Connetquot Public Library - Sunday, February 18th

On Sunday, February 18th, at 2 pm; we, (The Homegrown String Band), will be bringing our unique brand of acoustic American music and dance to the Connetquot Public Library in Bohemia, New York. The show is free and open to the public. Come on down and help us celebrate 21 years of performing our old, new, borrowed, and blue, high energy American roots music.

"The Family That Plays Together" - photo by Steve Gravano

Connetquot Public Library

760 Ocean Avenue

Bohemia, NY 11716 

631-567-5079

www.homegrownstringband.com

Photo by Steve Gravano

My old ibook, circa 2005, was starting to act kinda funny so my wonderful wife, Georgianne, took up a collection and my generous friends and family all pitched in and got me a nice new Macbook. Recovering files and contacts has kept me pretty busy the past couple weeks. My old html editing web design and ftp programs don't work with the new OS, so I had to load and learn to use some new software. I needed to access the HGSB website to update our calendar, so this old dog spent the better part of this week learning some new tricks. As of today I've got all the pages on our site redone in xhtml code with a new look. As my friend Steve says; "Take a Look Around"    www.homegrownstringband.com

Homegrown String Band & Homegrown Two

  I've been playing music most of my life. Over the years I have performed in dozens of blues, rock, jazz, and country bands.  The only band I've been a part of that has lasted more than two or three years has been the family band, The Homegrown String Band. Over the past fourteen years we have performed somewhere around 800 shows. Though our first public performance was January 1997, the band goes back a few years earlier to the early 1990s. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when the family became a band, was it when Erica started to play violin in 1993 at the tender age of nine? Or was it when Erica, Georgianne, and I first sat down and played as a trio? I think the genesis of The Homegrown String Band was when I gave Georgianne a mountain dulcimer as a fifteenth wedding anniversary gift in 1994. Georgianne and I worked out a small repertoire as a duo and soon Erica and Annalee were joining in on fiddle and jaw harp. Now, nearly two decades later, we are still having fun making music together as "The Family That Plays Together." I guess the family that plays together really does stay together! In a testament to our resiliency and longevity we were recently mentioned, along with The Scruggs Family, The Del McCoury Band, and  Cherryholmes, as examples of families carrying on the tradition of making folk music together in Stephanie Ledgin's book Discovering Folk Music. We're bona fide!

   This week we will not only be performing as a family (in the Belcher Auditorium at the Ridgewood, NJ Library Sunday, November 21 at 3pm), Georgianne and I will also be getting back two our roots; performing as the duo Homegrown Two, at The Folk Music Cafe at the Mountain Side Library in Mountainside, NJ. on Thursday, November 18th at 7pm. If you are in the NJ, PA, NY area try and catch one or both of our shows. If you are a performer who would like to share the bill with us come on down to The Thursday night show at the Mountainside Library Folk music cafe where there will be an open mic between our two sets.

Homegrown Two Photo by Steve Gravano

The Cuckoo

Photo by Steve Gravano  http://stevegravano.blogspot.com
 

A song that has moved in and out of The Homegrown String Band's repertoire, "The Cuckoo" is really an old English folk song that made its way to America in the memories of early American colonists. The song found a home in the southern Appalachians where it entered the oral tradition of the mountain folk. Over time verses were added and dropped and the song developed a distinct American character. Cecil Sharpe documented several mountain versions of "The Cuckoo" during his Appalachian song catching expeditions between 1916 and 1918. The seminal American version of the tune is Clarence Ashley's 1929 Columbia recording, which helped restart Ashley's music career when it was included on Harry Smith's Folkways 1952 "Anthology of American Music." English folk rocker Richard Thompson's version, clearly influenced by Ashley's recording, shows how folk music continues to evolve by moving back and forth across the Atlantic. Listen to a live performance of "The Cuckoo" by The Homegrown String Band recorded at the Stone Soup Coffeehouse, by visiting our website www.homegrownstringband.com

English Folk Songs From The Southern Appalachians (1917)