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Newsletter
Update February (2008)
by Dlid
Have you ever read Jazz Times? Me either, I mean who has? But, Bruce
was on the magazine's cover back in October. It's a very handsome picture
and the article is good, too. The magazine goes all the way back to Ira Sabin's
record store in DC, where in the 1970s Bruce bought many a Chick Corea record.
The article was written by someone who actually visited Bruce, understood
what he saw and heard, and wrote coherently about it afterwards. In other
words, Jazz Times is a pretty intelligent magazine, which is why hardly anyone
reads it.
Charlie Haden, one of the all-time greatest bass players of, well, all-time,
has recorded a country album in Nashville that includes Pat Metheny, Jerry
Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton and last and perhaps least, Bruce Hornsby.
Always resourceful, Bruce managed to buy his way into the studio and onto
the record with a case of light beer and a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
Would you travel to New York to see a musical written
by Bruce? What if
was titled SCKBSTD? I would, as long as I could get half-price tickets at
that kiosk in Times Square and it had a song in it about Donald Trump. Bruce
was asked to write a musical by Mike Rafael of Playwrights Horizons. Mike
was able to coerce the talented and accomplished young librettist and author,
Clay McLeod Chapman to write the script and Bruce begged and pleaded with
the talented and accomplished lothario and phlegmatist Chip deMatteo to lyricize.
Don't despair if you are unable or unwilling to travel to New York because
some of the songs from SCKBSTD will be included, whether you like it or not,
on Bruce's next Noisemaker's album. Much of the up-coming record was recorded
by the band last fall in Williamsburg but no decision had been made by the
CDC in Atlanta about when it will be safe to unleash it on the population.
Sampled more times than your mom's tasty cupcakes, Bruce's "The
Way It Is" is now featured in Wyclef Jean's new single remix, "Slow
Down". This is the seventh time the song has been sampled in
an R&B
or hip-hop song. For those not familiar with the practice, sampling is a
musical technique that allows those with superior recording equipment to
emulate those with superior musical skill. Wyclef Jean and Bruce both performed
at a Democratic Party fundraiser last year marking the beginning of the hundred
days of the total reform of Congress, the fruits of which we are enjoying
today.
Bruce and Ricky Skaggs and, of course, Kentucky Thunder, are performing
their travelling show all over the place. Really in more places than can
be conveniently shaken at by a stick, so check the website for details and
a venue near you or anybody you know with a credit card. Notable in the tour
are the dates at Merlefest (Wilkesboro NC, April 26, 2008) and the Telluride
Bluegrass Festival (You know where Colorado, June 20, 2008).
And speaking of Kentucky Thunder, Bruce is playing
on Cody Kilby's new record.
Cody is the young and good-looking flat-picker in the group. So buy his record,
Cody and Bruce will be glad you did and you won't regret it at all.
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