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Log inBalladeer is forever in bluegrass
Balladeer is forever in bluegrass
by Outspoken on Mon Jun 23, 2008 3:57 am
Balladeer is forever in bluegrass
BY DOUG HARLOW
Staff Writer Morning Sentinel
SIDNEY -- Seventy-eight-year-old Smokey Greene was introduced to the Blistered Fingers Bluegrass Festival stage Sunday afternoon as the last of the bluegrass balladeers.
And he didn't disappoint.
Dressed in a cowboy hat, patriotic red-white-and-blue necktie and Western-style suit, Greene, who hails these days from upstate New York, launched into old-time ballads about cow punchers, a boy leaving home for the big city and a jealous wife in "Pistol Packin' Mama."
Greene, playing his time-worn acoustic guitar, was accompanied by Dick Pelletier of Fayette on four-string, acoustic, stand-up bass.
Interviewed before taking the stage Sunday, Greene said he was born and brought up in Vermont and that bluegrass is not just a Southern or a Western thing. He said his music goes way back to earlier times, when Ernest Tubb, Marty Robbins, Carl Smith, Lefty Frizzell -- all the good ones -- were on the radio.
He likes cowboy songs, Gospel songs, funny songs and just about everything blue grass that lies in between.
"It's hard to explain it -- it's old country, hillbilly -- I've got about 400 songs in my head," he said tuning up his six-string and rehearsing on a bar stool behind the stage. "I first got paid to do it in 1946. I've had other jobs, but I've always played the music."
Greene said he is inspired these days by the music itself, not by the way of life that often is associated with honkey tonks and life on the road.
"Well, let me put it this way," Green said, pausing at his guitar. "I used to drink a lot and thought that was giving me a high, you know? But now I get as high off the music as I used to with alcohol.
"All of my relative, my uncles, cousins, all played fiddles, guitars and I kind of grew up hearing Country Music -- Jimmy Rodgers kind of music. I know some Northern bluegrass groups that could knock the socks off Southern bluegrass groups."
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5176903.html
Staff Photo by David Leaming
BY DOUG HARLOW
Staff Writer Morning Sentinel
SIDNEY -- Seventy-eight-year-old Smokey Greene was introduced to the Blistered Fingers Bluegrass Festival stage Sunday afternoon as the last of the bluegrass balladeers.
And he didn't disappoint.
Dressed in a cowboy hat, patriotic red-white-and-blue necktie and Western-style suit, Greene, who hails these days from upstate New York, launched into old-time ballads about cow punchers, a boy leaving home for the big city and a jealous wife in "Pistol Packin' Mama."
Greene, playing his time-worn acoustic guitar, was accompanied by Dick Pelletier of Fayette on four-string, acoustic, stand-up bass.
Interviewed before taking the stage Sunday, Greene said he was born and brought up in Vermont and that bluegrass is not just a Southern or a Western thing. He said his music goes way back to earlier times, when Ernest Tubb, Marty Robbins, Carl Smith, Lefty Frizzell -- all the good ones -- were on the radio.
He likes cowboy songs, Gospel songs, funny songs and just about everything blue grass that lies in between.
"It's hard to explain it -- it's old country, hillbilly -- I've got about 400 songs in my head," he said tuning up his six-string and rehearsing on a bar stool behind the stage. "I first got paid to do it in 1946. I've had other jobs, but I've always played the music."
Greene said he is inspired these days by the music itself, not by the way of life that often is associated with honkey tonks and life on the road.
"Well, let me put it this way," Green said, pausing at his guitar. "I used to drink a lot and thought that was giving me a high, you know? But now I get as high off the music as I used to with alcohol.
"All of my relative, my uncles, cousins, all played fiddles, guitars and I kind of grew up hearing Country Music -- Jimmy Rodgers kind of music. I know some Northern bluegrass groups that could knock the socks off Southern bluegrass groups."
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5176903.html
Staff Photo by David Leaming
"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything."
Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
