Archives:

Jamming

Our Very Special Audiences

March 15, 2025

Last year, our mid week jam session in a small village by the sprawling Lake of the Ozarks was moved from a local church basement to the nearby community center activity room. In recent months, the township`s center for disabled and special needs citizens has been regularly bringing their clients to this venue to enjoy our music and song. Most of this audience is wheelchair bound, and the caregivers position these guests so our singing can be clearly heard by young and old alike.

As a teenager years ago, one of our harmony singers (front row above left) was a clogger at the regional Silver Dollar City theme park which still operates today. At our afternoon jam sessions, she dances before the wheelchair audience entertaining our visitors and garnering their smiles, applause, and laughter. It is a special privilege for us to perform for these appreciative guests.

From the BRC: Enjoy the First Day of Spring, March 20th.

 

 

 

Antique Banjos, Bio

LXXVIII

March 1, 2025

Another birthday milestone has rolled around for the BRC craftsman who has been picking the banjo for 65 years. So, after all this time, he should be better at playing the 5-stringer than he is.

On this annual occasion, however, his all-time favorite birthday card (above) that was sent to him decades ago by an older sibling is again posted.

Recently, a circa 1967 photograph was unearthed in family archives depicting a youthful folk musician playing an original tune at his college radio station in the Northeast. Back in those days, the future BRC craftsman played a long neck open-back banjo before converting to a resonator Bluegrass 5-stringer. On a cross-country car trip many decades ago, he visited the original Ode banjo shop outside Boulder, Colorado.  He still has an Ode long neck banjo that he plays at home daily because of the wife-friendly mellowness of this open-back instrument. He never wears finger picks while practicing and seldom if ever plays his louder resonator banjos when in the house.

A young picker plays a BRC banjo that was recently gifted to him by his granddad. The lad`s grandfather seen below is giving his grandson a face-time lesson with the aforementioned long neck Ode 5-stringer.

From the BRC: Have a grand St. Patrick’s Day.

 

 

BRC Events, Jamming

Tributes to a Mentor & a Friend

February 15, 2025

During the mid 1980s, a local shop owner established a Thursday evening jam session in the basement of his busy hardware store. Pickers were recruited by invitation, and a gracious and endlessly cheerful cowboy-song guitarist was instrumental in helping establish the weekly get-together. The shop owner was a former school teacher and had a special gift for cultivating musicians who had only faint familiarity with the Bluegrass genre. Within a few years, a family physician-guitarist joined the weekly jam, and his skills flourished in this setting to where he soon took up the fiddle. Later, a surgeon joined the ranks of these jammers circa 1990, and his banjo musicianship and harmony singing skills also benefitted in the learning environment.

The jams were convened year-round regardless of rain, sleet, ice storm, or snowfall. The surgeon soon established a spin-off band that performed for the benefit of the local Childrens Hospital. In the autumn of 1996 at the inaugural Pumpkin Festival in the nearby farming village of Hartsburg, the generous shop owner (seen below) played mandolin in the surgeon`s street-side band performance that collected donations for the University pediatric medical center.

The collegial Thursday evening jam sessions flourished over the years and attracted musicians with an array of skills. In the below photo, the generous jam host sits in the foreground, and on the right is the jovial guitarist who supplied a delightful compendium of classic cowboy songs. On the left is the guitar picking family physician who evolved into a capable Bluegrass fiddler per this weekly get-together.

After hosting decades of these Bluegrass picking sessions, our aging jam host sadly fell ill and succumbed in 2022. To honor the leadership and memory of this generous musician and band leader, the two doctors have ever since continued this Thursday evening musical tradition by hosting the jams on alternating weeks in their nearby homes. Our gentlemanly and beloved cowboy-song guitarist (above right) passed away peacefully in his sleep a month ago at age 94.

We sang at his funeral at the request of his widow and family, and his grand daughter (far right)  joined us in performing the traditional gospel classic “I’ll Fly Away.” The congregation sang along with the familiar tune.

At a recent Thursday night picking session, the BRC domicile entertained two very special guests who reminded us all of the long and rich history of these weekly musical meetings and its friendships. In the center of the photo is the 90 year old widow of the founding jam host, and their daughter is far left in the picture. These two honored  visitors delighted in listening to our music and singing that were cultivated in the basement of their hardware store in years past.

From the BRC: We are thankful for the privilege of sharing years of music and fellowship with two fine gentlemen.

Bio, BRC Activities

Family Fun

February 1, 2025

Whenever the Texas grandkids and their parents sojourn to our lakeside BRC domicile in Missouri, it is a busy time of family activities.

As in past visits, our son (front above) picks guitar at the weekly Thursday evening jam session.

Our granddaughter, an award winning soprano in her high school choir, sings with us on stage during our Sunday afternoon G&F gig at the brewpub where all tips are donated to the local Childrens Hospital.

Meanwhile, our grandson (below) explores his dad`s guitar.

From the BRC: Have a Happy Valentines Day.

BRC Activities, G&F Band

A Snowy Heartland

January 18, 2025

January at Zephr Point, our nickname for the locale of the lakeside BRC workshop, is a wintry mix. The lake behind our domicile freezes, and the surrounding trees are often coated with snowy ice.

After about 10 inches of a recent frosty snowfall, a beautiful sunset draped the horizon over the dam at the end of our lake. The BRC home is the house closest to the water. The twinkle of lights in the leafless trees along the adjacent dam is from the nearby neighborhood where we lived years ago.

As always on weekends, the G&F band performs year round at the nearby brewpub collecting donations for the local Children’s Hospital. Not infrequently, kids will join us on stage for a sing-a-long and photos.

Since its inception in 1995, the G&F band has surpassed $32K in donations to our University pediatric medical center. We are heartfully grateful to the generous patrons and gracious management of the brewpub, our Sunday afternoon home since 2009.

From the BRC: Wintry single digit temperatures visit us here early next week. Keep warm.