Musings, Commentaries, Photos and Reviews

Terrific cover of a great song at the Kennedy Center

A Better Place from Playing For Change on Vimeo .

More great music from " Playing for Change "   War/No More Trouble - Song Around The World from Playing For Change on Vimeo .

More YouTube fun and this time it's educational:

Gioachino Rossini was born on Leap day 1792. Google honored him with a doodle. Found this on You Tube (wait for the bouncing umbrellas) "Hi-yo, Silver! Away!"

It doesn't matter what your political affiliation is, everyone love the blues.

An appropriate song for those of us of a certain age. I've heard this before but forgot completely about it.... Really.

Great stuff found on Google+ by my buddy. Worthy of a Re-Share:

Amusing comeback, even if it is staged.

These guys are great, thanks to my cousin for the link: Filip Jaślar  | first violin Michał Sikorski  | second violin Paweł Kowaluk  | viola Bolek Błaszczyk  | cello They are all well educated instrumentalists who graduated from prestigious Academies of Music in Warsaw and Łódz, but they decided to play classical music in a humorous way. They created a worldwide unique musical cabaret, where the music, not the words are the source of joy and laugh. Take a classical composition as canvas, analyze its structure and theme, surround it with musical associations, brilliant, unbelievable ideas and while listening to the final product the listener is constantly surprised, amazed, laughing and moved to tears. The musicians of the MozART GROUP have been playing together since 1995. At the beginning, they presented short musical jokes on Canal Plus Television. They gave their first debut in 1997 at the PAKA competition of young Polish cabarets in ...

Those who know me realize what a fanboy I am for Google. My co-workers told me today they could have a drinking game based on how many times I mention Google. In spite of the teasing, Google has a winner with Google Music. Sure iTunes has been around for a while but I see some great things here. What are they? Sample plays are 1 1/2 minutes instead of 30 seconds You can share a full play with your friends Free Music Upload 20,000 songs of your own for free to stream Listen via the cloud Integration with Google+  (the vast wasteland that I like) Independent artists can post their music and collect 70% of revenue Catalog seems deep enough, I found the Stanley Brothers (see image)

PBS Tease_Give Me The Banjo from The Banjo Project on Vimeo . Tony and Bill Ellis -- "Jesse James" from The Banjo Project on Vimeo . Leroy Troy: "Grandfather's Clock" from The Banjo Project on Vimeo . Abigail Washburn: "Song of the Travelling Daughter" from The Banjo Project on Vimeo . Needless to say, I'll be watching this!

Google does it again with today's Doodle honoring Les Paul

Way back in the 1960’s there was a phenomena known as the “folk music revival”. Of course folk music never needed to be revived, but it managed to creep into the popular culture. My own introduction to this music goes back a lot longer, because I was fortunate enough to have a family that would sing old songs (it was folk music but I didn’t know it). In those days, I would spend my lawn mowing money to purchase Kingston Trio Albums and later Tom Paxton, Ian and Sylvia, Bob Dylan et al. Now that I’ve become a big fan of online music I’ve started to revisit some of the early music from that era thanks to Lala . Instead of shelling out $3.98 for an album with 2 songs that I like (in 1960’s dollars) I’m creating playlists of songs that only cost a dime each (In recession dollars). One of my playlists is “Forgotten Music”. I’d like to share it with you: Forgotten Music

The highlight for me of the "We are one" concert at Lincoln Memorial was not musical but symbolic. It was the sight of Pete Seeger singing "This Land is Your Land" to the president elect and a gathering of thousands. This was a complete and welcome suprise. Some bloggers have already jumped ugly with seeing the former blacklisted performer on stage, so I'll remind them of the inscription on Seeger's banjo: "This little machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender"

Is this any way to elect a President? The candidates must be exhausted, I know that I am.... John McCain is stopping in Peterborough, NH today. I went to see him on his last visit (he appears in the running slideshow on the right side of this blog). I'll probably swing by and see what's happening. But I'm fatigued with all this, neither candidate is going to do half of what they claim and we'll be living in that reality. So I'm moving on and changing the subject to something we can all agree on .... MUSIC! I've been intrigued with an organization called "Playing for Change" which is NOT connected with the Obama or any other campaign! Here is a YouTube excerpt:

I like bluegrass music but gravitate to the older more traditional forms. I guess I feel the same way about country and rock music. Of course this music is impossible to find on any radio station. Once again I'm saying "Thank God for the Internet!" I'm a member of bluegrasscountry.org and recently discovered a GREAT show for lovers of what is sometimes called "Old Timey" music http://bluegrasscountry.org/programs/old-time-jam/ Here is a description:   Old Time Jam Mon. 6 p.m. ET, Thurs. 6 a.m. ET Banjo player and old time enthusiast Hubie King highlights the genre that preceded bluegrass; old time. But this isn’t just a historical show! Hubie will feature field recordings of old time jams and the oxymoronic new old time musicians.