Blues at Centrum

2010 Blues Scholarships Awarded

Folks, we have awarded all of our allocated scholarship money for the 2010 Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Workshop. An enormous thank you to all of our donors who contributed funds to make it possible for those who needed help attending the gathering.

Interview with Washboard Chaz in Port Townsend

At last year's Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival, we recorded an interview with Washboard Chaz. Chaz is based in New Orleans, and is one of the only professional washboard players around. 2009 was his first time at Centrum, and he was such a great teacher, we asked him back to be on faculty at the 2010 Festival.

In this interview, Chaz talks about the history of the washboard, the Port Townsend experience, and playing the blues.

We still have workshop openings in the 2010 Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival, and in addition to Washboard Chaz, we also will have David Gibson of the Ebony Hillbillies teaching washboard. You can register online, or give us a call at 360-385-3102.

Learn Slide Guitar at the Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival

Slide guitar enthusiasts will enjoy these week-long sessions in Port Townsend this summer:

Survey of Slide Guitar with Rev. Robert B. Jones
This class teaches the basics of playing in a variety of traditional slide guitar styles.  The class will showcase slide styles of artists like Son House, Robert Johnson, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Bukka White, Tampa Red and Blind Willie Johnson. 

No previous playing slide guitar experience is necessary, however a basic knowledge of blues fingerpicking is helpful.  Students should have a steel stringed guitar (conventional or resonator) and to have a slide/bottleneck.

Slide Guitar Tunes and Techniques with Steve James
After a brief musical demo and chronology of slide guitar, two open tunings long used by slide guitarists, "Spanish" and "Vastopol" (i.e.: open G and open D), will be explained.  Next  some ways that harmonies and phrases with blues tonality can be produced by altering the simple three note chord that forms an open tuning will be detailed; also the slide techniques that produce the clear, sustained tones, vibrato, and subtle control of pitch and dynamics.   Also important are the way in which  the thumb and fingers of the picking hand are used to combine lower and higher pitches to produce melody, harmony and  rhythm simultaneously.

During the remaining days of the program playing and listening skills will be further developed  by hearing, and learning by practicing a variety of guitar arrangements (along with devices like tapping, harmonics, and slide bouncing).  Expect to play plenty of blues, but it may be spiked with some country, gospel and train imitations.

Just bring your guitar.  James'll sell you a slide if you haven't got one.  The hand-outs are free.  Just don't get him started on that Furry Lewis deal.  Wanna record?  Ask first.

Ukulele at Blues Week, Port Townsend

We have a robust ukulele offering this summer - here are daily offerings from Lightnin' Wells and Del Rey:

Blues Ukulele Styles of the Early 20th Century - Del Rey
You’ll learn tunes from Hokum groups like The Pebbles in the '20s, New Orleans blues from Lemon Nash, Piedmont ukulele from Rabbit Muse and some guitar sources that work on uke like Papa Charlie Jackson and Charlie Jordon. Music will be taught by ear - no tab, bring your uke and a recorder and notebook.

Mainland Uke - Lightnin’ Wells
You’ll learn vintage tunes in the mainland style for the standard (soprano) ukulele. Vintage tunes from the 1920s, when the uke reigned supreme in America, will be explored such as It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo’, My Blue Heaven, I’ll See You In My Dreams and Shine On Harvest Moon. You’ll learn how to jam along to some blues tunes on this small but mighty instrument. Copies of many of the songs presented from vintage sheet music from the era with chord diagrams will be available. All songs will be presented in the now widely accepted C tuning for the ukulele G-C-E-A.

Annieville Blues Returns to Port Townsend

We're happy to announce that one of our favorite piano players, Annieville Blues, will be back on faculty at the 2010 Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival.

Born in Los Angeles, Annieville started playing piano at age 5. She went on to discover boogie woogie and blues piano, and her inspiration to learn more about these styles was sparked by collecting old recordings of legendary pianists, including Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Otis Spann, and Professor Longhair, to name a few.

Thus began Annieville's thirst for knowledge and her continuing passion to play roots blues and boogie woogie music - a thirst we all share at the Festival.

She's been on staff previously at Centrum, and is a patient and exceptional teacher. She'll join Daryl Davis, and Judy LaPrade on our piano faculty.

If you haven't registered for the 2010 Festival, you can do so online - we hope to see you in Port Townsend come August.

Save a Seat for Nat Reese

We're honored to have the great Nat Reese on faculty this year for the Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival. Nat grew up in Virginia listening to his father's guitar and his mother's concertina. After showing some talent on his father's guitar, the family purchased a Martin Tiple 12-string.

Nat began to learn songs from itinerant black musicians who rode the rails throughout the mountain coal camps, company towns that were divided into “colored,” white, and Italian sections.

In 1939, Nat first met and performed with multi-instrumentalist Howard Armstrong, who was traveling through and playing the coal camp circuit from his home in Tennessee. The duo performed together regularly until Armstrong’s death in 2003.

The Virginia Folklife Program produced an excellent video of Nat recording his "Save a Seat for Me" release- we hope that you enjoy it and that it encourages you to come out to Port Townsend to play with Nat.

David Bromberg to Headline Port Townsend Blues Festival

On Friday, August 6, David Bromberg will make his first visit to Port Townsend in 20 years, backed by his own David Bromberg Quartet.

His live show remains as unique as ever, extraordinary events that follow no set pattern of selection. Give and take between band members is complete, spontaneous, and totally sincere.

Bromberg started playing guitar at age 13. He heard Pete Seeger and The Weavers and, through them, Reverend Gary Davis who became his mentor. He then discovered Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters and the Chicago blues. Bromberg’s sensitive and versatile approach to guitar-playing earned him jobs as a backing musician for Tom Paxton, Jerry Jeff Walker and Rosalie Sorrels, among others. He became a first-call, hired gun guitarist for recording sessions, ultimately playing on hundreds of records by artists including Bob Dylan, Link Wray, The Eagles, Ringo Starr, Willie Nelson, and Carly Simon.

A special treat for workshop participants - Bromberg will lead a blues guitar class on the last day of the workshop.

 

Ben Payton added to blues workshop faculty

With regret we inform you that Resa Gibbs will not be able to teach at the workshop this summer. In her stead, Ben Wiley Payton from Jackson, Mississippi, makes his first visit to Port Townsend to lead the singing track.

Born and raised in Coila, a small town in Carroll County, Mississippi, Payton spent much of his childhood in the agricultural work cycle. His access to popular music radically changed when he moved to Chicago with his family in 1964. The 16-year-old Mississippi boy arrived in the city when its club scene was booming. From club shows by Muddy Waters and other bluesmen to concerts by touring acts like James Brown and Wilson Pickett, Payton and his friends were there to see them all. In Chicago, Payton joined a singing group, then learned guitar and started performing with friends.

By the time he was 20, Payton was playing guitar in the house bands of several show clubs on Chicago’s South Side, backing up well-known performers, such as R&B singer Otis Clay and jazz guitarist Grant Green.

more on Ben Payton here:  www.benpayton.com

Registration Now Open For Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival

Let the Blues begin!

Artistic Director Corey Harris has expanded the Acoustic Blues workshop for 2010, offering two sessions each morning and one in the afternoon. Classes are offered in blues guitar, slide guitar, Piedmont-style fingerpicking, harmonica, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, blues piano, bass, washboard, and blues singing--all taught by the masters of the country blues tradition who come to Port Townsend from all over North America.

In addition to these offerings, there will be expanded opportunities for playing, including nighttime jams with the faculty, an assortment of band labs, and chances for solo performances for both friends and mentors. The Acoustic Blues workshop is open to and appropriate for all skill levels. If you don't play an instrument, hop on vocal track, including two blues-singing workshops and the Gospel choir.

Register online, or call Centrum at 360.385.3102, x117.

John Dee Holeman and the Piedmont Tradition

John Dee Holeman is the real deal.

Born in Orange County, North Carolina in 1929, John Dee has been playing the blues since he was 14. He learned by listening to Blind Boy Fuller's records as well as by playing with musicians who learned directly from Fuller.

John Dee was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship in 1988 and a North Carolina Folk Heritage Award in 1994. While we've presented him here in Port Townsend a few times at our summer festival, we have never brought him to work in a small, intimate setting before. 

We still have a couple of spaces left in our Piedmont Blues Intensive - taking place October 15-18. If you are a guitar player who wants to learn Piedmont fingerpicking from the source, you need to join John Dee, along with Michael Roach, and Lightnin' Wells for this gathering. It's a small gathering, and you'll get some seriously premium time with each of these great musicians.