String Theory Media

chuck mead needs you: a kickstarter

A most worthy Kickstarter pitch went live last week, and we don’t say that merely because we’re involved. The story line sells itself: Chuck Mead, founder of BR549 and renowned Nashville honky tonk catalyst, makes a classic country album with his band and members of Music Row’s famed A-Team in a renovated and revived Quonset Hut, Music Row's first recording studio. The album is done and coming in February. The campaign is to cover costs of production, promotion and the 25-minute documentary we’re making to go along with the album. Our pitch video isn't really how the film's going to feel, but we had fun with it:

Built by Owen and Harold Bradley in 1957, the Quonset Hut was the first music business of any kind on what would become Music Row. There’s no overstating its importance in Nashville or American music. It’s where Owen Bradley produced Patsy Cline and Brenda Lee, working out the fundamentals of the Nashville Sound. For decades, it was full, all day every day, with the greatest of the great: Red Foley, Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn, Roger Miller and on and on. The place was literally surrounded by the growing headquarters of Columbia Records Nashville but remained an active studio until 1982. Decommissioned the day after the tracking session for John Anderson's hit "Swingin," the arch-roofed room became the art department for Sony/Columbia. Now it’s part of Belmont University, and thanks to the support of the prolifically philanthropic Mike Curb, the Quonset Hut has been refurbished into a spacious half-pipe of sonic bliss.

ryan cavanaugh and the time of the banjo

The sweeping documentary Give Me The Banjo premieres this week (Fri. Nov. 4) on PBS. And the filmmakers must be wishing they could keep adding scenes right up to airtime, because the banjo just keeps making news. America’s quintessential instrument is on an amazing tear right now.

At least three massively popular bands – I’m thinking of the Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show and Mumford & Sons –prominently feature banjo. And scores of up-and-coming Americana bands (i.e. The New Familiars, The Westbound Rangers, Holy Ghost Tent Revival, The Defibulators, Elephant Revival, Spirit Family Reunion, Frontier Ruckus and The Vespers just to name a few) make banjo an important part of their sound. The banjer, as Earl Scruggs calls it, is as fashionable in the indie scene nowadays as beards.

Meanwhile, the amazing Steve Martin, besides narrating Give Me The Banjo, is showcasing his own banjo playing on the talk show circuit, while playing with and presenting one of the best young bluegrass bands – The Steep Canyon Rangers – to America. Besides that, he’s supporting the banjo arts directly with generous annual grants, which so far have gone to Punch Brother Noam Pikelny and Lonesome River Band vet Sammy Shelor. (If you haven’t seen Noam’s spoof EPK for his new album, do so now.) In related news, Bela Fleck, arguably the best known banjo player after Earl Scruggs himself, recently premiered his concerto for banjo and orchestra, a three-movement mega-work he expects to perform with symphonies around the country in 2012. And with a little luck, the Earl Scruggs Center – a museum and regional showplace for banjo-related music in Shelby, NC that we have been privileged to work with - will raise its last few dollars and open in the coming year.

Amid all this hot banjo action, I enjoyed lunch recently with banjo magician Ryan Cavanaugh and his bandmate, bass player Kevin Knapp. We bonded over Thai aromas and our shared love of modern jazz and bluegrass.