Browsing Category

BRC Events

BRC Events, G&F Band

New Guy on the Block

April 5, 2025

At a recent Sunday afternoon benefit gig at the brewpub in support of the local Childrens Hospital, a youthful banjo player joined his mandolinist grandfather on the bandstand during the jam session. No stranger to stage performance, this talented teenager (foreground left) is a skillful musician in his high school marching band and active in musical theatre and sports.

The young fellow was picking his “Dragon Master” BRC banjo that was crafted by his granddad at the end of last year. For close-up details of this 5-stringer, enter dragon in the search engine and hit enter. Hardly alone as a ‘new guy on the block’, this youngster was one of three 5-string pickers on stage that afternoon. Count `em.

Also newly arrived on our block, Springtime has come to the Heartland prompting the flowering trees to issue their colorful blooms. Our favorites, the lily magnolias, have unfolded their lovely their pink blossoms. If you look closely, the back decks of the BRC domicile are visible across the lake in the background. The Magnolia Lilliflora is originally native to southwest China, and it was formerly known as Magnolia Quinquepeta honoring the French botanist Pierre Magnol (1638-1715).

 

Just out side the back door of the BRC workshop, a sprawling lily magnolia displays its splendid flowers on a sunny Spring morning.

From the BRC: In the Heartland, April showers bring May flowers.

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.

BRC Events

A Five String Dragon Mastered

January 4, 2025

Not too long ago, the BRC workshop produced a banjo decorated with themes of mythology. The peghead portrays a fearsome dragon and a knight in armor who will tame it.The upper neck fretboard contains frightful visages of werewolves and the heads of hungry dragons.

The lower neck reiterates these scary mythological creatures and their claws.

As all BRC banjos contain an inlay on the heel of the neck for the eyes only of the musician, the base of this neck revisits the image of the fearless knight.

The pot is made of ash, walnut, and cherry woods, and an inscription thereupon (inverted) documents that this instrument is the 105th banjo produced by the BRC.

Over the recent Holidays, the “Dragon Master” 5-stringer was gifted to a grandson who has special interests in musical theatre and musicianship. He and his BRC grandfather (below) were soon jamming together.

From the BRC: All good wishes to our readers in the New Year.

Antique Instruments, BRC Events

A Gibson Violin

December 14, 2024

Although known for its banjo production at the Kalamazoo factory in Michigan, the original Gibson workshop also made violins mostly from 1939 to 1942. About 4200 violins were crafted at the 225 Parsons St. manufacturing site, but production of these unique instruments was discontinued at the onset of World War II. The co-host of our Thursday evening jam sessions owns one of these unique fiddles which he has preserved in safe keeping for many years in its original case. Recently, he brought out the vintage violin to play at a weekly picking session. His fellow musicians were so impressed with the instrument`s  marvelous tone and volume that it has become a regular feature at our weekly jams.

A Kalamazoo-Gibson sticker is readily visible inside the vintage instrument by peering through an “F” hole in the front of it. The violin has a flamed and quilted maple back.

In a recent jam, our co-host (below center) holds the precious vintage fiddle after playing it in a spirited hoedown tune with the band. One summer years ago, the BRC craftsman visited the historic Parsons St. site of the original Gibson factory while vacationing with family in the Michigan Upper Peninsula.

On the same evening seen above, we also celebrated the birthday of our bass player (far right) with cupcakes, and we regaled her with a cheery chorus of  “Happy Birthday.” In addition to being the band’s time keeper, our bassist is also a skilled dulcimer player.

Above is a Seasonal photo of the lakeside BRC domicile as seen from the far shoreline.

From the BRC:  Have a joyous Holiday Season.

BRC Events

Sunrise at the BRC

February 11, 2023

Located in the basement of our home, the BRC workshop faces east across one of the three lakes in our neighborhood. The shoreline behind our house is frequented by deer, foxes, raccoons, and the occasional rambling coyote. Grandkids catch hefty catfish from our dock in the summertime. This winter, sunrises have been a frequent spectacle of meteorology.  By November, wide temperature swings brought freeze-thaw cycles to our lake while intermittently crystalizing its icy monochrome surface.  It is said that Mark Twain advised, “If you don’t like the weather in Missouri, wait five minutes.”

In early December, sunrises were streaked with feathery red-orange hues that mirrored themselves on the waters and frequently predicted impending snow flurries.

Later in December, the Heartland was visited by angry crimson skies (below) heralding the arrival of an historic bomb-cyclone storm that pummeled the landscape and all who lived here.

When the colossal storm finally abated, a gold-striped horizon and windswept morning sky (below) emerged at sunup to reveal that about 600 Canada geese had been driven south by the storm and taken refuge on our frozen neighborhood lakes.

Home owners began to shoot bottle rockets at the noisy  flock to hasten its departure, but to no avail whatsoever. Only the arrival of a hungry coyote stealthily prowling the shorelines was sufficiently alarming to alert the geese to a menacing predator, and the giant flock of birds promptly took wing and fled en masse to faraway environs. As dawn unfolds daily, we are not infrequently treated to a “Giverny in the Sky” alluding to Monet`s serial paintings of his pond in France visited by the BRC wife and her sister a few years ago.

From the BRC: Have a sunny and Happy Valentine`s Day.