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Winners of a 2022 Musica Gaúcha contest Música Gaúcha, associated with the culture of the South American cowboy or cattle herder known as  gaúcho, is the South American equivalent to Cowboy or Western Music. There are many shared sensibilities, including themes related to rural life, cattle and horse culture, even wide-open grasslands. Yet the music comes out entirely different – and not just because of the ubiquitous accordion in Brazil. In fact, so different that it takes two of us to write about it, but it makes for an interesting comparison. One of us did not know anything about it ..read more

The Santa Barbara Old-Time Fiddlers’ Festival is celebrating its 51st year on Saturday, October 7th! Join us for one of my all-time favorite, family-friendly, traditional music festivals on the west coast. This is my eighth year serving as the artistic director of the festival and I’m excited to officially announce the extraordinary line-up of musical artists and events below. The festival is hosted by the Goleta Valley Historical Society who strongly believe in preserving the history and living culture of old-time music. The festival will present performances and workshops with master musicia ..read more

I’ve always known it. When “they” say things like “The business ain’t what it used to be”, I guess they are right. “It’s hard to get a record deal these days.”  Yet the business goes on. More than enough of the new breed of “singer/songwriters”. (I’ve always had trouble with that phrase. You can’t do both at the same time. Try it. See?)   David Jacobs-Strain jokes about it on stage when he recalls having finished singing a song at a club and having an audience member ask: “Is that a real song or something you made up?” (I wish I could use that line in my shows…oh well). Later in ..read more

In grand celebration of Tiki Parlour Recordings’ 29th release, Hog-eyed Man’s Kicked Up a Devil of a Row, I decided to release a new video from one of Georgia’s mightiest stringbands. I shot this during their recording session at the Tiki Parlour during the pandemic. The CD features Clifftop fiddle contest winner Jason Cade and innovative multi-instrumentalist Rob McMaken, with guest appearances by Maxine Gerber (banjo), Brendan Doyle (banjo), and yours truly on guitar. The Surround / Foxhunter’s Jug Key of D Jason Cade – fiddle (ADAE); Rob McMaken – dulcimer (DAD); Brendan Doyle– banjo (aDAD ..read more

Bob Stane has turned the lights off.  The microphones are silent and the lights have been turned off. Those of us who have had private conversations with him this past year knew it was coming. He told us. So now it’s done. The Ice House has… oops, I mean The Coffee Gallery Backstage, well, it’s closed its doors and every folkie and near folkie who ever took the stage at one of Bob’s venues feels it somewhere deep. Me? I can’t separate Pasadena from Altadena…I can’t stop looking back to my nights seeing Tom and Dick Smothers, Steve Martin, the trios, duos, and countless guitar and banjo w ..read more

Hank Williams was born 100 years ago in 1923. His career was very brief: He died at age 29 on New Year’s Day 1953 in the backseat of a car. Yet Hank Williams left a lasting legacy with an impact far beyond country music. He and Bob Dylan are the two songwriters who received the Special Citations and Awards of the Pulitzer Prize. I only recently started to appreciate Hank Williams’ contributions. For a long time, I only associated him with sappy heart disease songs: “Cold, Cold Heart”, “Cheating Heart”, “Chains Off My Heart”. (Incidentally, he died of heart disease, but with help from sedatives ..read more

During the early part of the pandemic, I was thinking a lot about an old-time musician who recently had a huge impact on me just before the shutdown. In 2019 I invited the master Japanese old-time musician Takaki Kosuke, aka Bosco, to my home for a week. During his visit we got to know each other as we hung out and played music with some other great musical friends like Suzy & Eric Thompson and Tricia Spencer & Howard Rains at my “Tiki Parlour.” In fact, they all converged here during one the FolkWorks music festivals! The central reason Bosco flew to the US on this occasion was to be ..read more

Frank doing what he does best. Teaching others to play and sing! If you are looking for just one documentary film that describes the history of what we’ve come to call ‘The American Folk Music Movement’ look no further. This is the one and Frank Hamilton is smack in the middle of all of it. From the early songs of protest and resistance of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, through the evolution of the folk medium as it morphed from campfires gatherings in rail yards to coffee house stages, concert halls, stadiums, to television, Frank Hamilton was there.  He was on stage singing and playin ..read more

We recently discovered the winners list and flyer from the 1963 Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest, which was 60 years ago this year (2023). The Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest is one of the oldest traditional music and folk arts festival in the US and 1963 was already its third annual event. These two sheets come from the papers of Bess Lomax Hawes and together with a registration list are about all the documentation from the early years of the Topanga Banjo Fiddle Festival. Even those only exist because she was a collector (just like her folklorist father and brother, John and Alan Lomax). The flyers ..read more