When I started learning button accordion there were limited online resources available to help me out. Instead I went out and found a teacher. It was an unusual situation. I found a fellow who played piano accordion and piano and guitar but wasn’t exactly a… Read More
Every now and again, I remember that I used to listen to a lot of rock ‘n’ roll and some of it was fantastically good. Let me just get it out of my system. There, I’m OK now. Pass the banjo over here…
I found myself thinking about Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee today, and it transported me way back to the time me and a buddy saw them play at the old El Mocambo. We were teen-aged blues freaks I suppose, and this was a big deal.… Read More
It’s important to me to not stop learning. Music is one activity I started really flirting with after I turned 40 and I started playing the button accordion. How hard could it be, I reasoned. There are only 31 buttons on the right side of… Read More
I love this poster for an upcoming Very Be Careful show in LA… I think this band would be a lot of fun to see live. They play Vallenato. It’s about time I featured some accordion music around this joint, don’t you think?
Tuffy P filmed a bit of banjo practice tonight, complete with false starts, sour notes, various pets, and a sideways portion. The tune I’m attempting to play is Angeline the Baker.
I heard today that Peter Appleyard died, at 84. Do you know his work? He was a great vibraphone player who lived and played in the Toronto area for many years. Here’s another video I’ve shared before in which Mr. Appleyard has an opportunity to… Read More
I’ve been messing around trying to learn a tune called Westfork Gals on the banjo and damned if that melody isn’t stuck in my ever-so-small brain (I think of Pooh, saying “big words bother me”)…and it won’t go away. In times like these, the only… Read More
It’s time for a Daily Dose of Old Time banjo music. Today, let’s listen to John Brown’s Dream. I’d like to start with a video featuring Guy Wolff. Listen to him take off…fantastic! Here’s a version with a bit of a different flavour featuring Riley… Read More
Old Joe Clark is a well-known old time tune from Kentucky. It is played in mixolydian mode in which the 7th note in the scale is lowered a half-tone, giving it what Aubrey Atwater refers to in the video below as that “Old Joe Clark-y”… Read More
27th Street 