by Dick Hall-Sizemore
Just out in time for the election season is a new song by Robin and Linda Williams. The nationally-acclaimed husband-and-wife duo has been writing and recording songs and giving concerts all over the country, as well as abroad, for almost fifty years. They were long-time regulars on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion. They live in Staunton. Unlike on some recent posts, this song was written by a real person and sung by real people.
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Nice tune. God Bless Staunton. Thanks for sharing.
The Biden Family theme song, perhaps.
I don't think the Bidens were the target.
A shoe that fits multiple political extremities, Sir.
C'mon, Dick … You want good ole Virginny Bluegrass … gotta listen to the boys from Harrisonburg:
I really like Robin and Linda Williams, but I don't consider them bluegrass. I am not a big fan of the type of "bluegrass" played by Old Crow Medicine Show. The old Virginny Bluegrass is best presented by somebody like Nothin' Fancy, out of Buena Vista.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVzrE5wLImc&list=RDEMNa-bO3lwIlRNpmol40Ag7w&start_radio=1
I agree. Real Bluegrass is primarily basic string instruments and has no need for dancing women or other tawdry distractions.
There go Larry and Dick – rushing headlong into the late 1970s.
MTV debuted just after midnight on August 1, 1981, with the very appropriate broadcast of “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles.
In other words, modern music videos just passed their 43rd birthday.
Well ,might be true. Some of the stuff today is hard pressed to call “music” but hey, to each his own.
And not surprised some folks don’t recognize what Blue Grass is or not either.
My grandchildren are often exasperated and dismayed at my ignorance of pop music. I tell them that my knowledge and appreciation of music ends with the mid-1960s. I do keep up with bluegrass, although that genre dates back before the 1960s. As for MTV, I never have been a fan.
DJ & Dick, for Virginia valley music it starts with Mac Wiseman. He made his career performing up and down the Shenandoah Valley starting in the late '40s. He was born in Augusta county north of Waynesboro. Here he is in 1978. The fiddler is Sonny Meade from Richmond who I picked with some over the years. Sonny was also Patsy Cline's fiddle player to get up to the north end of the valley.
There was not much money in Bluegrass way back when. Wiseman found he could not make enough money to carry a band. He would show up at festivals and pick up a band in the parking lot/campground. Sometimes it worked better than others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBzQXXDC6w4
Other Valley pickers included Jim & Jesse McReynolds and Don Reno from the Roanoke area. For a long time Virginia had more Bluegrass festivals than any other state. Dunno if that's still the case, but it would not be surprising.
I agree with you about Wiseman, but I thought we were just talking about acts that are still active.
Could be. I may be living in the past, and DJ was talking about the late '70s.
Could be. I may be living in the past, and DJ was talking about the late '70s. A video of Mac Wiseman in 1978 seemed appropriate.
Pre pandemic up at Wintergreen they did an annual mountain music festival. The Williamses one year. Nothin' Fancy came once. The good stuff. Miss it.
They are still around. I saw the Williamses at the Shady Grove Coffehouse in Glen Allen last winter. They will be performing at a music festival in Staunton this coming weekend. The annual Nothin' Fancy bluegrass festival will be held in Buena Vist in mid-September.
Nothing like live music.
I agree but car music is acceptable when you don’t have the former.
banjos, guitar, bass… where’s the fiddle music coming from?
One of the things I hate about most music videos is the studio sound tracks dubbed in. Hell, the nightclub singers in 1940 film noir were mostly live performances.
true.
If you watch it all the way through and don't get distracted by the girls there is a fiddle player.
Remember, music stores in the olden days had signs saying "No Stairway To Heaven". More recently the signs read "No Wagon Wheel".
Distracted? Moi?
Did you ever meet "Two Gun"? He was a storied musician and exceptional fiddle player from the valley near Harrisonburg. He taught fiddle to most of the folks currently picking music around there. He was a piece of work.
Biden family all the way! Not to slight Slick Willie and his crew.
”Only cheat the cheaters, boy – you can't cheat an honest man!” —Mordecai Jones, M.B.S., C.S., D.D
Flimflam? Did somebody say flimflam?
https://www.denverpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/donald-trump-plaque.jpg?w=978
That's from Trump National Golf Course out in Loudoun County, between the 14th and 15th holes. I've played it a number of times and I'm always amazed by that plaque.
The Potomac River is shallow there so one could imagine Union and Confederate crossings at that spot or nearby. However, nobody seems to be able to name a battle fought there.
I’ll bet Deutsche Bank can. “Adjustment to collateral property value: Significant Civil War battle site $10,000,000.” Not bad for a $200 plaque.
Not Ball's Bluff? Never been up there.
Garrison Keillor is a certified genius. He was also destroyed by woke nonsense (never thought the claims against him justified execution. He wasn't another Bill Cosby.) The Williamses are talented, the song a nice hit piece, but Woody Guthrie it aint.
Melody sounds much better at 2x speed.
I agree with DJRippert–OCMS is great. I still refuse to listen to the Darius Rucker cover of Wagon Wheel, out of principle.
Not Virginians, but you have to appreciate the talent here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c7bISLhVl8
Good stuff!
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