[ From Butch Ross ] Shows in Ohio, Help me get to the UK, New Music, New Website, a TON of news.

[Butch Ross]

So much stuff this time that i need a table of contents!

Here’s what’s up:

1. Central Ohio Folk Festival this Weekend
2. Help me get to the UK by buying new music.
3. Check out the new website
4. “Shady Grove” book available online.
5. Chattanooga Ballet dances to Butch Ross

I know I’ve said this to you before that when you don’t hear from me,
it’s because I’m super stupid busy. Well April and May have been no
exception to that rule. But I have LOADS of wonderful things to tell
you, so kick back, get a cup of coffee and accept my apologies for how
long this email is going to be.

CENTRAL OHIO FOLK FESTIVAL
Friday May 7, 2010 - Sunday May 9, 2010
Battelle-Darby Creek Metro Park Indian Ridge Area
Tickets $10 to $30 depending.

This weekend is the Central Ohio Folk Festival and it’ll be good to be
back. This year’s headliners are the Yellow Room Gang (featuring
Mustard’s Retreat) and the amazing James Keelaghan. In addition to
myself teaching Bill Schilling, Linda Sigismondi, Joni Sines
Steven K. Smith, Steve Stapleton, Shelly Stevens and the amazing Doug
Berch will all be instructors. There are some other cool things
planned as well, here’s how it breaks down by day.

Friday
There will be a special potluck/jam session at McKinley Field Park,
starting sometime after 5pm. basically this is an easy jam session led
by me. We’ll be playing stuff I’ve taught at various festivals as well
as tunes from Andy Beyer’s beginner’s packet. I wont be teaching per
se, but will be there to call out chords lead jams, make sure that
everyone is there to have a good time. If you came to my “Jam session
survival skills” workshop in March, this’ll be a good time to put that
to practice.

Tunes include: Boil Them Cabbage Down/Aunt Rhody/Shortnin' Bread/On
Top of Old Smokey/Freres Jacques/Cripple Creek/Old Joe Clark/Deep Blue
Sea/June Apple/Oh Susanna/Skip to My Lou/Going to Boston/Buffalo
Gals/Liza Jane/Loch Lomond plus some tunes that I’ve taught at OVG and
other regional festivals, old chestnuts, and your suggestions.

This is NOT the official Friday meet, greet and jam that the CMFS does
at Battelle-Darby Park but a private affair contact Dough Snapp via
email to dmsnapp at wowway.com or phone at 313-6424 if you’d like to
attend.

Saturday
Loads of workshops from not just me but Doug Berch, Andy Beyer, Gary
Sager and loads of others (I forgot how may instructors there are at
this thing) Plus the Saturday night concert is going to rock!

Sunday
I’m playing in the big tent from 11 to noon. Since I played just about
everything I could think of in March at the COFF auction, I thought
I’d make this set a little more interactive, so if you got a request,
call it out, and I’ll do my best to make it happen.

HELP ME GET TO THE UK.
My UK tour is just under two weeks away and I STILL haven’t bought
tickets. Plus when I get there, there will be the cost of car rental,
work visas (£300). I was hoping that all this turmoil in the EU with
Greece will push the Pound down against the dollar and deflate some
overhead on this trip but this has not been the case (stupid resilient
British economy). So I’m asking you to help me get there and back by
offering

NEW MUSIC AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY ON MY WEB SITE.
“This Year in Review” isn’t actually a year in review. Instead it is a
collection of live tunes, rarely performed songs and some of my best
in-between song bits. Recorded over the last few years at KMW,
Dulci-more, Fort New Salem, the Leo Coffeehouse, House Concerts, UK
pub shows and more, it features a slew of songs that I’ve rarely
performed in public. Including some that have only been played live
once.

There’s no physical CD (tho’ I will make you one if you ask nicely and
gimme $5) instead it’s a pay-what-you-want download from my website.
Over an hour of words and music spread over 24 tracks. You can hear
the whole thing, for free, at my website www.butchross.com Then, if
you want you can make a donation in any amount, and you will be taken
to a page explaining how you can download just the songs you want or
get the whole CD including artwork as a single .zip file. And you can
find all this at my…

REVAMPED WEB SITE.
There’s one simple reason I did this—beside the fact that it’s well
overdue—which I’ll get to in a minute. But I’ve redesigned and
relaunched my web site. There are still a couple of pages I need to
add yet (video, tab and workshop pages) and probably a bug to two to
work out. In addition to showcasing photos from Gail Lindsay and Karl
Schmidt, the music player has the “A Long Way From Shady Grove” and
“The Moonshiner’s Atlas” up there in its entirety. Kinda like having
yr own personal Butch Ross radio station. But the reason for the
redesign is that I finally made the…

“A LONG WAY FROM SHADY GROVE” BOOK AVAILABLE ONLINE
I’ve been selling this thing at shows for a couple of months, But
haven’t made it available online before now. For those of you who
don’t know “Shady Grove” is an 87-page book of transcriptions of every
song on my latest CD. Including transcriptions of the contributions
Gary Gallier, Stephen Seifert, Steve Brehm and Quintin Stephens made
to the CD. Everything from Steve Brehm’s brooding guitar intro on
“Goodbye Liza Jane/No Direction Home” to Quintin’s rockin’
“Dulcicaster” solo on “Pole Position” to the Hungarian Citera I play
on “Shady Grove” (transcribed for mountain dulcimer of course) is
written out in tablature and notation with chords and commentary. It’s
all in the hear/buy section of the new web site.

And finally…

THE CHATTANOOGA BALLET DANCES TO BUTCH ROSS
A few months ago Courtney Mild of the Chattanooga Ballet asked me if
she could use my version of Eleanor Rigby for a dance piece she was
choreographing. Although I couldn’t for the life of me see how that
was going to work, I enthusiastically gave her my blessing. Last
Friday "Viso Gero" made its world premiere at the Chattanooga Ballet.
Using both “Eleanor Rigby” and “Firenze” from the “Shady Grove” CD, A
troupe of nine dancers performed a combination of ballet and European
folk dance moves to tell a love story in 7 minutes with dance.

I honestly had no idea what to expect, nor could I even fathom how one
would take my version of Eleanor Rigby (which I think is even darker
and more esoteric than the original) and put movement to it. But there
it was in all its glory, right between Pas De Quarte and the Dream of
Don Quixote, and the results were stunning. Let me give a big public
THANK YOU to Courtney Mild, the Chattanooga Ballet and all the
dancers. The whole show was filmed and I am working on getting the
video of that soon. I’ll post it on my site just as soon as I can.

Okay that’s a TON of stuff to tell you, so I’ll not say any more.
Sorry this is so long. See you this weekend, or in the UK and GO GET
THAT ALBUM!

Those shows again
Friday
Central Ohio Folk Festival Kickoff Party.
McKinley Field Park,
1661 Goodale Blvd.
Columbus, OH 43212
614-313-6424

Sat-Sun
Central Ohio Folk Festival @ Battelle-Darby Creek Metro Park
1775 Darby Creek Drive, Columbus, OH 43119

C-ya out there.

--Br
www.butchross.com

"Now I know what a dulcimer is supposed to sound like" —Jake Shimabukuro