Category: The Dillards

Art, Banjo, Bluegrass, Blues, Country Music, Creativity, Dillard and Clark, Earl Scruggs, Folk, Gospel music, Hymns, Jazz, Music, Songwriting, The Dillards, The Dillards2 Comments

Exploring the Discography of Life

Gary Furr

“…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, Continue reading “Exploring the Discography of Life”

Art, Banjo, Bluegrass, Country Music, fiddle tunes, Folk, Joy, Music, The Dillards3 Comments

Fiddle Tunes, Old Time, and “Jamming”

Gary Furr

When you jam, you shoot for fun and participation, not showing off Well, the other day Nancy called me and said, “Hey, we’re going to have a jam over at the house.”  Jim Brown and his daughter are coming to play fiddle, and a couple of neighbors are coming, one plays the guitar.”  So I went.  We had a grand time. Jam sessions used to terrify my when I was still learning the “discography,” as they say.  The bluegrass, celtic, Irish, old-time and folk worlds are an oral tradition of literally thousands of songs.  Just the familiar American fiddle tunes … Continue reading Fiddle Tunes, Old Time, and “Jamming”

Cancer, Faith, The Dillards, Theology, worldview

Pat Terry and the Eye of the Artist

Gary Furr

 If we learn to look at life with the eyes of the artist, we

will see an entire universe that is “a gift of mercy.”

Workshop
Pat pondering how to help a workshop participants song

It’s odd that a musical preacher who writes songs, cut his teeth and got called to ministry during the Jesus Movement of the 1970s would have met Pat Terry so late in life, but that’s the way life winds sometimes.  I had heard of the Pat Terry group back when he was starting out—Pat is just a bit older than me.  I heard his songs, but my musical journey got put on hold for a long time as marriage and children and years in graduate education and pastoral ministry took me in different directions.  I continued listening to music and playing and singing, sometimes in church and mostly by myself for my own pleasure.

Pat Terry, meanwhile, was on a journey of his own, too.  After many years, first in the very spontaneous and joyful Jesus Movement musical world, and then for a while in the increasingly industry-captivated contemporary Christian musical world, he moved on.  He had a good, long run as a commercial songwriter in Nashville, with a string of songs for many well-known artists like John Anderson, Travis Tritt, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, Tanya Tucker and the Oak Ridge Boys.  He learned the Nashville craft and all the while continuing his own inner journey of writing from the heart.

So it was that a few years ago, Greg Womble, my friend and bandmate who plays the banjo publicly, and I, who play it out of earshot but love it, went to Atlanta to Continue reading “Pat Terry and the Eye of the Artist”

Andy Griffith, Art, Banjo, Bluegrass, Country Music, Creativity, Dillard and Clark, Earl Scruggs, Folk, Music, The Dillards, The Dillards7 Comments

Doug, Doc and Earl…Bluegrass Breakdown and Cry

Gary Furr

The Darling Boys are no more This has been one of the unkindest of years in acoustic music.  First, Earl Scruggs, the Founding Father of bluegrass banjo, passed away (read my post on Earl’s death here CLICK)  back in March.  Then a few weeks ago, Doug Dillard, a rollicking banjo player who blazed a trail with the banjo across genres in the 1970s when he left the Dillards to join Gene Clark of the Byrds to form Dillard and Clark. Of course, you’d know old Doug for another reason, if you ever watched the Andy Griffith Show.  He was the … Continue reading Doug, Doc and Earl…Bluegrass Breakdown and Cry