G&F Band

The BRC founder`s band “Gainor & Friends” performed its annual  holiday concert this week for the in-patient children and adults at the University psychiatric center.  Festivities included a mixture of hoedown fiddle tunes and  classic Seasonal sing-a-longs. Staff and patients enjoyed the fun get together and community spirit. The concert was concluded with  a rollicking “Jingle Bell Rock” followed by a nostalgic “White Christmas.”

After the grateful patients personally  thanked us for the music and good cheer, our mandolin player remarked that this gig was his favorite performance each year.

In the autumn of 1991, award-winning photojournalist Torsten Kjelfstruad snapped a picture of three Bluegrass musicians jamming at the Hitching Post saloon in Hartsburg, Missouri. This nostalgic image, featuring the young banjo-playing BRC founder,  adorned the saloon`s 1992 calendar. A few souvenier copies of it are extant.

Four years later, at the inaugural Hartsburg Pumpkin Festival, the BRC founder`s band performed its first of several yearly benefit concerts in the small farming village for the Children`s Hospital. A flyer from that era recruiting pickers survives (click image to enlarge for small print).

Eighteen years later,  Gainor & Friends now plays an annual benefit gig for the Children`s Hospital at a street festival hosted by the local Harley Davidson dealership.

Some of the same band members from the mid 90`s are still pickin` for the kids today. It`s the Bluegrass way.

A long and soggy rainy season brought recent flooding to the Heartland almost reminescent of  the famous regional painting ” Spring on the Missouri” by native son Thomas Hart Benton.  The over-saturated  Earth generously gave up some of its waters to the basement BRC workshop that required a few days of clean-up.

The first real day of summer finally arrived on the second Saturday of June just in time for the Safe Kids Discovery Day fest (see placard) at the Children`s Hospital. This fun  carnival is part of a nationwide educational program  for children and families to learn injury prevention behaviors.

The BRC founder`s band opened the stage show and then held an interactive jam session for kids and parents to learn more about  stringed instruments and traditional Bluegrass music.

It was a glorious summer day followed promptly by rain showers the next morning.

P.S. Watch for a BRC “Peace Dove” banjo on e-bay June 17-24 (sold).  Upon receipt, the new owner  emailed, “The banjo is beautiful and sounds great.”

The BRC founder`s band performed again at the yearly Roast-a-Doc gala, an evening to benefit the Children`s Hospital, when staff and friends gently poke fun at the physicians. We were stung when one of our fiddlers was 40 minutes late for the one hour gig because of unexpected delays installing a beehive in her backyard. Quipped one of our musicians to the frazzled and tardy violinst, “Two bee or not too bee, that is the question.”

At the reception, one of the band`s young and devoted fans and father stopped-by to listen to an old timey clawhammer passage on the banjo.

Afterwards, the musicians shared an (almost) annual dinner together at a local restaurant where it was announced that the band has donated $12K in gig tips to the Children`s Miracle Network over the last nine years.  With worldwide bee counts down and the flower pollination season at hand, the pickers also celebrated the two new bee colonies.