Tag Archives: Music

A Win for Ansonia

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Until last Friday, I don’t believe I had attended a single football game played by my high school alma mater since I graduated. Furthermore, it seems quite likely that I had not attended a game as a spectator ever. I had attended every game in the four years prior to graduation but it was always as a member of the marching band. Friday night was a new experience for me in several ways not the least of which was the favorable final score.

Of course, I’d thought about attending a game on several occasions but never followed through. I probably would not have made it to Friday’s game if my friend Terry had not been paying more attention to things than I was. Although our friendship goes back even further than high school, we did not attend the same school. Terry’s son did attend Ansonia High School and played on successful teams there in the 1980s.

As the regular season ended, it was Terry who made me aware of Ansonia’s 10-0 record and their entry into the 2023 playoffs. As the #2 seed for Division VII, their first two playoff games were on their home field but I was, unfortunately, out of town for both. Fortunately, they won them both (52-7, 34-8) to set up Friday’s match with St Henry at a neutral site. Also on the fortunate side of things, I was home for this one.

The game was a good one. Ansonia never trailed but our victory was not assured until the closing moments. With no kicking and little passing, the Tigers repeatedly moved the chains on third and fourth down with what often seemed like just inches to spare. The officials thought only one of their two-point conversion attempts was successful although there was serious disagreement from AHS fans on one of the others. Ansonia will play #1 seed Marion Local next Friday but where has not been determined. Whether or not Terry and I are there will depend a lot on the location.
ADDENDUM 19-Nov-2023: The Marion Local game was also at the Piqua stadium, and we did attend. Read about it here.

As implied by this headline from my days as a student, rooting for a winning team was once an impossible dream. The thirty-eight-game streak it refers to came to an end just a little over sixty years ago on September 13, 1963.

Both of these images are from the 1964 Ansonia High School yearbook. The first contains photos of the seniors on the team that ended the streak along with a local newspaper report of the event which attracted some national attention as well. The second image shows the entire team. In those days, yearbooks, at least those for small Ohio schools, were entirely black and white with the exception of the endpapers. There could be no better use of the book’s only splash of color than recognizing the group that ended what I believe was the longest losing streak in the nation at the time.

I mentioned that my previous AHS football game attendance involved the school band. The band’s fortunes over the last six decades do not appear to match those of the team. The picture at right shows the band during halftime of Friday’s game. I counted about twenty members, and Terry said that was noticeably more than what he remembered from the last game he attended.

There were 54 in the band that would have marched at that big 1963 win.

Dayton Porchfest 2023

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I attended my first Porchfest in 2018. It was Dayton’s second. Despite good intentions, I did not make it back in 2019 and there understandably wasn’t one in 2020. Dayton did hold Porchfests in 2021 and 2022 but they did it without me. I guess I sort of forgot about them until I saw an ad of some sort a few weeks ago. Ithaca, NY, had the first Porchfest in 2007. The Dayton Porchfest was number 94. There are now more than 150 taking place each year.

That opening picture of Baker & Collins, of the band Berachah Valley, probably looks exactly like what you expect a porch fest to look like but that is not the way this one started. At 12:15, after a few announcements,  Phil’s Big Azz Brass Band kicked off the music in a parking lot. No porch could hold them.

Starting at 1:00, and continuing for the next six hours, eight to ten concerts began on porches — or something similar — throughout the Saint Anne’s Hill section of Dayton every hour on the hour. After listening to a few tunes from Baker & Collins, I moved on to catch a few from Jimmy D. Rogers then around the corner to catch a few more from Dennis Geehan and the Storied Blues Project.

This is crabswithoutlegs who, in addition to having a name that triggers a plethora of questions, were probably the highlight of my day. They are on a back porch in a fenced yard completely filled with people with more listening outside the fence. Fortunately, there was a small but steady stream of folks moving to other porches so I was able to slip inside the fence for a bit. This extremely tight jazz fusion group was made extra impressive by the apparent young age of every member.

They and I performed on a very real porch although it faced a side yard rather than the street. I had paused for a beverage at the Fifth Street Brewpub as the 1:00 concerts came to an end then spent a little extra time taking in crabswithoutlegs. As a result, I only managed to hear pieces of two of the 2:00 concerts.

Sharon Lane was the first of the 3:00 performers I saw. I’ve included a shot of the building where she performed to show that she really was on a porch. The porch that Novena performed on was much more open and stage-like.

Other 3:00 concerts I saw included Austin Wolfel, Tim Gebard & the Hit Men, and Dave Zup who performed in the street while his accompaniment was on a porch.

There is no such thing as too much music but there was more music than I could take in. It wasn’t really practical to attend all of the eight or more concerts occurring simultaneously plus I did not make it to the end of the festival. In 2018, it was rain that caused me to leave early. In 2023, it was my legs. Four hours (minus one beer) of walking wore me out. I know I missed a lot. Porchfest is a great concept and Dayton, via Saint Anne’s Hill, does it right.

 

Musical Review
Utopia, Ohio
Hugo West Theatricals

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Wednesday is this blog’s day for reviews. Although not every Wednesday gets one, reviews do sometimes appear two or more weeks in a row. In fact, reviews appeared on six consecutive Wednesdays earlier this year. But today is definitely the first time I have ever published back-to-back reviews of premieres of locally produced musicals about local history. In addition to their being musicals with local roots and having me in the audience of their inaugural runs, both Above the Sand (reviewed here) and Utopia, Ohio, the subject of this review, convincingly demonstrate the phenomenal amount of talent in this area. The similarities between the debuts of these two new musicals are striking but there are some pretty big differences between the musicals themselves.

One difference of note is the public’s familiarity with the two subjects. Virtually everyone knows that the Wright brothers were the first humans to successfully fly a heavier-than-air machine, and many residents of southwest Ohio know a lot more of the story than that. But the story of Utopia, an unincorporated community near Cincinnati, is hardly known at all. My guess is that even people who live fairly close to the small cluster of buildings on the banks of the Ohio River know little or nothing beyond what is written on the historical marker in the opening photo and not many stop to read even that.

Utopia was actually the name of the third and final attempt at communal living at the location. The Clermont Phalanx was first. A “phalanx” was a group of followers of the writings of Charles Fourier. The Clermont Phalanx was formed in 1844 and failed in 1846. Within months of that failure, abolitionist and spiritualist John Wattles established the community of Excelsior on a portion of the phalanx property, and Josiah Warren, “America’s first anarchist”, established Utopia a short time later on another portion. A very good history of all three is available here. Joshua Steele, the writer of Utopia, Ohio, provided a nice summary in a Facebook post here.

I’ve brought up all of this background stuff because I believe a decent knowledge of the history is necessary to understand the musical. Notice I said “understand” not “enjoy”. Enjoying the musical is easy because the music and performances are so good. In fact, knowing nothing at all about the history would not keep you from enjoying the music. You can appreciate the tunes the same way you appreciate a concert or a new album. All five cast members are talented vocalists. There is no orchestra. Every cast member plays at least one instrument and some play several. The full battery includes guitar, mandolin, piano, accordion, violin, and cajon. Coordinating instruments no doubt complicated the director’s and stage manager’s jobs but it was handled quite well.

Coordinating hats also added some complexity. With more roles than actors, hats were used effectively to distinguish specific roles. Linsey Rogers and. Brad Myers were particularly adept at this. At times, images projected at the side of the stage also helped know who was who.

Determining when was when was a different matter. You might be able to tell the players without a program but not the dates. The songs of Utopia, Ohio do not tell a story chronologically, at least not in the order they were performed on Thursday. That is why, I assume, there are dates in the program. It took me way too long to realize this. Once I did, I started taking in the performance more as a concert than a play despite having a pretty good sense of the history of the three failed communities. In the end, I decided that viewing it as a series of related but not ordered musical vignettes was best. Within each vignette, the cast skillfully brought music, lyrics, actions, and expressions together to tell the intended story and to entertain as well.

A very important difference between last week’s review and this one is the fact that Utopia, Ohio‘s first run is not already over. This is being published on the morning of the second of four scheduled performances so I do not feel the too-late-to-matter guilt I did last week. Maybe I will, though, as at least one of the three remaining performances is sold out. Check for tickets here. If you do snag one, my advice is to either pay close attention to the dates in the program and put the history together in your head or ignore them completely and just tap your toes to some fine music.

Musical Review
Above the Sand
Mason Community Players

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When I wrote about my first visit to the Loveland Stage Company, I spoke of the guilt I felt for taking so long to take in a play there. The same sort of guilt surrounds my first time attending a Mason Community Players production. MCP is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year which means it is six years older than LSC. I suppose I could feel extra guilty for ignoring the Mason group even longer than the Loveland group but, although I’ve lived near Mason, I have never actually lived in Mason so feeling equal levels of guilt regarding my being late to the party at both theaters seems more or less OK.

But I also feel another kind of guilt regarding this review. I have no special or early access to plays so my infrequent reviews of them are often near or even after the end of their run when few or no performances remain. I always feel a little guilty about that. That feeling increases when the production is one I want to recommend because it’s extra good or somehow unique. All that is true of Above the Sand meaning I really feel guilty about the timing of this review.

Producing any play is an accomplishment. There are certainly some particular challenges in doing it with amateurs and volunteers and doing a musical must add even more. Performers need to be able to sing and maybe dance a bit, and musicians are needed to accompany them. Community theater productions will never be a match for well-financed Broadway companies but their audiences don’t expect them to be. When a community theater company produces a successful Broadway musical it can benefit from having one or more professional productions as examples without getting dinged for not having Barbra Streisand or Gregory Hines in the cast. The production I attended Thursday night had all of the listed challenges without one of the aids. Amateurs and volunteers did indeed sing and dance accompanied by offstage volunteers playing instruments but they were not copying from anyone. This was the world premiere of Above the Sand so there was no previous production to provide an example. This gang didn’t need one.

The premiere run ended on Saturday. Not knowing how long online information will remain available, I’ve taken the liberty of copying this short description from the Mason Players’ website:

Above the Sand is written and composed by MCP member Tom Davis. It tells of the challenges and triumphs of Wilbur and Orville Wright as they bring the power of flight to the world. The story takes the audience on a journey from a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Washington, D.C., and Paris, France. Above the Sand is a piece of local history that has affected life around the world. It shines a light on the struggles of those who dream an idea into reality, then ultimately triumph.

As mentioned, any community theater production requires a lot of effort, and a musical production even more. That effort is not wasted with the script Tom Davis has created. With spoken words and lyrics, it touches all key points of the Wrights’ achievement. It avoids sounding like either a science or history lesson while being a little bit of both.

I’m always intrigued by how a single stage of limited size gets used to tell stories involving multiple locations that are sometimes huge spaces. That is another challenge that this production encounters and handles quite well despite not having a Broadway-sized budget. By flipping panels, hanging pictures, and swapping some furniture, the action moves between sand dunes, living rooms, workshops, France, England, and more. In a program note, director Lara Gonzalez talks of collaborating and creating “throughout the rehearsal process”. Much of the collaboration naturally involved Gonzalez and Davis but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t at least one idea contributed by every cast and crew member.

I’ll give a shout out to the actors portraying the Wright siblings although every member of the cast of nearly twenty turned in wonderful performances. Corey Meyer (Wilbur) has the least experience of the three younger Wrights although I certainly would not have known that without a program. Nico Morello (Orville) and Eva Bower (Katharine) have both been on stage quite a bit. I had sort of mentally tagged Eva as the most polished of the cast and learned that I could be right when I read that she was first on stage at age 9.

I have no idea what, if anything, comes next for Above the Sand. I know of no plans for future performances but I sure hope that there will be some. I was entertained Thursday night, and exposed to a little science and history too. I don’t believe any of the science or history facts were really new to me but some of the emotion was. I’ve read numerous articles and books about the Wright brothers and their early flights. I’ve watched more than a few documentaries too. None of them conveyed the sense of awe from the world at large that I witnessed Thursday night. Maybe it came from the music. Or maybe it came from the personal involvement that a live performance requires. At some level, I know I have considered that the existence of powered flight changed the basic way that an awful lot of people looked at the world but it had never registered as strongly with me as it did in that theater. Before December 1903, many people had considered it impossible; others thought it merely quite difficult. The first group was now indisputably proven wrong. The second group was proven right and no longer had to guess at just how difficult it was. It took some time for the news to circle the globe and even more time for some people to accept it but that did not alter the fact. Somehow a group of people singing about something they were witnessing offstage drove that home better than any words on a page or images on a screen. Hooray for music. Hooray for live theater. Hooray for man’s ability to progress and to be amazed at his own progress.

My Memories — Chapter 4
Denny’s Drums

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The Rogers drum show I recently attended brought back memories of my one and only visit to the factory in Covington. Ohio. I was there to pick up a very small but personally awe-inspiring drum kit. I have one advantage over any real drummers who set out to describe their gear. I don’t have to select a few significant pieces from a long list of equipment used over a long career. I have owned just three sets of drums in my life, and two of them are in the picture at right. I am not in the picture although someone who has appeared in this blog is. Lifelong friend Dale Baird, whom I’ve mentioned in tales of cars and mopeds, is at stage left of the front row.

The picture of the high school stage band is from my senior yearbook. I was in the regular marching and concert band but not in the stage band. I was never asked, which I attributed to my already being a little too much rock and roll. However, since the school did not own a trap kit, my drums were asked to join. When the picture was taken, I no longer owned the Slingerlands on the photo’s right but did own the Rogers on the left.

Of course, real drummers also have many advantages over me. One of them is photos. The stage band shot is the only one I’ve found of either of those kits. Because I’m absent in that picture, I’m including this one from the same yearbook. I’m on the photo’s left side next to the drums. Dave Thornhill, seated at the Rogers in the stage band photo, is on the other side of the drums. At the photo’s far right of that row is Ed Van Vickle who was seated at (and I believe owned) the Slingerlands.

I bought the Slingerland kit from one of Dad’s coworkers. I don’t recall what I paid or the seller’s name but do recall that his offer to replace his initials with mine on the bass drumhead helped clinch the deal. The aging Slingerlands got me into my first band where I played standing up. That was partly because that’s what future McCoy Randy Zerhinger did and partly because I couldn’t afford a drum throne. I didn’t really need to sit down because I couldn’t afford a hi-hat either.

Memories of the next purchase were initially awakened a few months ago when I discovered the order at right. The drum show stirred them up considerably. The “Drums + equipment” covered by the bill was a blue sparkle three-piece set with no stands. There was a bass-mounted rod for a ride cymbal and both the single tom and the snare were mounted on the bass with Swivomatic ball joints. Swivomatic snare mounts were not unheard of (Here‘s one at the Covington show.) but were typically used on standup “cocktail” kits. I have never seen another bass-mounted snare like the one I had.

The detail at left is taken from the yearbook photo in an attempt to show this unusual arrangement. I don’t recall whether I chose the bass mount because it was cheaper than a stand or because I just thought it was cool. I will note that being so close to the factory made custom orders like this rather easy. It also made it possible to pick up orders there. It seems like I’ve forgotten a lot about the experience but I remember a fair amount too.

The guy from the Greenville Piano Salon (Eugene Brown?) picked me up (probably at school) in the store’s station wagon. I’m thinking 1960 Chevrolet but am far from certain. At the factory, we chatted briefly with someone I think was the plant manager. Since then, I’ve often wondered if that could have been Rogers and Covington legend, Joe Thompson. There was a set of drums in the office which I thought made it the coolest job in the world.

Somewhere along the way — probably even before I made the upgrade — I’d sprung for a throne and hi-hat. I played those blue drums through high school and the summer following graduation. As I wrote this, I recalled coming across that bass head cover a few years ago and I took a look inside a box marked “mementos”. There it was, a reminder that I need to empty that box pretty soon and of some good times in years gone by. The Coachmen was the group that Randy Hobbs left to join the McCoys and which I joined in the reorganization following his departure.

After sitting idle through my freshman year of college, the blue Rogers saw some action during the summer then went silent again. But I guess I had decided I really wanted to play so it wasn’t too long before, in addition to all the other stuff going on — new wife and challenging classes, I accepted a former bandmate’s invitation to join his new group. I had outgrown the little kit with the bass-mounted snare and traded them in on my second and final set of new Rogers. These weren’t custom ordered from the factory but were still made to be just a little bit different. A common arrangement has two mounted toms of differing sizes. 12 and 13 inches were popular. A friend was playing in a band with a drummer who used two same-size toms with one just tuned a bit higher. I thought that looked cool. As I negotiated the purchase, I said I’d like two 13s rather than a 12 and a 13. I really expected this to be instantly shot down but it wasn’t. Without even attempting to change the agreed-upon price, the salesman swapped the 12-inch tom from the set I was buying for the 13-inch tom of a matching set. Whatever sense of uniformity I had was gone when I added a completely mismatched Gretch bass that I picked up really cheap. I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time. The marriage lasted just a couple years longer than the band and the black oyster (and white) drums were sold during the financial maelstrom of the divorce. My sporadic run at rock stardom was at an end. Rogers, over and out.

Although the title of the post is a near-perfect fit, it’s not the least bit original. I know it from the name of a track on an early Beach Boys album that I used to try to copy as a teenager. I suspect I’m not the only one to remember this Denny’s Drums.

 

Logan Washboard Festival Plus

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Once upon a time a friend and I mentioned to each other that the Logan Washboard Festival seemed like a good thing to do someday. Flimsy plans came and went until we finally pulled it off this week. By then, of course, the plans had, as simmering plans tend to do, grown. By the time Terry and I hit the road on Thursday, our agenda included one furnace, one mill, and at least one walk in the woods along with time at the festival.

Even after the road was hit, our plans continued to grow. An earlier than hoped for departure and the realization that the Leo Petroglyphs were almost on the way, led us to make a stop there. And yes, we did see the most popular of the glyphs, man-with-horns.

The mill and the furnace had scheduling requirements so walking in the woods had to happen during our open time on Thursday. We followed the fairly level Gorge Trail at Conkle’s Hollow past ferns and rock cliffs to a very cool waterfall. That’s Terry gazing at it in awe (I assume) in the third photo.

Next was Rock House. I had never been here and Terry’s memory of the amount of elevation change was tempered by time. This was closer to a climb through the rocks than a walk in the woods but that Rock House was quite the reward.

In the morning, with all of our walking in the woods/rocks behind us, we headed to Buckeye Furnace State Memorial. The building in the first picture is of the charging shed. This also housed the boilers which powered the steam engine that forced hot air into the furnace. The third picture shows the furnace from which molten iron once emerged.

We had found one website stating that the museum was open on Fridays and one stating it wasn’t. A sign in the park agreed with the one that said it wasn’t. We were leaving after exploring the furnace when we spotted a car parked near the museum and the museum door appeared to be open. Reality, it turned out, matched the website saying the museum was open on Fridays. There are many furnace-related exhibits here including samples of the ingredients and the finished product. Although it’s not exactly furnace-related, I found the Chuck Wagon Kitchen Pantry in the second picture rather interesting. Text hanging next to it is here.

On Friday afternoon, we actually reached the Logan Washboard Festival. If there were any doubts about where the opening photo came from, they should now be gone. The festival fills about four blocks of downtown Logan with opening ceremonies taking place on Thursday evening. Both Friday and Saturday have music on three stages. Saturday is the biggest of the two but Friday fit our schedule best.

It should not be a surprise that the “last manufacturer of Genuine usable Washboards in the USA” is right in the middle of the festival. The Columbus Washboard Company has been making washboards since 1895 and has been doing it in Logan, Ohio, since around 2000.

Music doesn’t start on the outdoor stages until 4:30 but we found some in the back of the washboard store/factory well before that. Washboard Wizard and festival mainstay Bill Bailey (blue vest) anchors things here with other musicians coming and going.

Most of the company’s standard washboard models are displayed on a wall with prices. Another wall holds examples of many custom models including one from that big band in southern Indiana.

We did not join one of the guided tours through the factory but we did explore all of the manufacturing area and Terry did get some personal instruction on the process.

The official festival music program got underway with Washboard Hank on the Mulberry Street Stage and we also watched Nicole Dicken perform on that stage. The two washboard players at stage left were not actually members of Hank’s band and moved on about halfway through the set.

We caught Washboard Shorty & Reverend Robert and Williamson Branch on the Main Stage. Robert and Shorty invited all washboard players to join them for their last couple of songs and had three takers.

We wrapped up the excursion with a Saturday stop at Rock Mill. The mill was opened to visitors in 2017 after an outstanding restoration project was completed. It reopened this spring following a shutdown to build a support wall to stabilize the building. The mill grinds grain on the last Sunday of every month.

The phenomenal accomplishment of restoring this mill is documented in Rock Mill: Saving an Original.

I Went Back for Bach

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I did better this year than last, and last year I did better than in any of the preceding 148. As explained in a blog post (My First May Fest), by the time I got serious about ending my string of May Festival misses last year, only one of the four major performances fit into my schedule and it was one that would not have otherwise been my first choice. This year I made my move much earlier. My schedule was not yet cluttered and good seats were available for all four performances at Music Hall. I picked the one I did because I like Bach but that’s hardly the date’s only attraction. It was the first of the four main events which made it sort of a May Festival opener. Plus, while Bach’s Magnificat was the big draw, the evening also featured the world premiere of two pieces commissioned for the festival’s 150th anniversary.

The festival program (The front cover of which is pictured up top.) is a real keeper. In addition to details on all of this year’s major performances, it contains plenty of background and history. That history includes the oft-told tale of how thunder, rain, and a leaky tin roof at the second May Festival in 1875 led to the construction of Music Hall in time for the slightly delayed third festival in 1878. Before the festival became an annual event in 1967, it was normally held every two years. A model of the entire Music Hall complex is displayed not far from where I stood to photograph the lobby. 

Bach’s Magnificat had its American premiere at that 1875 May Festival as the opener for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. This year it was a headliner with the two commissioned works serving as openers. The full May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra were on stage for both new pieces. The Youth Chorus participated in the first piece and the Children’s Chorus participated in the second.

Breaths of Universal Longings was first and at its conclusion, Principle Conductor Juanjo Mena called its composer, James Lee III, on stage to be recognized. Similarly, James MacMillan came on following the performance of his composition, Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia. Mena then called Robert Porco, Director of Choruses, to come up. Porco seemed a little reluctant to step into the limelight but did eventually take a bow. 

An intermission preceded the Bach composition with fewer performers returning to the stage than had left it. Rather than the 130 or so vocalists of the full chorus, there were now about 50 plus five soloists. I can’t really quantify the orchestra’s reduction with the exception of one section. During the concert’s first half, there had been four percussionists on stage with one of them playing an array of five tympani plus a few other instruments. He was now the lone percussionist with just a pair of smaller tympani at hand.

As mentioned, in 1875 Bach had opened for Beethoven. Beethoven’s composition really impressed Cincinnatians but not so Bach’s. One newspaper described Magnificat as “possessing no dramatic character and incapable of conveying the magnitude of the labor that has been expended upon its inconsequential intricacies.” Maybe the current chorus simply did a better job than was done nearly a century and a half ago or maybe it’s just that my taste isn’t as cultivated as that 1875 critic. Whatever the reason, I enjoyed it all. Even the inconsequential stuff.

My post on last year’s May Festival visit included a description of dinner at  Scotti’s. This year I parked on the Central Parkway side of Music Hall which made Queen City Radio a most convenient spot for dinner. Scotti’s took its name from opera singer Antonio Scotti. Queen City Radio takes its name from former occupants of the building who installed radios in cars in the 1930s before every car came with an integrated multispeaker audio system. The Lübecker food truck currently calls this home and I treated myself to one of the day’s specials, käsespätzle.

Music Review
The Vevay Sessions
Ricky Nye

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Ricky Nye didn’t invent boogie-woogie, he just plays it like he did. I’m really bad at defining musical genre boundaries but even I know that not everything on this album is technically boogie-woogie. On the other hand, boogie-woogie is more than time signatures and bass lines. Like many other musical genres, it is partly attitude. Boogie-woogie is fun. It makes you smile. Maybe tap your toes. Of The Vevay Sessions Nye says, “The objective was to make a fun upbeat party record…” which to me means a record with a boogie-woogie attitude.

The album’s name comes from it being recorded in Vevay, Indiana. Some may need to be told that Vevay is “a small rural river town” but not me. I’m quite familiar with Vevay and the name was actually a big attraction for me. I can vouch for the accuracy of Karen Boyhen’s cover art which I suspect was largely done while standing at the front door of my favorite Vevay bar, Cuzz’s. The toe-tappin’ “Kay-Bee Boogie” that opens the album is named for Boyhen.

Backing Nye’s piano and vocals are Anthony Ray Wright on drums and guitar and Jerry King on bass and Eli Gonzalez adds some really nice saxophone on several tracks. The story goes that Ricky approached Jerry and Anthony about doing something together while at a show where the two performed with their regular group, Jerry King & The Rivertown Ramblers. The Ramblers’ forte is rockabilly and Ricky describes what he had in mind as “something a little rootsier than my previous releases.” I’d already heard the album when I read that and, although the word “rootsier” was a new one for me, I immediately knew what it meant and thought it a pretty good description of what they put together.

I think the tracks are about evenly divided between songs from Nye’s live repertoire and those newly worked up for these sessions. Among the latter group is one by Bob Wills (How’s that for rootsier?) and a couple from King Records. One of those King Records’ songs is an album highlight for me. “Train Kept A-Rollin'” was written by Tiny Bradshaw. He recorded it with his big band (with Philip Paul on drums) in 1951. In 1956, Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio dramatically reworked it into one of the earliest guitar-driven rock and roll songs ever recorded. Since then, The Yardbirds, Aerosmith, and almost every garage band in the world have updated or covered Burnette’s version. Ricky covers Bradshaw’s version and it’s a glorious thing.

The rest of that quote about the objective being “a fun upbeat party record” is “…and I believe we delivered”. And I believe so too.

The Vevay Sessions and other Ricky Nye recordings can be purchased at
rickynye.com/music

The CD is available in Cincinnati at
Everybody’s Records, Shake It Records, and Mole’s Record Exchange.

A digital download is available at
bandcamp/the-vevay-sessions

But the best way to get it is direct from Ricky at one of his upcoming appearances.

Three Days of Peace and Music

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Although it was not an actual goal, I was entertained by live music each of the last three days. It was just like Woodstock except that I only saw one performer each day and didn’t have to sleep in the mud. The picture at right exemplifies the peacefulness that prevailed. It was taken at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden where my musical adventure began.

I’m not sure when the zoo held the first Tunes & Blooms event. The earliest online reference I found was from 2018. The current setup has the music starting at 6:00 with free admission starting at 5:00. There is not much animal activity at that time but there is some and a few buildings remain open. One of those is Manatee Springs which has three residents at present. In the photo, one of the three is seen chasing some of the nearly 300 pounds of lettuce the trio consumes each day.

I have thought of attending Tunes & Blooms in the past but Thursday was the first time I actually made it. The artist of the day was the Carriers. They delivered very good original rock material that I quite enjoyed.

I stopped by Fibonacci Brewing last month to see Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass but bad weather caused the show to be canceled. I got much closer on Friday. Appalachian Grass performed but without Vernon. He wasn’t feeling well but sent a very capable guitarist in his place. The group is scheduled to be at the brewery monthly and I will be back.

Between 1956 and 1968, Covington, Ohio, was home to Rogers Drum Company. I even picked up a kit there in 1964. For the last few years, fans of the drums have been gathering in Covington to buy, sell, and reminisce as they did on Saturday. Potential buyers would sometimes take kits for a “test drive” and multiple simultaneous drum solos in a high school gymnasium sound exactly like what you’re thinking. The second picture is of Anthony Amodeo’s presentation on some Rogers history. The third picture is of a display in the local museum.

Drum solos were not the only music I heard on Saturday. I ended the day at Devil Wind Brewing where I knew Nasty Bingo would be performing. I had heard of the group but had never actually heard them. They did not disappoint and made a great finale for my three (generally) peaceful days of music.

Short, Sweet, Wet, and Irish

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It took place on March 17 so obviously it’s Irish. It’s wet because of the heavy rain that fell before it started and the light rain that fell later. It’s sweet because that’s what most short things are said to be and it’s short because that’s what Hamiltonians wanted. The title quite accurately describes the first-ever Hamilton Ohio Saint Patrick’s Day Parade which those Hamiltonians labeled Ohio’s Shortest. I think the parade route was about 575 feet long but the margin of error isn’t much less than the distance separating the piper leading the parade and the fire engine at its tail. I’ve since learned that the piper is Thomas Eickelberger and that the fellows next in line are Jim Goodman, from Municipal Brew Works, and Michael Ryan, Hamilton’s Vice Mayor. Hamilton’s Mayor, Pat Moeller didn’t actually march in the parade but I did get a shot of him chatting with Eickelberger during the staging.

Municipal Brew Works was listed as the parade’s starting point with the route ending around the corner and up a block at Tano Bistro. I got a full frontal of that bicycle leaning against the brewery before the big kickoff.

Here is the parade after turning the corner. The official end point is behind me but not everyone made it that far. Many departed the route when they reached The Casual Pint or The Pour House. Tano and Chick’nCone got a few of the marchers and would get more later but most initially headed to the adult beverage dispensaries including MBW back at the start point.

The city of Hamilton is no stranger to celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day or to promoting shortness. The parade was followed by the second annual O’DORA Dash. DORA stands for Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area where adults can carry alcoholic beverages and, as everyone knows, adding an ‘O’ will make anything Irish. Despite the word “dash” in its name, speed in covering the 0.1K course doesn’t seem particularly important. In fact, I saw no evidence of any time or speed-measuring devices anywhere near the event.

Much of the chatter about the event concerns not spilling your beer and I saw several participants meet that requirement by chugging their beverage at the beginning. But the official goal was to get as much liquid (either green beer or local Pahhni Water) as possible to the other end. True competitors were not deterred in the least by winds taking down the finish line marker. The Hamilton Community Foundation will benefit from the fundraiser regardless of who won or how much rainwater was in their cup.

I was already planning on attending the parade when I found out that someone I know would be playing at North Second Tap and Bottle Shop. When I got there, the new-to-me Bedel and Hibbard were on stage. Elijah Bedel and Sam Hibbard perform mostly American folk music on a variety of instruments. That’s a gourd banjo on the right side of the first picture and the banjo and fiddle on the picture’s left side are part of the mix too. Today’s song list was naturally slanted toward Ireland. Not only were they doing an afternoon set, but they would also be returning later to close out the night.

Although I’ve seen Rob McAllister do sets that would qualify as American folk music, that would not be happening today. Today it would be Dead Man String Band at full throttle. Usually checking out a guitarist’s pedal board will reveal an array of effects boxes with buttons. The Dead Man’s has real pedals and he uses them all. And somehow, replacing the tom rack on a bass drum with a microphone just seems to fit.

With the exception of the cold, I enjoyed everything about my day in Hamilton. I especially appreciated the sheer fun of the parade which kind of reminded me of the Cincinnati parade before all the sanctimonious family values posturing took over. The O’DORA Dash was fun to watch and I enjoyed a few malt beverages although none were green. And I appreciated hearing music in a place where others appreciated it too. Can there be any doubt that a place is cool when there is a wizard on the soundboard and a leprechaun on the bar?