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BeJae Fleming: News

Trucker Bait - July 25, 2007

I’m off to El Bait Shop in Des Moines tonight, corner of 2nd and Market, Court Avenue area on the deliciously wrong side of the tracks, to hear one of my favorite bands of all time, Brother Trucker. Frontman, Andy Fleming, is one of the best songwriters I’ve ever heard in all my years of touring, playing and listening. I was lucky enough to get to sit in with Brother Trucker this past Saturday evening at g-palooza, Big G’s fabulous birthday bash on the shore of Lake Red Rock, close to Pella. We had a great time and there’s rumor of another g-palooza next year … and you’re all invited … seriously, Big G said so.

Brother Trucker is oh, so lucky to include our good friend and great musician, Jimmy Stevens, on drums at El Bait tonight. You can hear Jimmy again along with Jackie Blount, Pete Manesis and me at Stomping Grounds in Ames this Friday.

Jackie and I will be at the Mill in Iowa City on Saturday night for the release of Sandy Dyas’ book, Down to the River: Portraits of Iowa Musicians. Lots of fabulous acts are on for that show, many of them Trailer labelmates of mine, Bo, Pieta, Greg, Dave, Kelly and the list goes on. I heard that, in Sandy’s interview on Live from Prairie Lights, she revealed that she had me close my eyes during our shoot for the portrait of me in Down to the River, because I was so uncomfortable having my picture taken. It’s true. I’m camera-shy.

Next week, you can catch Pete Manesis, Jackie Blount and me at Cottage on Broad in Story City. This is our first show at Cottage on Broad. We’re looking forward to it.

Hope to see you soon. Thanks for everything.

Dave Zollo at AK's - June 19, 2007

I wrote this as a response to a blog my buddy, Big G, worte on MySpace about hearing Dave Zollo in Perry, IA recently. You can read the original post at http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=78168856&blogID=278091054&MyToken=fe5b6812-3263-4177-8166-2b38497b3803.

I heard Dave Zollo for the first time in a while a couple of weeks ago at AK O'Connor's. He was playing solo, the room was noisy, the audience attention was bouncing all over the place ... it was not an easy playing situation. And yet Dave Zollo was astoundingly good. I think that Dave is at the peak of what he does in that same way that Bo Ramsey is at the peak of what he does. Nobody does Bo better than Bo, and nobody does Dave better than Dave. You could go to New York or to LA or to Nashville and you could go to a show where somebody was doing the kind of music Dave does and they would not be better at it than Dave is. You could pay a hundred dollars for a ticket to hear somebody famous do the style of music Dave does and you would not hear a better act. Dave has so many shows under his belt ... He understands what he's doing at a level most of us never reach. And there's Dave playing in Beaverdale with people talking loud and people choosing to sit outside instead of inside where Dave is playing ... and regardless of the noise and the apathy, you've got David Zollo in there playing a free show that ought to cost more than I could afford. Life is so amazing. I'm not from Iowa. I could have missed this. I could have missed it. But, I didn't. I'm right here in the middle of this Iowa roots music scene that is so rich and inspiring and includes acts like Brother Trucker fronted by one of the best songwriters who has ever lived, Joe and Vickie Price who are as nice as they are authentically compelling, Dave Moore who has somehow gotten even better the last couple of times I've heard him when I thought he was already as good as anybody could ever get ... and the list goes on and on. It turns out I have all the luck. My musical life is better than I ever imagined it could be ... And you know, right, that I've been around ... I was part of the Austin/Dallas/Houston music scene in the seventies and toured the entire eastern half of the country in the eighties ... I've heard some stuff. This is better.

Back From Alaska - March 29, 2007

Jackie and I were in Fairbanks, Alaska last week. Jackie's Women's History Month keynote address on the life of Ella Flagg Young was wonderfully inspiring. We had a great time playing at the Pub on the UAF campus. We'd like to thank everyone at UAF for being so kind to us, especially our friends, Sine Anahita and Kayt Sunwood. And thanks to the aurora for finally showing up on our last night in Fairbanks.

Octagon, Alaska, M-Shop, Chicago - March 13, 2007

Jackie and I are pleased to have the opportunity to play a few songs with Rob Lumbard at his Octagon show this Saturday. Rob is an astonishingly good finger-style guitar player. I feel so lucky that I get to hear Rob in the lovely art gallery on the third floor of the Octagon Center for the Arts in Ames. The room has great acoustics. It’s a wonderful place to hear music. The Octagon has scheduled an impressive series of concerts over the next few months. See the list at http://www.octagonarts.org/en/events/. Jackie, Rob and I will play a few of my songs at the beginning of the show. Trust me, you don’t want to miss Rob. http://www.roblumbard.com/

Next week, Jackie and I are off to Fairbanks, Alaska for a lecture on Jackie’s current research, “Famous to Forgotten: The Legacy of Ella Flagg Young,” and a show on my current research, “Ink and Needles: Wonder if I Could Get the Band to Get a Tattoo,” in a series of events celebrating Women’s History Month. Jackie and I are grateful to our friends, Kayt Sunwood and Sine Anahita, for turning the wheels of this very exciting invitation. The temperature has been forty below zero for enough days in a row in Fairbanks that most of the plumbing there is all frozen up and inoperable. Wahoo!!! There’s a moose living in Sine and Kayt’s yard that sometimes gets cranky and won’t let anybody come out of the house. You know, they just can’t replicate adventures like this at resorts and at Disney World, they just can’t. I can’t believe we’re getting paid to do this. The Northern Lights are very active in Fairbanks at this time of year, especially at around three in the morning. I could call you and describe what I’m seeing. Shall I? Oh, wait, our cell phones won’t work up there. Darn.

We’ll be back in Ames in time to open a show with Red Stoltenberg on guitar at the M-Shop for our friends, Joe and Vickie Price, on March 29. Joe is in the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame, a veteran and a legend in Iowa blues. Joe and Vickie travel all over the country with their combination of Joe’s deep, traditional blues style and Vickie’s beautifully voiced swing blues. The M-Shop is, of course, one of our favorite venues, so please join us for this show. http://www.joepriceblues.com/

Jackie and I will be in Chicago for a show on April 13. Joining us on guitar will be our dear friend, Victor Sanders. Victor produced and did the lead guitar work on our first two CDs. We’re very pleased to have the chance to do this show with Victor in the intimate setting of an artist’s studio. I’ll have more details about this soon.

Check for more shows in the calendar section of this site.

I’m very happy to tell you that the Iowa chart of the Roots Music Report shows Destination Unimportant at number seven again this month. Our deep thanks to all the DJs spinning our disc.

Thanks so much for all you do to support us indie musicians. We’d be glum and alone in our living rooms without you.

Destination Unimportant # 7 on Iowa Roots Music Chart - February 15, 2007

Hello,
This is the first chart for Iowa artists available on The Roots Music Report. I am proud to say that 8 of the top 10 are played regularly on Midwest Revue and the two blues artists are also heard on The Big Blues Broadcast.
Thanks to all artists who help keep my shows fresh!
Billy Rose



IOWA: ROOTS ARTIST RADIO AIRPLAY CHART
Jan: 2007 Chart
Ranking: Artist: CD Title: Label: Genre:
1 STEPHEN SHEPHERD IN THE SHADE WHP True Country
2 BLUEGRASS ADDICTION BLUE IN MY BLUEGRASS SELF Bluegrass
3 GREG BROWN THE EVENING CALL RED HOUSE Folk
4 BO RAMSEY STRANGER BLUES BO RAMSEY RECORDS Blues
5 PIETA BROWN IN THE COOL VALLEY ENTERTAINMENT Roots Rock
6 THE NADAS LISTEN THROUGH THE STATIC AUTHENTIC/C & P APPOLONI Roots Rock
7 BEJAE FLEMING DESTINATION UNIMPORTANT TRAILER Blues
8 LITTLE MOJO AWAKE & DREAMING MUTINY 2K MUSIC Roots Rock
9 SAM SALOMONE VOODOO BOP HOT FUDGE Jazz
10 TOWNCRIER WITHOUT A TRACE AUTHENTIC Unknown

Destination Top Five - December 28, 2006

Kris Konrady, writing for the Des Moines entertainment magazine, Juice, named Destination Unimportant as a "Top Five" Iowa album along with albums by Bo Ramsey, The Bone People, Mike and Amy Finders and Stuart Davis. Thanks, Kris. This means so much. Read Kris's review at http://www.dmjuice.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061227/JUICE05/612270327/1115/juice

One Night at the Famous Surf Ballroom (and Gettin’ There) - September 6, 2006

By Sandy Clarke

Having kicked around Iowa for all but a few of my 41 years, you’d think I would have made it to the famous Surf Ballroom at least once before. But I hadn’t, until lately. What makes this even more of a mystery is that I love to see live music in smaller venues, and I’m married to a Buddy Holly enthusiast.

So when I saw that Susan Tedeschi was on the bill for August 18 at the Surf, I was determined to knit up this hole in my Iowa musical experience. My intrepid friend Ann, who is always up for a road trip, joined me on the pilgrimage. Al, who is not always up for a road trip, declined.

It’s a good thing I was so determined because forces out of my control, namely the Highway Patrol, were against me. I got pulled over on Interstate 35 a few miles south of Clear Lake because I did not (could not) change lanes when driving past a patrol car stopped to ticket another driver.

So, while sitting in this very patrol car seconds later, the officer said “you're supposed to slow down when you can’t switch lanes so that you can come to a dead stop in case an officer has to walk into the lane.” I’m thinking, yeah, right--in a perfect world maybe. In fact, as I sat there in his squad car trying to act much cooler than I felt, several people whizzed by us in the near lane, causing the officer to remark, “See those idiots? (Not that you're an idiot, ma’am.) I could spend all day just ticketing for this.” So I said, "Yeah, I guess I'm the lucky one." That's a lot of lip from someone sitting in a squad car, so I flinched a little when he gave me “the look.” But he said I was lucky after all and he was just going to give me a warning.

After this delightful delay, we got to Clear Lake and headed down toward the lakeside for a quick meal. When we got to the Surf half an hour before the start of the show there was already a long line out front beneath the marquee. If you are an aficionado of 50s psuedo-Deco architecture, this is your place. I don't think they've changed one thing since 1959. The decor is turquoise blue and white, with little maritime flourishes to remind you that a lake is nearby and it’s time to relax. When you walk in, the rarified air hits you like a painted brick wall. A large newspaper clipping featuring the Buddy Holly crash story is prominently displayed, as are other rock and roll artifacts.

The seating protocol at the Surf is big trouble. Some patrons pay an extra $10 for a reserved booth (maybe even more for a reserved table on the floor), and these booths aren't always clearly marked, which leaves the other general admissions people (us) just floating around in never-never land. After we got kicked out of an unmarked booth, Ann asked about the seating policy. She was told that we could sit anywhere after the show started, even in reserved spots, because after that it reverts to first-come basis. Try telling that to a woman in a leopard-skin dress with bouffant hair who calls you honey. And the t-shirted security folks are not interested in settling these land-grab disputes. You are on your own.

After two unsuccessful attempts to defend squatters’ rights, and after trying a couple booths strategically located behind thick concrete pillars, we eventually settled on standing stage right and got to see a lot of the band and the guitar tech. We danced the night away. I noticed that when the band looks out from that famous stage, their perspective is dominated by huge images of Buddy Holly, done in the style of Andy Warhol. The stage is like the old ballroom stages that used to be prevalent in Iowa, fairly high off the ground with thick velvet curtains in the background. The sound system is huge. I bet the dressing rooms backstage are fantastic relics. The bathrooms are cavernous mirrored and tiled rooms with antechambers.

We had a blast at the Surf, even considering our driving and seating tribulations. Susan and her band seemed to enjoy the ambiance, and she pounded out some great gritty numbers and soulful ballads. When she belts out “You can make it if you try,” you almost believe it. I imagine the Surf is quite a memorable stop for touring musicians, and those billboard-sized images of Buddy Holly grinning encouragement must stick with them for a long while down the road.

Sine and Kayt Listening in Fairbanks, Alaska - August 14, 2006

Kayt Sunwood and Sine Anahita left messages in our Guestbook.

From Kayt:
I'm not sure that Fairbanks has an unjumpable claim (Alaska humor, from the gold mining days) on hosting the Farthest North BeJae Fleming Fan Club. I know of tiny villages on islands in the Chukchi Sea WAY above the Arctic Circle, as well as a Yukon River village with radio reach into Canada are rocking to CDs from BeJae and the Band. Are there any fan clubs from Point Hope, Barrow, Prudhoe Bay, or Kaktovik? Speak up so you can claim the Farthest North honors. Even though in miles we are far, far, far from the Heartland, your music reverberates throughout the "Last Frontier." I find Rhonda’s message from "Rudy's" particularly poignant in villages throughout Alaska. Even though most Alaska villages aren't connected to a road system, have few to no cars, no parking lots, nor diners --- similar to the fate of Rudy’s Diner --- in Alaska in the last 30 years much of what made up villages and village culture has been “swept … clean away.” Throughout Alaska we seem to be wrestling with Rhonda’s message, “some things you can’t hold back even if you try.” BeJae, and band, you are phenomenal. Couldn’t make it way up here in Alaska without the connections your music provides.


From Sine:
From the Farthest North BeJae Fleming Fan Club: Though she has never performed in Alaska, BeJae has a growing throng of fans. I use her songs in my sociology courses at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, most recently in my Love, Sex, and Heartbreak class. The students enjoy "Your Love is a Car", although they are confused by the metaphor. Which is actually prrr-fect, as I use this song to teach about Symbolic Interactionism, which confuses even seasoned sociologists. I have also used "Don't Criticize My Love" to teach Marxist theories about sexuality. Jesse Helms never had so much press so far North. "Cutaway" works well when I need my students to analyze the sociology of personally ruinous, even illicit romantic liaisons. There is a big market here for that. I'm still trying to find a sociological hook for "Rudy's" and "When It Comes to You", my two current favorite songs. "We All Got Wings" seems dangerous to play for college students; they are uncontrollable enough as it is without giving them any liberating ideas. Thanks for the music.

********************************************************

Jackie and I met Sine Anahita around 1990, when she booked me to play a show at her beautiful Bold Moon Farm, just outside of Greensboro, NC where we lived at the time. This was before Jackie played bass with me. In fact, this was before Jackie played bass at all. There was one Bold Moon New Year’s Eve show, though, when Jackie played a few songs with me on guitar. We also played a set at an Ashville, NC festival, Bel Chere, with Jackie on guitar. There’s no end to her musical abilities. She has all sorts of musical secrets, like the fact that she can play tunes by buzzing her lips. Flight of the Bumblebee is one of my favorites.

Sine had owned Bold Moon for a few years when we met her. Her notion was to create a safe and interesting place for women. She scheduled everything from day-long music festivals, to workshops on, among other things, massage, how to build straw bale houses (efficient and relatively inexpensive housing available to landowning women of modest means and varying levels of building skills), and how to create intentional communities. She cleared space on her land for camping, renovated an old school bus as a guest cottage and built outbuildings on her farm where she kept goats and chickens. She took in every stray cat dumped in the area, baked bread, edited a newsletter for women on the land, and hosted rituals to celebrate the change of the seasons. Sine was a one-woman cultural renaissance at the end of a long gravel road.

Jackie and I took to Sine from the moment we met her and she to us. We became fast friends over those last three years that Jackie and I lived in North Carolina. Sine was one of the people who helped us get ready to move to Iowa in 1993 and cried over us when we left. She wrote us letters once we got to Iowa, sent us shells from the river behind her house and drawings of her goats. She helped us through those early days in Ames, IA when we didn’t know a soul here except each other.

Sine came to visit us in March of 1995. Sine and I have birthdays just one day apart in March. Jackie and I put together a small birthday celebration at out house. I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted Sine to meet our new friend, Kayt Sunwood. Kayt was working on her PhD in Instructional Technology after years as an activist in Duluth, MN. Kayt had built her own cabin north of Duluth on a piece of land barely accessible by car. She had lived without electricity or running water. She spent a winter in a teepee where she raised all her own food, lived in a women’s collective for several years, and could fix about anything that didn’t work right. I thought that Kayt and Sine would have a lot in common and enjoy talking to one another. I had planned to tell Kayt and Sine a little bit about each other, all these amazing and wonderful things that I thought they’d enjoy talking about, but, as guests started arriving, I got busy with taking coats and serving drinks, and missed the chance to give Kayt and Sine anything but the briefest introduction. Once there was a break in my host duties, I looked around for Kayt and Sine. There they were sitting together focused intently on each other as though they were the only ones in the room. By the end of the evening, they knew as much about each other’s extraordinary lives as I did.

Sine and Kayt kept in close touch after Sine returned to North Carolina. In November, Sine moved to Iowa to be with Kayt and to continue her studies in sociology.

After several years, Kayt and Sine both finished their PhDs. Kayt had been working at the University of Wisconsin in Superior, while Sine finished her dissertation and worked at Iowa State. Finally, they went on the academic job market and found jobs together. That was the good news. The bad news, for Jackie and me, at least, was that the jobs were in Fairbanks, Alaska. It was our turn to help them pack and cry over their leaving.

Jackie and I visited Kayt and Sine in Fairbanks last summer and got a firsthand view on the extraordinary lives that these amazing women are living in a remarkably beautiful place.

Sine and Kayt have made sure that our CDs get airplay on Alaskan community radio stations. Because of them, our music is sitting on top of the world.

Bo Ramsey's New Release, Stranger Blues - July 21, 2006

[Hear samples: http://cdbaby.com/cd/boramsey2]

The first time I ever heard Bo Ramsey play live I had booked him myself into a community concert series in Ames, Iowa, where I live. I was fairly new to Iowa at the time, and new to Iowa music. I didn’t really know who I was booking. I’d barely heard part of a cut or two from Bo Ramsey and the Backsliders’ Live CD (Trailer Records) on KUNI radio, while I was driving to gigs. Without paying much attention, I pigeon-holed Bo in my mind as “one’a those electric blues guys.” I booked him because I knew there was a lot of talk about him in Iowa, and I needed someone with a draw. Since we were on the same label, I thought maybe I could get him, and I thought maybe he could prove to some of the people who didn’t believe it at the time that, yes, people in Ames would pay ten dollars for a sit-down concert that didn’t involve alcohol or a full band.

Bo played that show with bass player Marty Christiansen, just the two of them in a very intimate setting. I introduced Bo, and he came on stage humbly, almost shyly, sat down on a tall stool, and got down to the all-git-and-groove business of playing the most engaging live show I’ve ever heard. They played all sorts of Americana, roots music on Bo’s usual array of guitars, all of it with mesmerizing depth and masterful control. When Bo announced that they would take a break, then come back for a second set, I thought to myself, Well, they can’t take a break now, it’s too soon, they’ve only done a few songs. I looked at my watch. They’d been playing for an hour. I had completely lost track of time. For that hour, there had been nothing for me but that music. I’d never had an experience like that before. I turned to Jackie Blount, who sat next to me. With a stunned look she asked me, What just happened? I don’t know, I told her. I don’t know. Jackie and I have spent our time as musicians since then trying to figure it out. That show changed the way I listen to music. It changed the way I think about music, and it changed the way I play.

In 1999 when I was in the process of recording my 2000 release, Navigating Limbo, I was talking to friend and music critic, Jim Musser.

“If you could have anybody in the world play on this record, who would it be?” he asked me, though he already knew who I’d say.

“Bo Ramsey,” I told him.

“Ask him.”

“I can’t,” I told Jim Musser.

“Why not?”

“I admire him too much. I don’t have the nerve to ask him to play on my record, Jim.”

“Want me to ask him for you?” Jim knew from the beginning, I suspect, that this was his match to make.

“Yes,” I told Jim. “Yes.” “Yes.”

Bo Ramsey drove from Iowa City to Chicago on a sweltering day through snarly traffic for very little money to lay down stunning guitar parts on three cuts for Navigating Limbo. The signature, seductive slide guitar on Make the Boys Like Me, Bo cut in one take. He did multiple texture and solo tracks for I Am a Diamond (my co-write with Trailer Records founder, David Zollo). At the end of the last take, Bo said through the studio microphone into the control room to engineer/producer, Victor Sanders, That’s the one, throw away the others. Victor opened the control room mic and said to Bo, Okay, then turned the mic off, turned to me and said, We’re gonna use every one of those tracks.

During a break in recording, Bo and I went outside for some fresh air. How’d you get so good, I asked Bo. He told me this story: When Bo was around ten years old, during the summer when school was out, he’d go to the community center in the small town where he grew up. There was a big linoleum floor and a record player. Teenagers would bring their forty-fives and spin them all day long. Bo hung out by himself off to the side, younger than everyone else, caring about little besides the music on those records, until a group of fourteen-year-old Black girls took pity on that skinny White kid, opened their maternal rhythm and blues wings and taught Bo Ramsey to dance.

“I never forget that,” Bo told me, “when I play.”

At the time, I thought that was a strange answer to the question, How’d you get so good. But, in Stranger Blues, I can hear them. I can hear those young girls dance.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I love Bo Ramsey’s newest release, Stranger Blues. I love all of Bo Ramsey’s recordings … Well, all of them I’ve heard. Bo swears to me that he released some recordings early in his career that I wouldn’t love … but, I don’t believe it, and he won’t prove it, so we’re at a standoff. And, just in case you think that I’m too much of a devoted Bo Ramsey fan to have a valid opinion about Stranger Blues, Kyle Munson, music critic for the Des Moines Register, gave this new CD four and a half stars, more than he gives nearly any new release. (He also called Bo the Yoda of Iowa City roots music. That Kyle … he’s a corker.) Even though I always expect amazing records from Bo, he has still managed to surprise me.

Bo Ramsey is a great songwriter. Most of Bo’s work as a guitar slinger and as a producer is with songwriters who are the best in the business, among them Pieta Brown, Greg Brown, and Lucinda Williams. There are no original songs on Stranger Blues. It’s a collection of very authentic blues, gospel, and folk songs that have inspired Bo through his life as a musician and, for those of us trying to become Bo, it’s a revealing, informative, insightful, and important glimpse into what makes Bo Bo. These songs are not as lyrically sophisticated as Bo’s own songs. Instead of relying on lyrics to get the point across, Bo uses the most convincing vocals of his recording career, along with his legendary hypnotic guitar playing, to move us to that place in ourselves of very basic, and mostly inelegant phrases made of coarsely beautiful sounds; that place very nearly beyond words.

Bo, along with co-producer Pieta Brown, applies those experience-honed techniques on Stranger Blues that have made him a sought-after producer. Foundation is everything to Bo. The rest is secondary to the deep, lock-groove of drums and bass, an approach nothing short of amazing for a lead guitar player. Everything else rests on top of that foundation in an utterly intentional way. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is useless. No filler, and no aimless showing off. It’s a minimalist setting in which every note is essential, and where a simple slide, in exactly the right place, played with exquisite precision, and a fabulously dirty tone, will take your breath away.

These are only a few of my personal favorites on this spectacular release.

Freight Train
This is an instrumental version of Elizabeth Cotton’s familiar folk/blues song. Bo weaves multiple melodic lines together to form a sonic landscape of poignant, surprising, and moving chord inversions. Joining Bo in this rich guitar texturing is son, Benson Ramsey. This piece reminds me of some of the instrumentals on Ben Ramsey and David Huckfelt’s release, The Pines (Trailer Records), another of my favorite discs. Ben, heir to his father’s no-nonsense, swampy guitar style, is clearly the right person to carry the Ramsey tradition into the future. (I just heard that The Pines have signed with Red House Records, one of the most successful small labels in Americana music … Yeah!)

Jump, Baby, Jump
This tune by Mississippi blues woman, Jessie Mae Hemphill, could easily wind up sounding artless in less capable hands. But, you give drummer Steve Hayes a jump beat like this to play, and he’s gonna make you ache to move. Wrap Bo’s slithery vocal around that beat, and you end up with me dancing around my house, singing way too loud, Do it, baby, do it/Do it, baby, do it/Do it, baby, do it/Do it, baby, do it. You’ll see windows of the house next door to mine being lowered and locked. You’ll see Jackie Blount with a knitted brow, and a puzzled look. Apparently, this song isn’t as cool when I do it as it is when Bo does it … But, I suppose any of us could say that about any song.

No Place to Go
This haunting piece by Chester Burnett (never heard of him? … Howlin’ Wolf) may hold at least part of the secret to that in-the-moment timelessness of Bo’s live performance described at the beginning of this blog. This song is built around a steely guitar riff that repeats throughout the whole song without change or embellishments. Just the right tempo, and the deepest of grooves, produce a trance-like effect here. There’s plenty enough well-placed spooky guitar, ambient keyboard, and nearly scary vocal to keep things interesting, but it’s that riff and groove that pull you in.

Sitting on Top of the World
I’ve often heard this done as a bouncy, happy-go-lucky sounding, bluegrassy song, which I’ve always thought was weird. This has never seemed like a happy song to me, even though the title makes it sound like it’s going to be one. You’ll never hear a more appropriately dark version than this one.

Where the Sun Never Goes Down
This gospel song closes Stranger Blues with an absolutely chilling vocal, full of the regret and doubt of a sinner with one last good intention to keep his promises.

Bo Ramsey and Pieta Brown have reached a new level of artistry working together. Since its release last fall, their last duo project, Pieta Brown’s In the Cool (Valley Entertainment), has seen more action on my player than any other disc. Bo tells me that they have another Pieta release just about ready to go. I can’t wait. In the meantime, I can’t get enough of these Stranger Blues.

Hear samples of Stranger Blues at http://cdbaby.com/cd/boramsey2
Read more about Bo at www.boramsey.com and at http://www.trailer-records.com/artists/ramsey.shtml.

Ames Tribune Article - July 12, 2006

Read Christopher Weishaar's Ames Tribune article on BeJae Fleming and Crimson-Mahler at http://www.midiowanews.com/site/tab1.cfm?newsid=16912065&BRD=2700&PAG=461&dept_id=554340&rfi=6

The G7th Performance Capo: A Product Review - July 6, 2006

The G7th Performance Capo: A Product Review

I don’t like capos. They pull the strings out of tune and cause more problems than they solve; that’s what I’ve said for more years than I care to admit. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble in my life as a musician to learn to play without them. There are good reasons to use a capo. Some riffs work best with particular chord forms. If a riff-friendly chord isn’t a moveable form and also happens to be in the wrong key for your vocal, you need a capo. I dislike capos so much that I’ve learned to avoid those unmovable, riff-friendly chords in the wrong key when I’m writing songs. That limits me in some ways. And it was a lot of work to learn to play out of enough keys and chord forms to avoid using a capo. If you knew how lazy I am you’d understand that hardly anything would make me do that much work. Capos did.

When I got Nick Campling’s email asking me to try his G7th capo, which retails for around forty dollars (FORTY DOLLARS!!!!), for free, my first thought was; I’d pay forty dollars not to try it. I dislike capos that much. Just out of curiosity and something-for-nothing greed, I Googled Nick Campling to see if he was on the level. When I read online that Nick Campling was indeed the inventor of the G7th Performance Capo and that, among other notables, Eric Clapton uses one, I fell into such a swoon of self-importance (this guy’s got Eric Clapton, but he still wants me) that I wrote to Nick Campling and took him up on his offer. Yep, me and Eric, we’re trying out Nick’s capo. Why not?

A week or so went by and a manila envelope arrived from Musical Distributors Group. It’s that capo, I thought; I gotta try out that capo. Maybe tomorrow. The envelope lay on my desk unopened for over a week. I gotta try out that capo. I don’t like capos. Maybe tomorrow. I’m way too busy playing guitar right now to try out a capo. Love to play guitar. Hate capos. You get the idea.

When I made my set list for a gig at a nearby winery (Iowa wine … better than it sounds), I put two songs from my old capo-using days on the list. I figured I’d better learn to use that capo before trying it out on stage. I couldn’t tell from the picture I’d seen online quite how it worked. When I opened the packaging the first thing I noticed about the G7th was the sleek, smooth feel and the weight of it. It felt far more substantial than any capo I’d ever held before. But, this was a forty-dollar capo, after all; it oughta be well-made from good materials. I read the instructions. Place snuggly behind the fret and squeeze. I did that. It didn’t feel like I’d done anything to make the capo stay on the neck of the guitar. The mechanism was so flawlessly smooth and the “squeeze” so subtle, so quick, so utterly effortless that it was hard to imagine I’d done it right. And yet it did stay on the neck. Then I played my vintage Gibson archtop and couldn’t believe my ears. It was perfectly in tune. With a capo. I still have a hard time believing it. This capo is to other capos what an electronic tuner is to a tuning fork. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against tuning forks (really I do, but I have friends who still use them and I feel I need to act as though I think it’s a sensible choice, even though I don’t) and I can still use a tuning fork if I have to. But, trust me, you don’t want that. It’s going to be a struggle that neither of us will end up happy about. Same with all those other capos I’ve ever used. You’re gonna have to sit around while I yank strings and retune the guitar and curse … and the guitar still won’t be quite in tune. Let me say again, my guitar is as perfectly in tune with the G7th capo on it as it is when there’s no capo on it. And I don’t have to do anything to make that happen, no yanking strings, retuning or setting the capo multiple times in hopes of finding that mysterious, just-right fit that leaves the guitar at least almost in tune. None of that. Not only is this by far the best capo I’ve ever used, it’s also the easiest and the fastest.

I don’t like capos, at least not all those others. This one? I’d pay forty dollars for it. Gladly. It’s that good.

Find out more about the G7th Performance Capo at http://www.g7th.com.

The Bone People - June 27, 2006

A couple of weeks ago, I went to hear the Bone People at an outdoor series called Tune into Main. It’s held in a small grassy area between buildings just off Main Street in Ames. It’s right next to a double set of railroad tracks and a crossing. Every few songs, a train rumbled through with its horn blaring. To make matters worse, there was a forty-mile-per-hour wind and a bad electrical ground. It was a difficult gig. And yet, the Bone People made it look so easy. If I’d closed my eyes, I could have imagined I was listening to music on a windy, freight-trainy day in Chicago or in New York or in Paris. The Bone People are that sophisticated. The Bone People are that good. They’re so good that I’ve come to take it for granted that they’re going to be exceptional, so exceptional that they couldn’t possibly get any better. But, I swear, they have.

Deb Marquart’s three-octaves-all-of-em-good voice has matured into the consummate jazz voice, smooth, cool, hypnotic and unpushed, with the timbre ranging all the way from an airy soprano to a raspy trumpet sound, artfully used and masterfully controlled. Add that voice to skillfully written and carefully chosen songs, an appealing stage presence and Deb’s mysteriously beautiful good looks and you begin to get the picture of the Bone People.

Pete Manesis, who plays primarily acoustic guitar in the band with occasional rides on bass and bouzouki, did his time in rock bands before venturing into the complex voicings of jazz chords and the super difficult acoustic guitar techniques unapproachable to all but the virtuosic. The result is a style that defies pigeon holes and boundaries. Pete is the primary songwriter in this band, but has spent the past couple of years composing absolutely stunning instrumental pieces that were judiciously sprinkled through the show.

Tony Stevens, percussionist for the Bone People, known for his wild and wonderful expertise on an array of hand drums, couldn’t make this gig and was replaced by traps player, Collin Dettmann. I’d only heard Collin play once before in a fabulously funky, but short-lived band called Big Medicine. As far as I know, this is the only time that Collin has played with the Bone People. His approach was perfect for the material and his musical ideas were stellar.

With all this talent and all this skill, wouldn’t you just think that the Bone People would be stuck up?

When I was new in town in the fall of ’93, I met Debra Marquart, Pete Manesis and Tony Stevens of the Bone People at a show they did at Ames’ legendary Dugan’s, a treasure of a bar known for the diversity of its clientele and its live music. I’d already heard from nearly everyone I’d met in Ames how great this band, The Bone People, was. They were all right. It was a memorable night of funky, jazzy originals and cleverly augmented takes on Zeppelin, Hendrix, Joni and Rickie Lee among others.

Soon after I met them, Pete and Deb called with an invitation to dinner, to get to know Jackie and me better and to welcome me into the Ames music community. They told me about venues in Ames and Des Moines that were likely to hire solo acts (which I was at the time) and offered to share some of their gigs with me to help get me established as an Iowa musician.

In 1995, when I was working on my first CD, Red Cross Woman, producer/engineer, Victor Sanders, wanted vocal harmony on my song Iowa. The plan was that I’d record those harmonies. I’d been in a duo for years and had done a lot of harmony singing. But, for some reason, I just couldn’t hear a harmony part for that particular song, just couldn’t get it. The Bone People were working on a CD with Victor during that same time period and I suggested that we get Deb to give that harmony part on Iowa a try. Victor made a rough mix of the song for Deb, who said she thought she could come up with something. When the Bone People were in Chicago for their next batch of sessions, Deb laid down a gorgeous harmony for Iowa that she had carefully prepared. “Could you do a second harmony part?” Victor asked her. She put down a second harmony part that was just as beautiful, with no preparation at all, on the spot, quick, precise and perfect.

In 1998, Jackie decided to take up the bass, something I’d been bugging her about for years. Jackie, remember, has an undergraduate degree in music from a very demanding music program. She’s classically trained as a player (French horn was her instrument), utterly steeped in music theory and experienced as a music educator. Jackie taught herself a lot about playing the bass, but decided a few lessons would move her along more quickly. She took those lessons from Pete Manesis, who is an excellent bass player as well as a phenomenal guitar player. Jackie says that in all her years of music training, she’s never met a music teacher more gifted than Pete. She says that Pete gave her a semester’s worth of music training in a few lessons and deepened her understanding of bass playing immeasurably.

A few years ago, The Bone People began performing The Storm, a song off of my first CD. Just recently, Deb asked me if it was all right with me if the Bone People covered You Were On My Mind, a song from my most recent CD, Destination Unimportant. The Bone People do stunningly beautiful versions of both these songs, very different from my own versions. They have given The Storm and You Were On My Mind a much bigger life than I could have given them on my own. In all my years as a songwriter, I am most proud that I could write songs good enough to catch the attention of these exceptional musicians.

The Bone People have been unfailingly kind to me in the often harsh and competitive arena of the music business. This is one more item on the long list of ways in which they are remarkable.

Hear the Bone People live this Friday in Ames; June 30; Bandshell Park; 11:30am—1:30pm.