[ From Butch Ross ] NEW CHRISTMAS ALBUM and Chatt' area shows

[News, info and tourdates for Butch Ross]

Dec 10, 2015 5:30-7 PM - Mentone, AL - KAMAMA ART GALLERY
Dec 11, 2015 9:00-11 PM - Chattanooga, TN - Feed and Company
Dec 12, 2015 12:30-3 PM - Chattanooga, TN - Chattanooga Market
Dec 13, 2015 12:30-3 PM - Chattanooga, TN - Chattanooga Market

Of all the odd things in my incongruous career as a full-time professional
musician, the strangest has got to be the fact that I can use my Christmas
albums--all two of them--as career-long benchmarks. It wasn’t ever
intentional, but it seems like every three or four years I find myself
returning to the well of traditional Holiday music to make music that
is...well, anything but traditional.

Actually,“tipping point” is probably a better term than benchmark. Much
like the way I developed the live looping part of my show from street
performing at the Aquarium in Chattanooga, a lot of Christmas stuff has
come from playing multiple nights at Rock City up in Lookout Mountain, GA
(See? I’ve seen Rock City!). Those shows require multiple performances per
evening, usually over several days in a row. But here’s what’s interesting:
owing to a bunch of things, Rock City’s “Enchanted Garden of Lights” runs
through the Epiphany, which is in early January. So I generally end up
playing Rock City after Christmas. This wonderful crucible in which I can
try new ideas usually spawns something that I really like around the first
or second week of January. But by then, everyone, including me, is well
over Christmas music. Therefore, it’s usually after a couple of years of
this that I find myself thinking “Hey, I got a bunch of pretty good
Christmas tunes here.”

My first Christmas Card CD was an experiment by me to see if I could make
an engaging album of music with the dulcimer as my primary instrument (Yes,
Robert Force may have believed in me, but I was a bit more skeptical). That
was in 2003. In 2007 I had access to Dan Landrum’s awesome home studio and
I thought “Well, maybe I’ll touch up the old Christmas tracks.” I ended up
re-recording almost the whole thing. 2012 found me thinking that I oughta
do a vocal Christmas record, and after cranking that one out (plus the
arrangements I’d come up with since the 2007 Christmas CD) I came to learn
that, Hey! I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (2012 was the also
year I didn’t attend the Key West Dulcimer Fest; coincidence? I think not).

In some ways this CD is the old things made new. A few of the tracks from
“The Dulcimer Christmas Card 2” are on here, like “Christmastime Is Here”
and “Good King Wenceslas (featuring Bing Futch),” but as with the first
Christmas Card CD, the idea of “touching up” the Dulcimer Christmas Card 2
let to a complete remodel. Three of the original 12 songs remain, and
one--Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies--was rebuilt from the ground up. It’s
also full of ideas I’ve knocked around for years, like doing “The Little
Drummer Boy” in 5/4 (an idea Guy George loved too, which is why he appears
on that track); doing more and funkier versions of tunes from The
Nutcracker; or working with the insane drum track that underpins “Jesu, Joy
of Man’s Desiring” (which also inspired the title of this record).

But, like the first Dulcimer Christmas Card, in the end, this CD is a fun
romp.

Of course, it’s for you to decide how much fun this album is. You can hear
the whole thing here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9_aP4rVwms or just go
to www.butchross.com where that video sits on the home page. Like the other
Christmas CDs it’s available as a card you can give, or as a standard CD in
a sleeve. Both are $10 (plus shipping). OR you can download it for $7 (or
pay more if you want to). All the details are at www.butchross.com.

Hope this holiday season, whatever holiday you celebrate, finds your homes
warm, your bellies full and your relatives tolerable.


C-ya out there.

--Br
www.butchross.com

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

Dec 10, 2015 5:30-7 PM - Mentone, AL - KAMAMA ART GALLERY
Dec 11, 2015 9:00-11 PM - Chattanooga, TN - Feed and Company
Dec 12, 2015 12:30-3 PM - Chattanooga, TN - Chattanooga Market
Dec 13, 2015 12:30-3 PM - Chattanooga, TN - Chattanooga Market