[ From Butch Ross ] On the radio tonight, talking about a play I am music director for.

[News, info and tourdates for Butch Ross]

I have two new books that I’ll talk about in my next email. As this email
is already pretty long.

Tonight! 7pm
Live on WUTC 88.1fm or listen online wutc.org
Live on the Richard Winham Show
With poet Peggy Douglas, songwriter Jefferson Hyll and the 9th Street
Stompers

Peggy and I will be talking about…

Friday April, 6 and Saturday April 7 – 7pm

Deeper Roots: Voices and Music Inspired by Emma Bell Miles
Bachman Community Center
2815 Anderson Pike, Signal Mountain, TN 37377
View Map
<http://www.chattanoogapulse.com/locations/bachman-community-center/>

In this new digital age...so I’ve been told...it's important to keep your
fans engaged. To keep them up to date almost daily with what you’re working
on in the studio etc. You’re supposed to be giving everyone the play by
play of your everyday.

And I have friends who are exceptionally good at this, but it’s not how I’m
wired. So, while you haven’t heard from me in a minute, I’ve actually been
pretty busy. As a result, I got a lot to tell you about, so here we go…

When I got married, I moved from downtown Chattanooga just up the mountain
to Signal Mountain. This year (and starting this month) the town is
celebrating its 100th anniversary. Peggy Douglas, a local poet and
playwright, was commissioned to create a play —structured as a series of
monologues— based on the writings of Signal Mountain’s most famous
resident: Emma Bell Miles.

Trish is directing the play and I am it’s musical director. I, along with
fiddler Emerald Butler, will be adding traditional Appalachian music both
during and between the monologues.

In other words, I’m getting paid to play traditional music on a mountain
dulcimer. (I know, right?)

The play takes place this Friday and Saturday at the Bachman Community
Center (a repurposed elementary school just outside the Signal Mountain
city limits), and again on Friday and Saturday of next week.

The play’s inspiration, Emma Bell Miles, was a writer, a poet, artist and
naturalist whose life was as interesting as it was tragic. She also played
the mountain dulcimer. Her writings are considered one of the best
chronicles of mountain living in the late 19th and early 20th century, and
while she is barely known in the United States, her work is studied in
universities across Europe.

There’s a TON of stuff that I could tell you about Emma Bell (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Bell_Miles) and about the play (
http://www.chattanoogapulse.com/events/deeper-roots_1/) but the best way to
learn more about the play is to listen to WUTC 88.1FM (wutc.org) tonight at
7pm. Peggy will talking about the play and reading excerpts and I’ll be
doing my thing. Also along with us will be a local singer-songwriter as
well as two members of the 9th Street Stompers, who play retro swing and
gypsy jazz and are one of my favorite Chattanooga bands

So that’s it for now. The next email will talk about the two new books that
I’ve released. But that’ll have to wait; this email is getting pretty long…

And I have a Face book video to make. :-)

C-ya out there,

--Br
www.butchross.com

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