Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011

Subject: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Nov 11 - 11:05 PM

Jed Marum will be performing for the Friends of the UT Arlington Library at the University of Texas at Arlington Central library on Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, and the program begins at 7:30pm in the sixth floor atrium.

The Central Library is at 702 Planetarium Place (our back door - and across the street from one of the campus parking garages). That will work for your GPS (it's in Arlington, Texas, off of Cooper St at Nedderman) or use Google Maps to find us (Central Library is under a red dot when you zoom in).

Please let us know as soon as possible if you are going to attend because this is a sit-down reception style meeting in December - people dress up a bit, and the room is usually packed.

The invitation is from a PDF form sent to the printers and gives a map and more information, including my coworker's email address (wingfield at uta dot edu). Here is the inside of the invitation with the particulars.

People generally start arriving a bit after 7. Park in the garage, it is free on the nights of our Friends meetings (no one is in the little booth to collect on the way out, but sometimes you need to get the ticket to open the gate).

Jed will be selling his CDs after the performance, and this is a reception so there is food and a modest bar (wine and beer). These meetings are free and open to all, but please let us know in advance that you're coming so we have space and food.

I'm really looking forward to this, and I hope to see a few of our local Mudcatters there!

Maggie (SRS)

Subject: RE: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Nov 11 - 10:11 AM

Jed ran an announcement on facebook also - on each location where it is posted I've made a point to remind people to give us a call or email so we know how many to expect.

SRS

Subject: RE: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011
From: Uncle Phil
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 08:21 AM

Sorry we'll miss this, but we have a prior commitment. Listening to Jed at a listener-friendly venue is a great pleasure. Ya'll are in for a treat.
- Phil

Subject: RE: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Dec 11 - 01:10 AM

Phil, you missed a great meeting! This was for the Friends of the Library and there were several remarks along the lines of "we'll have to do this again" in future years. What every performer likes to hear, no doubt!

I loved it that he sang a couple with some bawdy content. (Every folksinger needs a few of those!) When he asked if anyone knew the song "The Scottsman" my hand went up - and under my breath I was singing along that last line.

What I enjoyed for the Friends was that this meeting sparked more attention to the group and our meetings - people I've never seen at other meetings came to this one. The Dean of Liberal Arts was there with her husband - who I'd never seen in my 15 years here. I commented on this and she responded "he plays guitar and banjo" - say no more! Her husband was over taking a look at the instruments when the concert was over. :)

Mudcat got mentioned several times - and I explained to one fellow how the site works - his nephew sings cowboy songs and likes to research the lyrics. We are the place he can come to find them, or research cowboy song threads. One story Jed tells is of seeing a thread on Mudcat about an instrument (the banjola, I think) and deciding to make a side trip to look at this, play it for several hours, then buy it. It's a lovely instrument, sounds wonderful, and was the one that excited the most interest for plucked stringed instrument fans. A good investment, Jed!

The audience enjoyed the entire concert, but they really perked up at the Texas songs that related to personal experiences about moving down here. Jed made a great choice of songs for this group. And if we get him here again, I think there is a good possibility that a specialty such as western songs or Civil War Songs could be the focus. It was clear to my colleagues that there is a lot of material to cover musically. And now I don't need to press my case, they know how good the performance will be. I kind of wore folks down to get them to bring Jed in (we've had recitations of "The Christmas Carol" and barbershop quartets and readings about Texas Christmas and such, but this was much more charismatic.) The difference is that most of the others are amateur (nothing wrong with that, but they have day jobs) and Jed really is a professional.

One of the sweetest moments was when the two small children of one of our librarians looked at the various CDs for sale and asked which one had "Grandfather Clock" on it. He sang this during his performance, and it was the one they focused on. He told them it wasn't on one of his recordings, but they could find it on YouTube, and he handed 6-year-old Amelia his card so she could find it. Mary Jo bought them a CD and Amelia spelled her name for Jed. (What is it about grown-ups treating precocious children with great deference that makes such great photos?)

Enough of the review. I don't want to make it sound like gushing, but this evening was a lot of fun, and I gained a lot of credibility as far as getting the library/Friends to bring in someone I suggested and it worked out far better than anyone expected. So for that, I thank you Jed!

SRS

Subject: RE: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011
From: JedMarum
Date: 03 Dec 11 - 11:00 AM

Thanks for having me, Maggie. I enjoyed the evening very much!

I had 3 people walk up to the CD table afterwards, and ask me how to find Mudcat. One of them walked up, picked up a card, and I'm thinking "Great, they'll go find MP3s on-line or something ..." and then he turned the card over, handed it to me with a pen and said, "will you write down that link to Mudcat for me?"

Subject: RE: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011
From: JedMarum
Date: 03 Dec 11 - 11:04 AM

... and it looks like I started that thread about the banjola on Mudcat.

My memory of the event is foggy. I thought I first saw the banjola here, but judging from the other thread, it looks like I saw it somewhere else and brought it here.

I updated and refreshed the other thread. It will be of interest, I suspect to banjoists and others!

Subject: RE: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Dec 11 - 11:17 AM

Sounds like a wonderful, outstanding evening, Maggie and Jed!!

Subject: RE: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Dec 11 - 12:03 PM

The Dean of Liberal arts was there with her husband. I remarked after the concert that I'd never met him before (in 15 years!) She said "he plays guitar and banjo" as we watched him examining the instruments. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011
From: JedMarum
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 12:56 PM

"he plays guitar and banjo" - but not at the same time!

;-)

Subject: RE: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Dec 11 - 02:17 PM

No, not at the same time! And we both understood when she gave me that short answer that no more information was necessary.   

Jed appears at 3:25 in this story from the campus newspaper web site.

A friend of Jed's (and an old graduate school classmate of mine - took us a few minutes to sort that out!) is an independent producer of videos in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He filmed the concert so there will be some videos of individual songs turning up on his YouTube channel. I've supplied him with several pieces of information for credits. He worked with the university sound guy to get it right so Jed should have some first class performance videos to show people after this program.

This was the holiday gift that keeps on giving!

SRS

Subject: RE: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011
From: GUEST,quest
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 02:43 PM

Here's a video made from the concert West Texas Wind.

Subject: RE: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011
From: GUEST,jed on a cell phone
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 02:51 PM

This video from the concert was produced by Don Wall, a longtime Dallas area TV News guy (channel 8), and now independent film maker. He did a great job with adding imagery and editing. It is nice and simple production, and just a worthwhile piece, in spite of the poor subject (me).

;-)

If you view it, please do comment or share as you wish ... and thanks again to Maggie for making this concert possible!

Subject: RE: Jed Marum at UT Arlington (TX) Dec. 2, 2011
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 09:37 PM

I'll round up the various links and put them on the facebook page. I suspect we're all multi-tasking right now. What's really great about Don's videos is that he got great sound on them, we hired a campus sound technician to set up for Jed and he worked on the sound with both of them.

SRS