cinderella” that she wrote with Suzy Bogguss and “Wrong Side of Memphis” that she wrote for Trisha Yearwood.

Measured commercially, or even by its critical acclaim, her biggest hit came in 1997. Nashville artist Deanna Carter,for her debut release,chose Matraca’s“Strawberry Wine,” one of the most personal songs that she ever wrote. It’s a steamy ballad of teenage love, and the story it tells is mostly her own. He was working through college on my grandpa's farm.I was thirsting for knowledge and he had a car. The song is set on a Wisconsin farm,the family homestead of her adoptive father, Ron Berg,

where Matraca often spent her summers as a child.Dairy cattle grazed on the rolling hillsides, and corn grew tall in the cool summer breeze, and the warmth and love of extended family left a deep imprint on her songs.The same was true of her roots in Kentucky,the hills and hollows near the village of Wallins, where her family had lived since the days of Daniel Boone, and where at the age of 12 she would play piano at her grandmother’s church. Songs like “Appalachian Rain,” which she recorded with Emmylou Harris, and “ S traw be r r y Wine”– which, in addition to the obvious story of passion, speaks of the bittersweet passage of time – stamped Matraca in the estimation of her peers as a songwriter at the very top of her game. She won a CMA Award for “ S traw be r r y Wine,” has written eleven number one hits, and in 2008 at the age of 44, became one of the youngest members of the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. “Matraca has the gift,” says her friend and mentor Bobby Braddock,“and she’s smart enough to know what to do with it.”

But for all of her success in the songwriting realm, there was still the nagging pull of the studio, the feeling that she had never quite gotten it right.“I felt like I was an imposter,” she says. But Suzy Bogguss and Gretchen Peters didn’t see it that way. On recent tours of the United Kingdom, where the three singer-songwriters shared the stage, they urged Matraca to make a new record. She already had the material, they said, and Matraca had to agree that it was true.

With Gary Harrison she had written “Oh Cumberland” and “The Dreaming Fields,” two songs that carried her back to her roots, and with Marshall Chapman, “Your Husband’s Cheatin’ on Us,” based on a tongue-incheek short story by Jill McCorkle. But perhaps most powerfully,she had teamed with Troy Verges and Sharon Vaughn to write “South of Heaven,” a song that began to take shape in her mind when her brother-in-law shipped off to Iraq. “His mother was coming apart,”says Matraca.

“She had this deep, heart-breaking fear in her eyes. She was pale all the time.”

Berg had wanted to write about the war, not something preachy, but something human and real, and she began

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to think about her own mother’s face when Icie’s brother wrote home from Vietnam.“She just would not be right for three or four days.”And finally,she says,there was the televised image of Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist who had lost a son in Iraq.As Matraca was sitting down with her song-writing partners, a pair of lines welled up from somewhere deep in her memory – images of faith, perhaps from a wood-framed church in Kentucky, now put to the test by the tragedy of war.

stay at her house (my grandmother’s). A creek and a river both ran through their property. We loved to walk to see both. We loved the spring and the spring flowers. We took a packed lunch to the hillside for a warm spring day picnic. Unfortunately those picnics soon came to an end.

Betty became ill, and she was bedridden for weeks at a time. She no longer had the energy to play with me or walk with me. She was often hospitalized, and she was bedridden for an entire year. She managed to graduate from grade school, but that fall she was too sick to start high school. She did start high school a few years later, and her freshmen year was also my freshman year. But her health got worse,and she never was able to continue her education.

God, you gave your only son You were not the only one Believing in the songs, Matraca went to Dualtone, an independent label with a love of great writers, and together they decided to give it a go. The resulting CD, which they decided to call “The Dreaming Fields,” is a powerful body of Americana music,delivered in her silky, unmistakable voice. There are songs of sadness and songs of hurt, but all of them carry the redemption of beauty and the clarity and heart of a poet looking back.

“Matraca is beautiful and writes beautifully,” says her friend, Marshall Chapman.“Her songs are artful, yet accessible. She digs deep for that heart of gold, yet she can put you back in the saddle, baby, yeah, stand you up tall.”

Berg herself is a little more restrained, unaccustomed as she is to heaping praise on herself. But she has to admit when you ask about the album,“I’m pretty darn happy with the way it turned out.”

Story by: Frye Gaillard

"Big Bang String Thing" Friday May 13th at The Cafe Carpe in Fort Atkinson.

8:30 p.m. $10

As the years went on more and more health issues arose for her,but she had long periods of time where she could pretty much function on a day-by-day fashion. She helped with house work, she was very clean and neat, and she was a good cook and baker. I never saw her without a smile even on those days she was racked with pain. Suddenly she was all alone in her home, and I knew that she would need to depend upon me in many ways. I was willing to help her all I could. It was a delight to visit her. The windows of her home were windows to her world. She could create events and stories from her observations. It gave her comfort to watch her neighbors come and go, and I think she was able to share their happiness and success from her window viewpoint. She loved family gatherings, and she tried very hard to attend as many as she could. She loved to listen to the radio especially Swiss or polka music. She settled into a daily routine, and she did not vary from that routine. Sadly much of her life was built around her health. Appointments were frequent,and she rarely received much good news on those visits. As I drove her home, I would notice the firm jaw line, and I knew she was processing what she had heard, and that she would soon reach a resolve that she could not do much about it, and by the time we were home, the smile was back and cheerful talk began again.

never took a trip or had a vacation,but she loved so many simple ordinary things. If I invited her to ride along to some new place,she spoke of that with as much zeal and happiness as if she had an around-the-world trip. When I drove the previously mentioned Phyllis to Illinois to meet her family for holidays,Betty rode along,and she reported to her friends the good news of her recent “trip”.

Because of her family dynamics, Betty reached the point of real independence only late in her life. It was wonderful to see her be more independent, take some risks, change some small parts of her routine, be more social, and make decisions more easily. Betty did all of these the last three years of her life. She received a horrible diagnosis in September of her last year, and she died that November. She taught me so much about dignity, bravery, courage, and making do with so little. My life is full of Betty moments and memories. They make me smile and make me so very grateful that she was both my aunt and my good friend.

You have now met these“Four of a Kind”. You can easily see,I am sure,how each in some way or the other has had a big impact on me.

Written by: Bob Hoffman

Special times for her were rides in the country, rides to see Christmas/holiday lights, special music programs on television, seeing friends and family, and a viewing of a special favorite movie like THE SOUND OF MUSIC. The best time for Betty each year was spring. She grew up on the banks of a creek, and the real sign of spring for her was the sound of the frogs croaking. She loved that sound. When she moved into town, I would take her every spring to two spots where I could park the car,and she could sit in the car with the window open and hear her frogs croaking out the news of a new spring. Betty

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Sugar River Studios are located in Belleville, WI a short 16 miles from South Madison. We work with Singer/songwriters, duos, and bands to bring a customized product to completion. Our services include: • Tracking • Mixing • Demo’s • Singles •EP’s • Transfer and conversion from analog recordings to CD’s

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