Fifteen Years of Family String Band Music

I guess the roots of our family band can be traced back to the late 1980s when I used to sing the kids to sleep, or maybe to 1994 when Erica and I led the middle school orchestra in a rousing version of Rosin the Bow. That same year our father/daughter duo entertained a group of seniors at a pancake breakfast with some old-time fiddle tunes. 1994 was also the year I surprised Georgianne by giving her a mountain dulcimer for our fifteenth wedding anniversary. But the first public performance of "The  Family That Plays Together," AKA The Homegrown String Band, was at a Long Island Traditional Music Association member's concert on January 10, 1997. Fifteen years ago this month.


Our first performance of 2012, our sixteenth year of performing together as a family, will be right down the road at the Longwood Library in Middle Island, NY on January 15th at 2 pm.

Longwood Public Library

800 Middle Country Road

Middle Island, NY 11953

(631) 924-6400

Homegrown String Band on Fios 1 News TV

On October 23, 2011, The Homegrown String Band performed in the auditorium of the Commack Public Library. The show was covered by Fios News video journalist Eric Alfredo. To view the five minute interview/concert footage as it appeared on Fios "Push Pause" on December 5, 2011, click on the link below or on the screen shot to the right. I wasn't able to embed the video, so you will be taken to the Fios 1 News website.

A Family That Plays Together on Fios 1 Push Pause

Ramblin Rooster Rick

I was ramblin' through some old Mp3 files on my computer and found this solo banjo piece from our first CD Blind Dog Thumpin' on the Porch (2000). It's called Ramblin' Hobo. I learned it from the playing of Doc Watson and his father-in-law Gaither Carlton. This "little ditty" is a cool tune in an odd F tuning (fCFCD). It's easy to get into this tuning from double C, just drop the two G strings down to F.

Ramblin' Hobo, to me, personifies the unique (and sometimes strange) percussive, melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic qualities of old time banjo. Playing the banjo can be a grand adventure in self expression and artistic freedom. This song lends itself perfectly to the type of individual interpretation that makes playing the banjo so much fun. It's like a puzzle whose pieces can be rearranged to form different pictures. . .  There I go ramblin' again.

Ramblin' Hobo by Rooster Rick

The Banjo Lesson

Piece of Banjo History

Banjos, Murder, & Moonshine

Take Banjo Lessons on Long Island

A Thanksgiving Prayer - Thank You Song

We had a great time playing out in Montauk last night. I'd like to thank everyone for coming out to see us and we sure hope to see y'all again real soon.

Here's a little Thanksgiving prayer I wrote sometime around 1990. This was a totally unrehearsed moment captured on "tape" by Larry Moser. We included it in our 2004 CD release "Rock Hollow."

Thank You Song by Rooster Rick

Happy Thanksgiving from The Homegrown String Band!

The End is Near!

As we near the end of our 15th year performing professionally as a family we will be heading out to the historic town of Montauk, near the end of our 110-mile-long Long Island. The Homegrown String Band (full Quadrupelo) will be performing at The Montauk Library from 7:30 - 9 pm on Saturday, November 19th. Come on out and have a relaxing evening with Long Island's "First Family of Folk" before all the holiday hub bub begins.

The Montauk Library is located on Montauk Hwy. (Route 27) just east of the village of Montauk, on the north side of the highway, as indicated on the map below. 631-668-3377

Pretty Polly

Here's a creepy murder ballad I played the day before Halloween at The Bayport-Blue Point Library in Bayport, NY. Before I sang the song I told the tale of Willy, The Cruel Ship's Carpenter, and the ghost of Pretty Polly who's undead spirit sought justice for herself and her unborn child. Freddy Krueger had nothin' on this murderous 18th century villain.

Our next show is 3:00 pm Sunday November 6, 2011 at The Newburgh Free Library

Newburgh Free Library
124 Grand Street

Newburgh, NY 12550
845-563-3601 

Sonny Terry Forever!

Country blues harmonica legend Sonny Terry would have been 100 years old today. Sonny Terry (Terrell Saunders) was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on October 24, 1911.  His early musical training consisted of listening to his father play hoedowns and square dance tunes on the harmonica. Though he played in various string bands around the Shelby, NC area, Sonny had no intention of becoming a professional musician until two separate accidents, at the ages of eleven and sixteen, left him virtually blind in both eyes. Farming was no longer an option. After losing his sight, Terry took to the streets and medicine show circuit where his skilled harmonica playing drew large crowds. Sonny developed a strong rhythmic style that included lots of chugs, whoops, wails, and hollers. He used his hands, harmonica, and voice to create trademark sound effects, from baying hounds to lonesome whistles and driving locomotives. When Sonny was about eighteen years old he got his first taste of the blues and taught himself how to play his harmonica in the cross harp blues style. Sometime in 1937, while out busking on the streets, Terry met his future musical partner – guitarist Blind Boy Fuller. The pair formed a strong musical bond and played together for the next four years, until Fuller passed away in February of 1941 at the unripe not old age of thirty three years. Soon after Fuller's death guitarist Brownie McGhee was asked to accompany Terry on a trip to Washington DC, and so the seminal acoustic blues harmonica/guitar duo of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee was formed. The pair moved to New York in 1942 and became hugely successful in the New York City folk and blues scene of the 40s and 50s.  Sonny's solo playing had already been a big hit in New York since he performed in John Hammond's famous "Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall in 1938. In the 1940s, Terry's unique style landed him a part in the Broadway play "Finian's Rainbow", the show ran for five years. In the next decade Terry and McGhee appeared as a duo on Broadway in a three year run of Tennessee Williams "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

By the time I saw Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee perform together in the 1970s, they were still making great music together, but a rift that had been developing for some time was beginning to take its toll on the dynamic duo. They often argued offstage and by the 1980s they were no longer performing as a duo. Sonny spent his later years living on Long Island and passed away in Mineola, NY, on March 11, 1986. Thankfully, he left behind hundreds of recordings in the pre-blues and early Piedmont blues harmonica styles, as well as a legion of young players, including Phil Wiggins and our good friend Ken "The Rocket" Korb, who have been inspired to carry on the country blues harmonica tradition. Terrell Saunders was a true giant in the history of American music.

Sonny Terry CD: The Folkways Years, 1944-1963

Sonny Terry DVD: Whoopin' The Blues 1958-1974

Little Toby and the Rocket 2011 Reunion on The Long Island Blues Warehouse Show

John Cephas and Phil Wiggins perform at the White House July 1999