Category Archives: Folk

Come to the Virginia Mountains With Me! Sept. 28-30

Jul 24

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Vickie and I are leading a Fall Senior Adult Trip to the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia September 28-30, 2017. We will leave Birmingham on Thursday and return on Saturday eveningt.  I’ll be doing a little playing and singing of old time music and gospel songs as we travel to the beautiful setting of the birth of country music and the location of the State Theatre of Virginia to see some topnotch plays by an outstanding professional ensemble. We have traveled there before and had a great time.

Your payment includes:
• Three Plays at the Barter Theatre! “Sherlock Holmes and the
American Problem”, “Clementine” and “The Music Man”.
• Backstage tour of the Barter Theatre by Katy Brown
The Barter is the State Theater of Virginia and opened on June 10, 1933 making it the nation’s longest running professional theatre. In 1946,

Katy Brown

Barter Theatre was designated as the State Theatre of Virginia. Today, Many well-known stars of stage, screen and television have performed early in their careers at Barter, including: Gregory Peck, Ernest Borgnine, Patricia Neal, Ned Beatty, Hume Cronyn, Gary Collins, Frances Fisher, Larry Linville, and Jim Varney Katy Brown is an
Associate Artistic Director of Barter Theatre and is pleased to be in her eighteenth year at the theatre. She has directed more than 90 Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in America, Americana, Americana, Art, Bluegrass, Country Music, fiddle tunes, Folk, folk music, Gospel music, history, Hymns, Music, Narrative, Old-time music, Songwriting, Story

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Dugger Mountain Update

Jun 28

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My apologies to fans who tuned into APTV last night to hear Shades Mountain Air on “Dugger Mountain Music Hall” and saw an older episode instead. Our recorded performance was to play last night but the station changed the program. I will try to find out about the last minute change and give an update about when our show will air. I apologize to our friends and fans, especially if you sat up past your bedtime!

Thank you for your understanding.   UPDATE:

 

Got an update from APTV, who decide about shows on the schedule change. The producers could not get the program ready in time for last night’s broadcast. They have to edit an hour aand a half show down to 30 minutes, and it was not quite ready.  Therefore, Shades Mountain Air’s episode has been rescheduled for July 25, 2017.  

Meanwhile, those of you who watched last night got to meet Chris Golden, who is the son of William Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys (the one with the long beard!). He is a wonderful drummer and musician in his own right.  Here is Chris’ song called “Thank God for Kids”–worth hearing.  

 Thanks for your interest!!  

 Gary Furr

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Posted in Americana, Art, Family, Fathers, Folk, Love, Uncategorized

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Death Grief and Hope: Songs for the Shadows

Oct 27

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  We must face our losses.  Courage does not spare us from them. 

Courage’s work begins at the other end of honest acknowledgement.

          Grief can encompass many parts of life, not merely death.  It is, in many ways, our most universal experience.  It can be the death of dreams, grief of a way of life that ends, the end of a relationship, leaving home, moving to another town, divorce, a broken friendship.  The question is, “What are we to do with it?”

I can’t speak for people who have no faith in God, but I will admit that having faith in God doesn’t dispose of grief. It is just the same, just as overwhelming, the same disbelief followed by disintegration and despair and a long struggle to put life together again.

One verse of scripture I have found meaningful is  this one:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.   1 Thess. 4:13

 I take great comfort that it does not say, “Don’t grieve, you’re a Christian,” but I have heard many a well-meaning minister stand up and talk about death like it was a flu shot. Death is real, it is irreversible, it is disheartening. I don’t think dismissing reality is a good idea. It has a way of showing up again with reinforcements.

The denial of death is, as Ernest Becker said, the most pervasive of human failings, and the most futile. The Apostle Paul said, very intentionally, that we should not “grieve as those who have no hope.” Instead, I would assume, we should grieve as people who DO have hope. Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Art, Blues, Creativity, Death, Faith, Folk, Gospel music, Grief, humanity, Hymns, Music, Uncategorized

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All Americana Night with Gary Furr and Keith Elder

Jun 27

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All Americana Night  Come on, join in.

Wednesday evening, June 29, 6-7 pm

Vestavia Hills Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama 35216

Wednesday evening at 6 pm, at Vestavia Hills Baptist Church, we will have “All Americana Night.” My friend, Keith Elder, and bandmate Don Wendorf, will join me to lead us in singing distinctively American songs from all kinds of “roots” traditions.

Keith            Wikipedia defines “Americana” as “contemporary music that incorporates elements of various American roots music styles, including country, roots-rock, folk, bluegrass, R&B and blues.” We want to have fun, sing some songs from the traditions themselves, as well as some originals. Songs for kids to join along, a few hymns and patriotic songs, a little of everything for those who come.  Hope you’ll come out.

Keith was at our congregation on a Wednesday night recentlyhere a few weeks back and did a great job on a Wednesday night. Keith has spoken and performed for over thirty years in a wide variety of church, conference, and community settings. After serving local churches in North Alabama as a youth director then as a pastor, he spent a number of years as a songwriter in Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Americana, Americana, Art, Bluegrass, Blues, Concert, Country Music, fiddle tunes, Folk, Gospel music, Hymns, Keith Elder, Music, Songwriting, Uncategorized

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Concert Thursday at Moonlight On the Mountain!

Gary Furr and Friends Moonlight

 

Hope those of you in the Birmingham Area can come out Thursday night to one of the finest music listening venues anywhere!  As Shades Mountain Air takes a little break, I have a great new band together to help me present a concert that is, with only a few covers, almost all original songs, and many of them in concert for the first time.  Brent Warren will be on guitars, vocals and mandolin.  Brent is a multitalented musician well known to the Alabama bluegrass community, but his musical chops venture into rock, folk, and about anything that interests him.  Mark Weldon has filled in occasionally with Shades Mountain Air.  Mark is a phenomenal musician, former member of Three On a String and many other bands, including After Class.  His work on the violin brings great musical chops to my songs. Don Wendorf is my longtime musical brother from SMA and plays a little of everything –harmonica, mandola, mandolin, drums, old time banjo, and vocals. Last, but not least, Rachel Turner, a fine bass player and singer with the Flying Jenny Old TIme String Band, joins us to expand her horizons.  I am so grateful for this wonderful set of friends who are helping me out, and we have worked up some exciting new arrangements and songs.  I’m excited!  Hope you can be with us.  I’ll have CDs, my new book, POEMS, PRAYERS AND UNFINISHED PROMISES and all CDs and books will be on sale!  Don’t want to haul them home.  I promise–a fun night and a few surprises!

 

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Everything’s Bigger in Texas: the Oxford American 2014 Music Issue

Dec 15

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OA Texas

The Oxford American Music Issue

For many years, a member of my church who knows my weird tastes in music (if most people have never heard about it, I might have; if mass media doesn’t write about, I will) gives me the annual Oxford American Southern Music Issue.  Given my roots and rootlessness around and on the edges of this bizarre and wonderful region (politics=absolutely bizarre; unelected people generally fascinating and gracious; land, music and layer of cultue—wonderful), he knows it lines up with my interests.

The OA is a journal with as colorful and eccentric history to match the region it writes about, but plenty has been written about it elsewhere.  Just a few lines to mention the music issue, which isn’t cheap ($12.95) but well worth it.  Every year, a particular state’s rich heritage of famous and not-so-well-known songwriters and performers are showcased.  Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Blues, Country Music, Creativity, Culture, Folk, Jazz, Literature, Modern Life, Music, Rock and Roll, Songwriting, Songwriting, texas, Texas music, Writing

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Exploring the Discography of Life

Jun 9

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“…there is a playful randomness about what we find and read.  Or rather, what finds us”

When I first rekindled my interest in songwriting and music again, sixteen or seventeen years ago, I began hanging out in music stores, playing the guitar again and digging out songs from my memory and on faded notebook paper from years ago.  One day, a worker in the store I frequent most, Fretted Instruments of Birminghm, said, “Are you just starting to explore the discography?”  I had just said that “I was getting into bluegrass music” and that was his reply.

I began to delve into just that—listening, going to shows, scooting to Nashville now and then.  I bought a collection of Bill Monroe’s music.  Over the coming years, I heard a lot of music live—Bruce Hornsby, Ricky Skaggs, Nickel Creek, J. D. Crowe, Earl Scruggs, Vince Gill, as well as a lot of lesser-known but excellent players and singers coming through the Station Inn in Nashville or here in Birmingham, Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Art, Banjo, Bluegrass, Blues, Country Music, Creativity, Dillard and Clark, Earl Scruggs, Folk, Gospel music, Hymns, Jazz, Music, Songwriting, The Dillards, The Dillards

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Mapping the Bluegrass Genome

Apr 9

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“The genetic code of bluegrass and old time music is more sophisticated than that.  It carries stories of birth, life and death in the old days.  It tells of children dying young, tragic love, shame, murder, alcoholism and faith.  To learn the code, no stereotype will do.  You have to descend into the music and listen.”

 

In 2005 I took a three month sabbatical to study, pray, and feed the senses.  I went to art museums, read books, went to Nashville to learn about the music industry and played at open mic at the Bluebird Café, reaching one

Shuffler and Boosinger

Shuffler and Boosinger

of my bucket list items (the ultimate would be a gig on the “Prairie Home Companion Show” while Garrison Keillor is still on earth!).  But a lot of that time was “exploring my roots,” musical, theological and spiritual—which led to a week at Steve Kaufman’s Acoustic Kamp.

I’d been to the Kamp before, in Maryville, Tennessee.  Unless you are a devotee of the guitar and acoustic cousins like the mandolin, the “fiddle” (violin played a certain way), bass, banjo or dobro, you don’t realize that hundreds of camps happen every year across the world where musicians gather and play and learn the heritage of “roots” music—folk, jazz, country, celtic, and so on. In these places, campers rub shoulders with the legends of bluegrass, swing, fingerpicking and new acoustic music.  I met legends like Bill Keith, Clarence White, Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Art, Banjo, Country Music, Culture, fiddle tunes, Folk, Gospel music

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Johnny Cash’s Music Lives On

Mar 29

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Johnny_Cash_-_Out_Among_the_Stars

Johnny Cash material released this week.

Johnny Cash, in many ways, lived as a prism of

the last half of the twentieth century,

at least a Southern version of that.

 

Johnny Cash died on September 12, 2003, going out in a blaze of recording glory with his last work, four albums titles “American I-IV”.  Ever experimenting and interacting with the musical world, the series, produced with the help of Rick Rubin, was highly acclaimed.  “Hurt,” and the accompanying video, appearing three months before June’s death and seven before Johnny himself succumbed to diabetes.

The brilliant video serves as a summary and eulogy for the man in black.  But apparently it was not the end of his recording career.  This week the world is meeting the music of Johnny Cash once again.  “Out Among the Stars,” a never-released album of songs recorded in 1984, was unearthed by his son and released to the public.  I just got it and am listening through.

Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Art, Country Music, Creativity, Culture, Folk, Modern Life, Music, Songwriting

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ALABAMA FOLK SCHOOL offers Songwriting Class With Kate Campbell

Jan 27

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Kate Campbell has created an impressive body of original work in the past eighteen years.

Folksinger and songwriter KATE CAMPBELL is coming to Alabama to lead a class on Songwriting during March (21-23) as part of a weekend school on writing.  If you write lyrics, always wanted to, are a performer who tours or just somebody whose been writing songs in the basement for twenty yearsa and never had the courage to sing one in front of anyone, you might enjoy coming to the Alabama Folk School’s latest offering, “WORDS, WORDS, WORDS.”  The Alabama Folk School is a lovely new place to go and learn about crafts and arts of all kinds—playing the mandolin or quilting.  And now, songwriting and the written and spoken word.

OK, the Grammys are over.  And I didn’t watch.  I am not a sourpuss who needs to pour water on people who want to make millions of dollars dressed as French mimes from Venus.  Free world, have at it.  I like most music, but not all.  Again, your right.  But me?  I like making music more than buying it.  I like crafting, thinking about it, playing with friends, encouraging others.  I like singing with my Dad whenever we’re together.  Singing in church.  Singing with our band, but I like practicing even more.  I love writing songs.  I love learning about it, crafting, exploring something until it is “finished” (which is the hardest part—letting baby leave home!).  And the best way to grow in your craft is to be around others.

MORE INFO CLICK HERE:

The weekend event will offer a class on writing and one on songwriting.  No prior knowledge or expertise is necessary, just interest.  I’m sure the place will be full of people with guitars and notebooks, jamming, telling stories and swapping ideas.  Maybe you have words and want to meet people with a head full of tunes.  Or vice versa.

The weekend is NOT a competition for “greatest songwriter on earth.”  It is a community to encourage everyone to

deux deux idiots ou des génies?

find their voice and grow in their skill.

There will also be a sonn-to-be announced instructor for a writing class the same weekend.

Posted in Art, Banjo, Bluegrass, Country Music, Creativity, Culture, Doc Watson, Folk, Hymns, Indie Music, Literature, Music, Poetry, Retreats, Songwriting, Songwriting, Writing

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