Author Archives: sixstrstories
Wrestling With The Angel
The Harrow & The Harvest by Gillian Welch came out last summer, June 28 to be precise. I’d known the release date and had been looking forward to this new CD for about a month. I’ve been a fan of Gillian Welch (see my … Continue reading
Reading & Listening
I had a Barnes & Noble gift card that, as my father would have said, was “burning a hole in my pocket” and a B & N store coupon for 20%-off any one item. It was summer, I was on vacation: I just … Continue reading
The Power of Reading
A year or so ago, I started casually searching on-line for a book about the history of recording. Last June, in a spur-of-the-moment, while-I’m-in-the-neighborhood visit to Kramerbooks (1517 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, D.C.), I found exactly what I was looking for: Perfecting … Continue reading
This Historic Day In Music: B.B.King
Last year, I missed B.B.King’s birthday and ended up writing about it belatedly on Sept. 20, 2010. I entitled that post “One That Got Away.” This year, I vowed to not miss this very important and historic day in music. … Continue reading
Everything Changed
It had not been the best of summers. On Sunday, August 5th, 2001, my mother, Avis Louise Foss Sinclair, died. She was 87 years old. Her passing was not sudden. August 8th, my 48th birthday, had been the day of her funeral … Continue reading
Revisiting “Rising Sun Blues”
Sometimes, in my teaching, one of my guitar students will ask if I can teach him/her how to play a favorite song that he/she has recently been listening to. Sometimes that song is so new or obscure that there is no transcription available either in a songbook, … Continue reading
78s & Cylinders
One of the items on my summer to-do list was to add a couple of 78-rpm records to my collection of 45s, EPs, LPs, reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, CDs and digital downloads. You can’t have too much music, I always say. Late … Continue reading
Irene
Not the hurricane, the song! The recording you just listened to – you did click on the link and listen to it, didn’t you?!? – was recorded in New York City, circa August 1943, by Moe Asch. It features Lead Belly singing and … Continue reading
Discovery
The “Premiere Issue” of Acoustic Guitar magazine arrived in my mailbox in July of 1990. With a black & white photo of classical guitarist Sharon Isbin on the cover, the feature article was called “My First Guitar” and subtitled “Tales of … Continue reading
Three Days In August
The first day was Friday, August 12th. It was, as you readers know, my wedding anniversary and, after a delicious and leisurely dinner at the Blue Latitudes restaurant in downtown Dover, my wife and I strolled over to Henry Law Park … Continue reading
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