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Thursday's a big Air Castle day. I'll be a guest on Bill Cody's morning show on WSM (listen online here) at about 7:30 am. And at 6 p.m. come on out to Davis-Kidd Bookseller at the Mall at Green Hills for a reading and book signing.
It has been a sad time of late for the steel guitar. In just the last few years, the music world has lost Alvino Rey, Hal Rugg, Sneaky Pete Kleinow and Jerry Byrd, all brilliant visionaries on perhaps the world's most difficult instrument. But it was especially sad for me to hear of the death of John Hughey, a humble genius, who died this weekend at age 73. Peter Cooper wrote a nice obit that emphasized his huge influence on the sound and success of Vince Gill, his work with Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, his long tenure with the Time Jumpers, and his unique style (on an instrument that greatly rewards and encourages individuality).
I suppose I fell in love with Hughey’s sound at the same time I discovered country music.
Stories like THIS reinforce my long-held belief that music is more profound and more woven into our well-being and intellectual/emotional development than our status quo usually admits. From the top:
Clive Robbins, a world-regarded music therapist, speaks about music not only in terms of aesthetics but how people take part in it.
"When we are involved in music, more areas of the brain light up than in any other activity," says Robbins, who was visiting Australia last week from the US. "We are so full of rhythm and pitch," he says, emphasising the intonations of his speech.
After a lot of hard work by a lot of folks, the Last Train Home Live at IOTA DVD is finally here and ready for you to add to your collection. It's a co-production with Red Beet Records and the remarkable Eric Brace, who not only fronted the band through two great shows, but who made the logistics of working at IOTA really easy, who lined up exceptional talent on the audio end (Doug Derryberry and Mike Davis made this thing sound fantastic) and who was indispensable in the editing suite, helping me see nuances of the band's performance and stage dynamic that I missed. This was a blast from start to finish, and it's the first product on the market with the String Theory Logo on it. So we're just a little bit proud this week. Please check this disc out. It truly is an exceptional show by a fantastic band. Click HERE to head to the Red Beet store.
