Quick Q and A with Garnet Rogers
 by Kathy S-B  ·  24 September 2010

Garnet is one of our all-time favorite performers and we love when he comes to town. His gentle demeanor and witty stage presence — not to mention his fantastic musicianship — make for a night to remember! Check out this video of one of his signature songs, “Night Drive.”

Check out who Garnet’s very first friend on MySpace is and listen to some cool music from the new album here.

You generally travel with a carload of instruments — do you have a favorite or is that like asking a parent to name their favorite child?

They are all favourites, some I’ll play more, and then switch to another, but they all have their characters. I keep them in different tunings too, so this means that I don’t have to spend much time on stage changing tunings. That’s how I justify it anyway. ;)

Your style is pretty eclectic — does that drive any of your traditional music fans crazy (especially when you crank up your electric guitar and use reverb to the max)?

You might have to ask them that! I think perhaps some look with fear and loathing at my amps and electrics, but no one has thrown anything yet, and everyone seems to like it.

Do you have any favorite ‘on the road’ stories? (Keep it clean!)

Sorry, that would take a book. Literally. So, I am writing a book of on the road stories. Don’t know when that will be done though.

You do quite a few covers songs in your repertoire. What is it about songs like “Blood Brothers” (Bruce Springsteen) or “Oh How Happy” (Shades of Blue) that make you want to play them?

There are so many great songs out there, that I wish I had written. I consider Bruce Springsteen the great American songwriter. “Blood Brothers” is a great tune, and it fits perfectly in my thematic ‘triptych, with “Night Drive” and “North West Passage.” I recorded it on my last CD, Get a Witness. Needless to say, there are a number of Springsteen songs I wish I’d written.

Quick Q and A with Tim O’Brien (2010)
 by Kathy S-B  ·  18 September 2010

Tim O’Brien is one heck of a musician. Just ask Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits who asked Tim to join his band for a nationwide tour. Mark calls him a master of American folk music, Irish music, Scottish music — it doesn’t matter; a fine songwriter and one of my favorite singers.” High praise from a music legend.

Tim’s music is unique yet familiar. It’s fun, it’s comforting, it’s real. Check out Tim’s blog. Here’s a video of Tim singing the classic “Shady Grove” with the Chieftains.

How would you describe your CD Chicken and Egg?

It’s a lot of fun is what it is. Swingin, rockin, bluegrass and old time mashin. and the songs are the story of my extraordinarily typical American life. True songs as Bill Monroe would say. Enough humor to cut the sadness and make it almost welcome. I hope so anyway.

I like all the songs and have no regrets about how it came out. That’s unusual. I got to do what I do with the right help from a stellar core group of Bryan Sutton, Stuart Duncan, Mike Bub, and Dennis Crouch. i get to sing my dad’s own words on a couple songs, and that helps me because he died last fall and I miss him.

If someone was not familiar with your music at all, which recording would you suggest that they listen to first?

Chicken and Egg is about perfect, but you could try Traveler, or Fiddler’s Green, or Rock in my Shoe.

You were recently on the road with Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits. What was it like being part of his band? What kind of audiences did you play for?

We played for hard core Knopfler fans. Tix sold out soon after the tour was announced. smaller halls — from 1500 to 4000. I was filling in for a buddy on maternity leave, but then he wanted me to stay on through the bigger venues in Europe all the way through July. my part was the North America tour. Great gig in Boston! I learned a lot — how well you can be rehearsed for instance, also how good the production can be, and how to play less to make a bigger sound. It’s serious business, he doesn’t mess around. I liked playing electric guitar on a few. Killer players. Mark’s a true gentleman, commands a lot of respect and gives plenty back.

Your songs have been recorded by a number of very well-known musicians. Do you have any favorites and, if so, what stands out about that musician’s take on your song?

Kathy Mattea’s version of “Untold Stories” was remarkably close to how I imagined it. A great groove. Hot Rize’s version was good but more of a compromise to the original feel. I love that too, though. If a song is good, it can live many lives, and it won’t wear out. I’m always honored and proud when anyone else sings my song, whether it’s Garth Brooks or a Facebook fan.

Do you have any plans to record any more with your sister, Mollie?

We’re planning a family band record. It’s gonna be cool. Her husband Rich, daughters Brigid and Lucy, my sons Jack and Joel. All Roger Miller songs. Getting the list of songs and who sings em now.

Quick Q and A with Dinty Child (Session Americana)
 by Kathy S-B  ·  12 September 2010

Session Americana is one of those bands that grabs you instantaneously. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. They’re the real deal and one can’t help but have a great time watching this band create music in such an organic and for lack of a better word zesty manner. This band exemplifies all that is wonderful about the greater Boston music scene. Their performances are filled with energy, enthusiasm and are just plain awesome fun. Here’s our interview with multi-instrumentalist, Dinty Child. Check out the Session Americana website for the most-up-to-date news about the band. Here’s Session doing a terrific cover of The Band’s “The Shape I’m In.”

How long has Session Americana existed? Can you tell us a little bit about how the group began?

We are headed into our sixth year I think. The idea for the band was born one night at Toad, a tiny music pub in Cambridge. Billy, Ry, and Jabe Beyer had already played with other acts that night when the last act called to say they wouldn’t be able to get there. I think it was Ry who had the idea of taping some microphones to one of the tables so they could sit around it and just play whatever they felt like to fill up the rest of the night. Evidently, as soon as they started playing they noticed that people were drawn in, standing around the outside of the circle and sitting on the bar to get a better look, and a light bulb went off in Ry’s head. He consciously decided who would be ideal to have around the table and, except for Kimon Kirk, our original bass player who moved to LA a couple of years ago, the group has stayed the same as the first night. Since we all played in other bands, the idea was to just have some fun playing songs we liked and drinking beer on Sunday nights. Bowling Night for musicians. We did that at Toad for two years until we had to move to a bigger place to accommodate the crowds trying to get in. In fact, if we’d thought about it we might have actually picked a name, but Session Americana was what was on the sandwich board outside every Sunday and it stuck.

Was the idea of sitting around in a tight circle born out of necessity or did it just feel right to configure yourself around a table?

From the beginning, sitting around the table made it so we were mostly playing music for ourselves, and the audience was free to eavesdrop. It’s kind of like inviting a bunch of really great musicians over to your house to sit around your kitchen table and play while you hang out with a beer and listen. We don’t use amps (other than a small one for the bass) or monitors, so as we moved to the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, still our home base, and on to theaters and larger shows, the proximity that the table requires has always enabled us to tune out everything else and really listen to each other. It really doesn’t matter where we are, when we sit down around that table it’s like we’re back at Toad. We’re on our fourth table now and are keeping one in Ireland for future European tours.

Do you have any favorite songs that Session does?

Oh man, the list is endless. From the beginning we decided that a good song was a good song no matter where it came from. In fact, since we all had other outlets for our original material, and in order to avoid ego clashes, we had an unwritten rule for the first three or four years that we wouldn’t sing our own songs. Someone else in the band could sing one of your songs if they wanted to but you couldn’t sing your own. We also focused a lot on songs our friends had written that we thought were overlooked. That gradually changed and now we do a fair number of originals which is a good thing since they are some of our most popular ones. To answer the question, I still get a real kick out of playing unlikely covers with our banjo/fiddle/harmonica/accordion/pump organ instrumentation. We have a pretty extensive batch of Prince songs as well as Flaming Lips, Liz Phair, the Beastie Boys, Radiohead, and a hundred more. We can rock pretty hard. As Ry said in an interview once, ‘You don’t have to be loud to rock, you just have to rock’. If I had to pick one song though it would probably be John Brown by our friend Jimmy Ryan, who will actually be joining us at the Me&Thee show. For a long time we ended every show with it and though we don’t do it quite as often now, I still get goose bumps every time.

I’m fascinated by your pump organ. That’s not an instrument one sees every day. When I put “Dinty Child” and “pump organ” into Google, I got a surprising result. It seems that there is a type of pump organ called the Child Pump Organ. Do you have anything to do with this? Do you or members of your family make pump organs? Do tell!

I sure wish someone in my family made pump organs, that would make things considerably easier. Unless there is something I don’t know, I’m pretty sure the ‘child pump organ’ was a miniature version of a pump organ made specifically for kids in he early part of the century. I’ve read about them but never seen one. My two organs were made by one of the main organ builders, the Estey Company of Brattleboro. They mostly made ‘parlor organs’, the kind in a big wooden case in the corner where the family might sing hymns on Sunday. The ones I have are called ‘folders’ or ‘field organs’ and were designed to be portable for use at tent meetings or in the military. Growing up I knew someone with a parlor organ, loved messing around on it, and always had a fantasy of using one in a band. I didn’t know these portable ones existed until the early 90’s when I saw one in a friends house that had belonged to his grandfather, and somehow talked him into selling it to me. The organ is definitely one of our secret weapons since it brings a bigness and depth to our sound that is always surprising. It’s also an awesome instrument for singing around the campfire. We’ve had it on a beach in Rhode Island, in a boat on a lake in New Hampshire, and in a field on a hilltop in the middle of Vermont under a full moon at four in the morning. I also managed to take it as luggage for our Ireland tour, but that was definitely a stretch.

Any plans for a new Session Americana recording?

We’re talking about it. Right now the plan is to record in Nashville early next year with a good friend of ours who is a big time writer and producer there. We’re not trying to make a hit record or anything, we just think it would be fun, and we have a lot of musician friends in Nashville who we could rope in if we wanted. Our last record, ‘Diving For Gold’ was produced by Paul Kolderie and focused on original material but I’m guessing the next one will go back to the more ‘live in studio’ sound of our earlier ones. We don’t like to limit ourselves though so we’ll see where the songs take us.

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