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I met Butch in 1996 when he had his last Workshop in Nashville. Pictures appeared in Bluegrass Unlimited with Bill Monroe, Ronnie McCoury, Roland White. We had a geat time nothing but mandolins. What a great guy and instructor. I still have all the originals from my Camcorder. Butch asked me to make a composite of the 4 days. I did and sent it to him. We hit it off great. He would ask me about musicians up in Virginia such as Earl Taylor who I knew well. What an empty feeling I have now. Losing ...

Ahh, there's nothing like the annual lure of (no longer) Orange County Calif in January. The haze, the freeways, the concrete, the asthma attacks, NAMM.

This year will be my first visit to the auditory and visual bombardment that is the convention of the National Association of Music Merchants. So I'll be attempting to take enough notes to post something coherent here. But maybe I'll settle for writing about how incoherent NAMM was.


Only time will ...

My memory of Butch is of him selling all the kids tortoise shell picks back stage at festivals. I would lose my $20 dollar picks just like I lose my $100 dollar sunglasses, but I'm glad I was part of the covert operation.

No one likes losing a friend, and I lost one yesterday in Butch Baldassari. And it's not likely I'll ever forget where I was and how it happened.

My family and I were at the tail end of a wonderful and much needed vacation in St. Martin in the Caribbean, just finishing our last meal together in the warmth of the sun in a small outdoor cafe with friends (both mandolin players!) we'd traveled with. It was one of the few times I've gone on vacation the past ten years without a laptop ...

Imagine a 20 X 30 room, 10 foot ceiling, hard tile floor, hard corkboard looking ceiling. No amplification of any type, echoes everywhere. 3 men with colds, 1 without. A crowd of about 30 people.

Called Up Yonder played for the Southern Colorado Livestock Association annual meeting yesterday. We told them, "We work for a Stockman who is better known as a Shepherd." Our intent for a 10 song set of gospel songs was shortened by 1 after the 6th song when my voice pretty ...

In a few hours, Up Yonder will be wandering up yonder to Colorado to play our first "paid" gig. Probably gas money and a brisket dinner.

I hope our voices can handle it. A couple of us are fighting off colds and the high harmony might be just a little bit of a stretch

I'll update tonight.

Tunes it is. I'll get as many as I can this year.

Its the 8th of January, so I learned a simple little version of it today. Came nice and quick too!

[Paste from my post in the Theory forum]

I want to critically examine my practice regimen and make serious headway this year. Practice time is basically an hour a day.

Right now I start with playing the Aonzo scales through three times at 90, 115, and 140 bpm, then pick up two tunes I am getting to speed (Dusty Miller and Japan) and work on those up to 180-200 bpm, then go to a new tune I am working on learning and playing faster (right now Billy in the Low Ground--the ...

I have a love for "old" tunes, obscure stuff, stuff that "old folk" might recognize and enjoy. Maybe your the same. If so, I am looking for the lyrics to an old tune my grand dad use to sing. I dont think anyone ever wrote it down and my mom can't remember all the words.

I can only remember part of it and thought this would be a great place to get help getting it together. It is a simple tune, here is what I know, if you know the whole thing please let me ...

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