Gigs at MBOTMA Winter Bluegrass Weekend

The Bob&Lynn band is scheduled to play two sets at the MBOTMA Winter Bluegrass Weekend: the set on Friday night at 9:45 is the type we've done at this festival before; we are also doing a number of songs on Sunday at 1:00-3:00 as part of the Spotlight On “Longevity” hosted by Phil Nusbaum with 'Sotagrass, Bob & Lynn Dixon, and Middle Spunk Creek Boys.

For the Friday night set, we are doing a few numbers that are new since last summer, but we performed them all at our 4-hour Dulono set in January; these include Baltimore Fire, East Virginia Blues and Babbington's Hornpipe ( a mandolin tune I wrote).

We talked to Phil Monday night and the 'Spotlight on' series for this year is on Longevity: which are 'bands' that have been around for a while; although we have only been playing out as the bob-i-lynn band for 4 or 5 years, Lynn and I have been playing and singing together for over 40 years. (We met in 1965). His 'spin' will be our evolution from the Urban Folk Revival (or scare) of the sixties to the current 'roots' music scene (or some such - I'll let him explain it). Then the idea is that we will perform some songs from phases of our evolution. Of course, the scary thing is that we are doing a couple things that we really haven't done for a while - the tentative set list for Phil's show:

A Lesson Too Late for the Learning: this is a Tom Paxton Song that we have been singing just about since we've met. We haven't really performed it since we did a blue-grassy version for our first try at the MBOTMA duet concert. I have revived the finger-picking version I worked out in the 70's and we try to sound as folky as we can. I think we may have performed this at our Church Variety show which has been ongoing since 1986. We seem to remember the words, so this should go fine.

More Pretty Girls than One: this is really a jamming song which I've known for many years. I had learned a version from Doc Watson, but last summer heard a version from a 78 CD which had an additional verse which made it more appropriate for a bob-i-lynn song. We will attempt to recreate the 'old' version, then do it the way we do now.

The Bramble and the Rose: this is a song that we learned from Jodi Stecher and Kate Brislin and preformed for the Church Variety Show and maybe a few other times. This represents our use of almost the same arrangement as the original. We use the same pattern of instrumental intros and breaks as well as vocal harmony. We haven't played this for at least 5 years, but have gone through it a couple of times and I think we recreated the arrangement. Challenges are to remember the words and the fact that my part is pitched higher than most things I do now. (Long notes on a high F-sharp tire me out).


We'll end with a couple of ones that we currently perform:


East Virgina Blues: traditional song that we recently learned and added to our repertoire. This is influenced by a Stanley Brothers Version. But it didn't really click until I switched from mandolin to a Carter Family style guitar treatment.

If I lose, let me lose: a Charlie Poole song which share the melody and some verses from The Battleship of Maine. We learned it last fall. Pretty much our arrangement and harmonies. We use two guitars. (no banjo, no fiddle).