Category Archives: Blues

Dr. Gary Furr and Friends with Pat Terry in Concert

Mar 2

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Next Thursday, I’ll be in concert, sharing the evening with my great songwriter friend, PAT TERRY. Joining me for my set will be DOn Wendorf on mandolin and tenor banjo, Mark Weldon on fiddle and cello, and Rachel Turner on bass and backup vocals. It will be a great evening of music–original songs in a variety of styles.  I hope you can come out if you are in Birmingham or central Alabama!

7:30 pm, Doors open at 7 

$12 per person

Moonlight on the Mountain 
585 Shades Crest Rd  Hoover,  AL  

(205) 317-4364

facebook @moonlightonthemtn

Pat is finishing a new CD and I’ve got some brand new songs to roll out.

More ABOUT PAT

More about Gary Furr & Friends

Posted in Americana, Bluegrass, Blues, Concert, CONCERT, Dr. Gary Furr & Friends, Folk, folk music, Gospel music, Music, Narrative, Songwriting, Songwriting, Story

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COMING UP SMA on Dugger Mountain Theater

Jun 22

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Shades Mountain Air on “Dugger Mountain Music Hall,”

ALABAMA PUBLIC TELEVISION (APTV) Tuesday, June 27 at 10:30 pm

Back in May, Shades Mountain Air (myself, Nancy McLemore, Don Wendorf, Greg Womble and Melanie Rodgers) loaded up and traveled to Dugger Mountain Music Hall in Piedmont, Alabama. It sits in as unlikely a spot as the crossroads where the boys in “O Brother Where Art Thou” picked up Tommy Johnson on the way to Tishomingo. DMMH came from the vision and ministry of Bob McLeod, a talented and charismatic former professional musician and studio engineer.  Following a profound personal spiritual crisis, Bob McLeod began to seek to minister to people in trouble–in prisons, jails, streets, and those caught in addiction.

Eventually he established Dugger Mountain Music Hall as the public face of Our Father’s Arms, where they take in people in need of help.   He describes the place as “a Christ centered family.” It is located in the middle of open country north of Anniston, Alabama in a former Baptist church that had ceased to exist. The building was given to him for a ministry, and he brought together his love of music with the ministry.  Fast forward, now the facilities include a 30 acre farm with a home for men; a 3 acre home nearby for women, mothers and their children known as Eagles Nest; and a state-of-the-art recording studio, offices, fellowship hall and the Dugger Mountain Music Hall. In 2010, the television program was born.  On the nights of performances, they open the doors to welcome the community, enjoy supper and bands and performers, some touring through and others from nearby places in Alabama, perform. Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Americana, Art, Blues, Concert, Country Music, Dugger Mountain Music Hall, folk music, Gospel music, Hope, Old-time music, Songwriting

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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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Thou Shalt Love Thy Bandmates

Dec 5

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Anyway, riding in a van for a week turned us from “Friends

and Brothers” to angry inmates who couldn’t wait to bust out.

Fifteen Years.  That’s how long Shades Mountain Air has been together, at least the core of Greg and Nancy Womble, Gary Furr, and Don Wendorf.  We have spent a couple hours a week most of that fifteen years weekly at Greg and Nancy’s house, practicing, horsing around, composing, arranging, learning and growing from one another.  We’ve only had one personnel change in all that time–Don’s son, Paul, our outstanding fiddle player, left us to move on with wife, kids, career, to Texas, and so, we were four again for a while, then found Melanie Rodgers.  Mel has added dynamic new joy to our sound, and is now a part of our 15th Anniversary Live Album that is now available.     (Go to the website store for our new CD click here!)

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Shades Mountain Air at Moonlight, 2013

The album sounds great!  We hired Fred Miller of Knodding Off Music to record and engineer our live concert.  Fred did a fantastic job and we are so happy with the result.  He captured our live sound and energy.  It sounds like us!  There is NOTHING like live music, and though it’s fun to be in a studio and monkey around with something until you get it “perfect”, there is a corresponding loss of that spark that performers-audience and a venue provide.  We did it at our favorite gig–Moonlight On the Mountain in Bluff Park in Hoover, Alabama, with Keith Harrelson, as always, handling lights and sound.

I say all this because Shades Mountain Air is more than a band.  We have become family together.  We love playing together, singing, creating, whether anyone is listening or not.  Greg and Nancy’s kids grew up having to hear us every week in their house. We have been through life crises, griefs, and changes Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Art, Banjo, Bluegrass, Blues, Concert, Conflict, Country Music, Folk, Gospel music, humanity, Music, Old-time music, Perfectionism, Shades Mountain Air, Songwriting, Thankfulness

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Jim Hurst Can Play a Guitar

Nov 25

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Jim Hurst picks. He came dangerously close to Herb Trotman's "10,000 note limit"

Jim Hurst picks. He came dangerously close to Herb Trotman’s “10,000 note limit”

Last night, I went to hear JIM HURST, IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) Guitarist of the Year.  That means he is a fast-pickin’ guy.  “Bluegrass,” like few other labels, can lock you in.  The people who love and adore it who are more on the “traditional” side (Has to be like Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs played it or it ain’t bluegrass) will leave you for growing, experimenting and deviating.  The rest of the music listening world (Country, whatever that is anymore, sheesh!), folk, indie, etc. is disinterested because they never get beyond stereotypes like “Deliverance” and the Beverly Hillbillies. Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Art, Bluegrass, Blues, Concert, Earl Scruggs, Folk, Jim Hurst, Music

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Love and Sorrow Mingled Down in Newtown: A Sermon Preached on the Third Sunday of Advent

Dec 16

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A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted,

because they are no more.

Friday morning, I got up early.  I had a doctor’s appointment later, then a short appointment at the church and then the rest of the day I took off, as it was my normal day off.  I’m an early riser, and a lot of time I take time early in the morning and late at night to indulge myself in music, one of the places, along with my family, of deep joy for me.

Today is the Sunday of Joy in the Christian calendar

Greg Womble and I sat weeks ago and recorded a little improvised song with drum and banjo, a somber, modal-blues piece.  Friday I decided to finish it early in the morning, so I listened, feeling the mood and ideas that suggested themselves.  I heard bass and light guitar lines in it, so I recorded them, then sat back to listen.  The result was full, dark, somber, sad—perfect Christmas song.  What on earth should I name it, since there are no words?

A Bible text bubbled up that fit the mood.  I took the title, and sent a little email to Greg with the finished product.  And here is what I wrote:

“Greg:  I edited the song you and i did and added bass and light guitar.  The mood suggested a title for the piece:  “Weeping in Ramah”   CLICK TO LISTEN   from Matthew 3:18, after the slaughter of the innocents  What do you think?

 “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted,

    because they are no more.”

 Then out into the day, doctor, a meeting at the church, then home.  Only then did I hear the terrible news about Newtown, Connecticut, a town not all so different from ours.  I had a weird feeling—I looked back at the email I sent, read online what time the events of Friday morning transpired.  The moment when the verse came to mind was the same moment the deranged young man began his short day of darkness.

I was struck by the weirdness of that juxtaposition.  Me, sitting in comfort and safety and boring routine, even Christmas shopping, and at that very moment, something unearthly, unimaginable. Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Advent, Blues, Christianity, Christmas, Culture, Death, Faith, Grief, Hope, humanity, Joy, Suffering, Theology, Theology and Life, violence

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