bragging about your music

Subject: bragging about your music
From: RangerSteve
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 06:24 AM

On most Saturday nihts, I perform on a live country music variety show called "Heartlands Hayride", modeled after shows like the Renfro Valley Barn Dance and the Wheeling Jamboree. It's broadcast on the radio, and since there's a studio audience, I get recognized a lot during the week while I'm at work. It's also broadcast over the internet, and last Saturday, someone called the station, asking them to pass on to me a song request. They added that they were big fans of mine. The best part is that they were from Queensland, Australia. I'm relatively unknown here in the US, but I have fans in Queensland, Australia. I managed to milk that fact for all the laughs I could get that night. My head is still swelled. QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA.

Enough about me. Now it's your turn. Brag about your own musical experiences.

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 08:16 AM

So where abouts in Queensland? Maybe I know them!

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: Bassic
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 08:59 AM

How about giving us the link for the internet site RangerSteve?

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: Ross
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 09:25 AM

Do you have flying folk singers (in oz)

just in case an act goes down during a session

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: ReeBop
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 11:43 AM

Well, if you insist...here's my (feel good) brag:

I'd say that my best bragging moments have come from hearing other people cover my songs. Once, I went to see a local band who broke into something that I had written a while back and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy and another time I was getting off the subway when I heard a subway performer singing one of my songs. I've also been in bars before when I hear myself come over the jukebox. It's very cool...but it makes it very difficult to sit and enjoy a beer because I'm too busy watching everyone and trying to see if anyone is enjoying it.

It's so nice to feel appreciated and that all of the hard work that you do does get noticed. We should share these kinds of stories...everyone needs to brag sometimes....

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 11:54 AM

It really feels good and is quite humbling when you are playing with a group onstage at a bluegrass festival and after I play a banjo break, there is applause afterwords.

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: kendall
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 12:19 PM

I was quite pleased when two mudcatters asked for the words to a song I wrote.

After hearing my version of Lorena, Pete Seeger said, "I didn't realize how lovely that song is until you sang it. Thanks for giving it back."

Eric Bogle told me that he was very pleased with my rendition of his song, The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.

Utah Phillips says I'm his favorite North American folk singer.

I may never sing again, but by god, I have had some great breaks.

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 12:34 PM

Well, you're certainly one of my favorite folksinger, North American or not.

A

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: Leadfingers
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 02:00 PM

When I was working in Bermuda a couple of years after leaving the RAF
I was having a lunchtime game of darts in the pub I worked in (living on the Job) when a visitor from a R N boat that was in the Dockyard asked me if I had ever sung in the Club at the Naval Base in Singapore
When I replied in the affirmative He sais " Thought I'd heard that voice before " and walked away.
Come to think of it - Is this a Brag ??

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 07:01 PM

Welcome Back, Billy, all is forgiven...

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: harpmaker
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 08:05 PM

In the 80's I played keyboards in a band, a very good band. Joe public loved us, so much so, I remember not being able to sleep at night because of the buzz!! Shame though, the band did'nt last long!! Iam quite happy now though, playing harp/guitar, etc with Chrissy.

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: kendall
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 08:20 PM

Thanks Amos, you are so kind.

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 08:23 PM

My wife likes my music well enough that she hasn't threatened to divorce me over it. Considering that my first wife did divorce me over my music and my current wife did divorce her first husband over his music it's not something I take for granted.   

Bruce

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 08:56 PM

I get nice comments about my singing (as everyone does from time to time, I suppose), but it really turns me on when someone requests "that Starbuck song", or say before an open mike asks excitedly, "Are you going to sing 'She'd Rather Make Coffee Than Love?' or perhaps afterwards (if I didn't include it), says, "Darn, I was hoping you'd sing 'She'd Rather Make Coffee Than Love'!"

If I followed my inclinations, I'd sing it at EVERY opportunity, but too much of that is overly tooting your own horn, and eventually everybody would be sick of it, including even me.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 09:25 PM

It was 11th March 2002 when I first heard one of my songs (Heart of a Sailor Boy) sung by someone else. It was Johnny Collins, and I cried.

In July 2003 I walked into a workshop with Vin Garbutt, having arrived late, and he promptly launched into my "Flowers and the Guns". I cried.

Later that month I heard Roy Bailey sing my "Friends like these". I cried.

6th December 2003 I heard (over an Internet radio link) Andy Irvine sing my "Empty Handed". I cried.

In my 3 years of songwriting about a dozen songs are now sung by other artists, floorsingers etc. Every time I feel the need to say "thanks". But the most special of them all is when I heard recently that at a school in Essex, UK, my hymn-to-Nature "Countryside Like This" is being sung during school assemblies, as a non-denominational hymn.

Sure I'm proud; but humbled too. And always envious (in a nice way) of the dozens of songwriters I admire. Because I'd have given it all to have written Dave Webber's "Parting song" or "Hobby horse", or Stan Rogers' "Lies" or "Last watch", or Graham Miles' "Where ravens feed". Now, THEY are songs...

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: harpmaker
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 09:42 PM

'Chrissy' with Bill/sables, the last photo here

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 10:27 PM

Hey, no brag, just fact.... Ol' Bobert (Sidewalk Bob) been blowin' down a door or two wid his hard country blues style. Led a song at a recent Kennedy Center appearance by the Archie Edwards Blues Foundation and smoked up the joint... Ain't been but a year since I started playin' with the Archie Edwards folks but they are now routinely askin' me to lead songs. Say I've got me a groove...

Groovey...

"The End" of of my braggin'...

Bobert

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: GUEST,KB
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 05:30 AM

Aha - normally I don't have anything to brag about, but.......
Over the last month Om & I have been asked to go and perform at a folk club, do an evening of singing to diners in a restaurant, and do a 30 min slot at a charity day. We are buzzing!!! We've never done any of those things before (just pub singarounds & sessions) - but we're up for giving it a try! It seems like every time we open our mouths together something good happens. (yipee)
Hamm's voice is maturing a lot & getting stronger, and I am learning to blend more with her and add a bit of texture. She does wonderful off-the-cuff harmonies. We do mostly unaccompanied songs, and have the mother-daughter advantage of having very similar voices, though mine is 40 and hers is nearly 13 (aka 14 if we are in a pub....).
Also - a very nice gentleman has done me the honour of learning one of my songs.
Hmmmmm - its nice to have something to brag about...
happyhappyhappy!

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: Clean Supper
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 06:15 AM

It makes me very happy when the Solidarity Choir in Sydney, Australia, introduces one of my songs into their repertoire and sometimes describes me as "a talented young man" or that kind of thing. I wrote a sarcastic song called "A small minority" (aka "the mainstream austrealian song") and when we sang it in Yorkshire, someone in the front row picked up the joke very early on and laughed loudly all the way, through, encouraging everyone else in the audience and us greatly. I was most pleased.

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: JennyO
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 09:19 AM

And well you deserve those compliments too, Paul. After all it's only the truth!

Jenny

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: GUEST,MountainTyme
Date: 04 Mar 04 - 09:24 PM

Ranger Steve, Brag on!! You've paid your dues! Glad to post you back to the top where you belong. Glad to have stumbled upon your post. Get ready to swell again. IMO you are the premium talent on the "Heartless Haywire" show. I muchly enjoyed backing you up several tymes on the show in addition to my own acts. Talent such as yours is a pleasure to work with. Wish you had come aboard earlier. I was on every broadcast for the first 52 weeks and had the same experience you describe. The 104 CD's Rich burned for me of those first shows include to few of your presentations. As you experienced I was contacted via ICQ by fans from Oz and other foreign continents. We traded web audio of our songs for several months. Hard to imagine but if you listen to the shows on Serbia Bluegrass radio they hang on every note we play and translate it very well. As I have immersed myself in a new music scene and having relocated can no longer receive the live 89.7 FM transmission but anyway no longer care to hear the continued demise of the HH talent base. Everyone on those early shows worked so hard and gave up so much of their personal life and tyme to present a quality show and initially get it off the ground. As you must know many of the better original "star" performers were cast aside for lesser talents by the powers that are as the show continued on. Several performers left the show rather than be associated with the talent demise. I remained only to allow the Karo Sisters continue together. Again IMO you are one of the very few excellent talents that remain on the show keeping the dream alive. Keep up the good work. You more than deserve all the acclaim you have generated. Myself and some others I remain in contact with are relieved to have put those two hour Saturday night shows behind us. Therefore at this late date I can also say that a view from "the far side" is also enjoyable in that many of the live audience ceased attending the show when I stopped performing... believe me that feels as good as you say as well. I miss you much! Hi to Joe A, Charlie P, Mike T, Beth C, Rich E, etc. :) doc

Subject: RE: bragging about your music
From: John P
Date: 05 Mar 04 - 10:05 AM

For me, its the little things, the one-on-one interactions with people. We play at the Folklife Festival in Seattle every year, and most of time someone comes up after our set who has never heard anything like that before and is all turned on by finding a whole new genre of music to explore.
    Another time, we were playing a Bulgarian tune at a gig in the women's handbag department of the the Bon Marche (the local department store) and an elderly Bulgarian woman came up and told us she had danced to that tune as a child. It was quite an emotional experience for her hearing it in the middle of a store in downtown Seattle. Her reaction became quite an emotional experience for me.
    One time an audience member struck up a conversation after we played at a local coffee house. In the course of the conversation, he said something like, "It must feel good to you to have achieved such a level of mastery on your instruments." I've never felt really great about my level of instrumental mastery, but it felt pretty good damn good to hear a total stranger refer to it in an off-hand, matter-of-fact way.
    Every once in a while someone asks me for guitar or cittern lessons because they want to learn to play just like me. I don't very often take on students, and when I do they don't usually last very long once they understand the amount of theory they need to learn in order to figure out how I figure out what I'm doing. But it feels nice to be asked.
    There are numerous stories like this from 22 years of playing folk music in the same town. It gives me a warm glow every time. The other thrill is that every year I get two or three royalty checks from tunes of mine that have been recorded by others and from a book that an actual publisher agreed to publish for me. It's never enough money to make me feel rich, but it's enough to take a few friends out to a really fancy restaurant, or to pay for a B&B for the weekend for my wife and I. It's fun, and it gives me something to brag about.

John Peekstok