My last post took note of a concert I attended in April by the Czech bluegrass band The Malina Brothers, with guest appearances by Charlie McCoy,
the Nashville-based harmonica virtuoso and member of the Country Music
Hall of Fame, and the Czech singer Kat’a Garcia. The concert was sold
out, and got a prolonged standing ovation from the crowd. And it was
being filmed for a live show DVD.
That concert took place in the Sono Center, a major venue in Brno, CZ, for contemporary music -- the audience numbered 700 or 800.
Less than a month later, the Malina Brothers, who are old friends of mine, visited Italy -- where they gave a house concert at the home of a friend.
I managed to live stream it from my phone, on Facebook -- and here it is. It was my first live streaming, so the visual quality is not the best (and it's vertical -- the program didn't let me rotate the phone)... but still. It's a testament to their talent that their same repertoire works in a big theatrical venue like the Sono Center -- and also in the intimate setting of a private living room.
In Brno, Czech Republic, the Imaginary Wild West leaps off a wall….
advertising “the best steaks” in the city at an eatery called “U Starýho Bill” (At Old Bill’s) that calls itself “a real ‘TEXAS’ restaurant.”
The wall here was a few steps away from the Sono Center, a major Brno
venue for contemporary music — where I was headed to attend a concert
by the Czech bluegrass band The Malina Brothers, with guest appearances by Charlie McCoy,
the Nashville-based harmonica virtuoso and member of the Country Music
Hall of Fame, and the Czech singer Kat’a Garcia. The concert was sold
out, and got a prolonged standing ovation from the crowd. And it was
being filmed for a live show DVD.
The Malinas are old friends of mine. Banjo player and
multi-instrumentalist Lubos Malina was one of the founding members of
the great Czechgrass group Druha Trava, and I met him (amazingly) nearly
15 years ago, at one of the many summer bluegrass/country festivals in
CZ, when I first started exploring the Imaginary Wild West in Europe.
Guitarist Pavel Malina used to play with DT, and fiddler Pepa Malina
still sometimes plays with them. The Malina Brothers band came together
informally at first, but over the past five years or so has developed a
remarkable following in CZ — as the concert in Brno demonstrated.
The three brothers visited in Italy six years ago and gave a house
concert at the home of a friend. It was the first of a series of house
concerts anchored by Lubos.
The brothers played this arrangement of Smetana at the house concert in
2013 — and at the concert in Brno.
On the night after the Brno concert, Pepa Malina performed with Druha
Trava at the start of a a week-long tour with Charlie McCoy — a
sold-out, standing-ovation gig in the town of Ceska Trebova.
Here’s a video of the run-through before the Ceska Trebova concert:
Charlie McCoy has had a standout career in the USA and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
I’ve written about him in the past, on my Sauerkraut Cowboys blog,
because he is quite wellknown in the country music scene outside the
USA. He tours regularly in Europe and elsewhere (i.e. Japan), and he
makes a point to play with European bands and also records with them; he
has released albums in France, Denmark, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Later this summer he will be touring in Sweden in England.
Onstage at the concert in Ceska Trebova, he recalled how he met up
with Druha Trava — it was at the festival in Strakonice, CZ, where he
was performing in 2001. DT was also on the bill and asked if he would
join them for a few songs — since then he has toured with them half a
dozen or more times in CZ, released a live album with DT and also
released a CD with The Malina Brothers.
Here’s a promo video about the Malina Brothers album (partly in Czech, partly in English):
I met Charlie back in 2005 during one of his tours with Druha Trava — the concert I saw was at a “Days of Texas” festival in the little town of Roznov pod Radnostem, in eastern CZ.
The festival, I wrote in an article
highlighted
the fact that from the mid-19th century until World War I, thousands of
people emigrated from Roznov and other towns and villages in the region
to Texas. Today, Texas has the largest ethnic Czech community of any
state in the United States.
There were
demonstrations of 19th-century farming customs used by the emigrants and
performances by American-style Czech country-western groups, as well as
local folk groups performing Wallachian songs and dances. An exhibition
of quilting featured a big patchwork quilt reading “Texas,” hung
prominently from the upper floor of the old Roznov Town Hall.
Like the Malina Brothers concert in Brno, the Druha Trava/Charlie
McCoy concert in Ceska Trebova drew a standing ovation from an energized
crowd — and lots of autograph-seekers and CD-buyers afterward.
I’m delighted and excited to have been asked to write the Foreword to “Reiten Wir!”
— an anthology of new short stories based on Karl May characters to be
published in October as part of events and initiatives this year marking May’s
175th birthday.
Gojko Mitic as Winnetou
Proceeds and royalties will go to support the Karl May Museum in Radebeul, Germany.
Karl May theme beer at the Karl May festival in Radebeul, some years back
My first exposure to the Imaginary Wild West in Europe (and Karl May) dates back to 1966, when my family spent the summer in Prague -- my father was leading an archaeological dig in the village of Bylany, near Kutna Hora, east of Prague.
In preparation for writing my Foreword, I dug out the diary I kept that summer -- and where I noted the Czech fascination with Winnetou and the Wild West.
"Cowboys 7 Indians are BIG. Esp. the W. German (I think) movies Winnetou and Old Shatterhand. In almost every store window you see color postcards &/or slides with scenes from the films being sold [;] I have seen Winnetou candy bars, books, a poster in a record store for the Winnetou music etc. W. is apparently the solemn-faced 'Indian' (typically clthed) who looks like either Sal Mineo or Paul Newman (or both). Shirts, brown with fake buckskin fringe & laced neck are advertised as ARIZONA, & next to them re TEXAS blue jeans....[...] More Winnetou junk: iron on patches, special blue jeans, new cards, packs of cards of the actor who plays Winnetou. Magazine cover..."
Karl May and Indian stuff, on display in Germany
Later in the summer, I watched Winnetou, the movie, on television.
"It was a pretty bad movie but interesting for a couple things. The cast was international. Herbert Lom was the baddie & Lex Barker Old Shatterhand. These two are US I think. Pierre Brice (French) was Winnetou. Then there were British & others. I think it was filmed in Yugoslavia. I don't know in what language -- it was dubbed in Czech. This was the first time [in a movie] I ever hear an Indian (Winnetou) who didn't have a deep voice. He was high & thin & nasal. Also, the Indians were goodies."
Our family went to a live performance of the operetta "Rose Marie" (of "Indian Love Call" fame), set in the Canadian west. It starred the pop singer Waldemar Matuska who, I wrote "is a big star here. His pictures are in the shop windows and magazines & record stores almost as much as Winnetou."
I decided that Matuska would be my favorite singer and bought a picture postcard of him (which I still have) to go with the ones I bought of the French actor, Pierre Brice, who played Winnetou in the movies.
Many years later, when I first started seriously researching the Imaginary Wild West and the European country music scene, I met Matuska, who was headlining of the first Czech country festivals I attended (in around 2004).
Matuska, who had moved to the United States in the 1980s, died in 2009.
Matuska was a towering figure in Czech popular music and culture and was
instrumental in popularizing American folk and country music to the
Czech audience. (Singing, as was required under communism, Czech lyrics
to American songs.) He also appeared in the seminal 1964 movie "Limonady
Joe" -- a wonderful send-up of the singing cowboy genre of movies and a
classic of Czech cinema.
Matuska was important to me in my
connection with Eastern Europe, and in my feel for the music and popular
culture of the Czech Republic in particular. He became my idol when, as
a kid, I spent the summer in Prague with my family in the 1960s. I
bought picture postcards of him -- he was lean, bearded and extremely
handsome. And I convinced my entire family to go hear him at a rather
weird performance of "Rosemarie" at a sort of indoor sports
arena...Matuska played the role of the mountie that was taken by Nelson
Eddy in the classic movie. I remember that it was a rather static
performance, as they all seemed to sing to the microphones that were
hanging prominently above the stage...
When I actually met
Matuska decades later, at the Strakonice Jamboree folk and bluegrass
festival in the Czech Republic in 2004, it was a remarkably emotional
experience. I had just begun following the European country scene, and
Strakonice was my first Czech festival. And there he was -- the idol of
my youth!
Matuska -- who had "defected" to the United States in
1986 but, after the fall of communism, returned frequently to CZ to tour
-- was the headline act. Heavier, even bloated-looking, with clearly
dyed hair, he didn't look much like the slim, handsome singer/actor of
the 1960s, but he had the audience in the palm of his hand.
I
went backstage and spent 20 minutes or so talking with him. I felt shy
and fluttery! What I remember are his hands -- very small and delicate,
with polished nails and an almost dainty ring.
I can't resist posting this rather fantastically bizarre video from 1983 of the seminal Czech progressive bluegrass band Poutnici....oh, that communist-era sense of humor!
The video shows several members of current Poutnice line-up and also Robert Krestan (heavily bearded on banjo) who went on to found Druha Trava in 1991.
Pavel Bobek at the gala Prague concert in 2012 celebrating his 75th birthday
By Ruth Ellen Gruber
Sad news in the Czech music world....the singing legend Pavel Bobek died in Prague today (Nov. 20). He was 76, and had been in declining health for some time.
I got to know his music -- and him, a little -- in recent years as he performed frequently with Druha Trava and with Lubos Malina, who also produced Bobek's last CDs. Last year, he was inducted into the Czech popular music award "Andel"'s hall of fame.
Bobek got his start in the late 50s/early 60s as the Communist era's "Mister Rock and Roll," and also became a star in the Czech country scene. He had big hits with covers of American songs by Kris Kristofferson, Jon Denver, Bruce Springsteen and more -- like this Buddy Holly cover, very early on.
Another early clip -- a Czech version of "Sunday Morning Coming Down"
And here he sings another of his big hits -- a Czech version of Springsteen's "My Home Town." The video sets it against the bleakness of a Czech Communist-era "panel house" apartment complex...
Bobek's duet with DT's Robert Krestan of "Jeste Neni Tma," Robert's Czech version of Bob Dylan's "It's Not Dark Yet" from the 2007 Dylanovky CD, is one of my favorites. Here they are, performing it in 2010 during a concert in Prague.
As I wrote at the time, the concert was very poignant, as his health problems were evident even then, three years ago -- but the packed audience gave him thunderous applause.
Last year, I attended a gala concert marking his 75th birthday. Again, it was a very poignant, very moving experience, as he appeared very frail onstage. Again, he performed for a full, enthusiastic audience.
Another Czech singing legend, Karel Gott, joined Bobek on stage at the birthday concert.
I have to close with Bobek's Czech version of "Country Roads"....
Czech Radio’s English language service recently interview me, along with banjoist-multi-instrumentalist Lubos Malina, about the great “Czechgrass” band Druha Trava’s new double live CD.
We talk about the new CD set — one CD was recorded during the annual summer festival in the beautiful town of Telc, and the other is a compilation of performances last year with guests Peter Rowan, Charlie McCoy and Katia Garcia.
We also spoke about my role in DT’s previous CD, Shuttle to Bethlehem, which mainly features my English language translations of DT singer-songwriter-frontman Robert Krestan’s songs. (I've written about that experience on this blog).
After the interview, Lubos and I stopped to visit the new museum devoted to pioneering Czech animator Karel Zeman, and then went on to a concert by Kris Kristofferson.
Last summer, when I went into the studio in Prague to help with the recording of Druha Trava's CD Shuttle to Bethlehem, I ended up hanging out and traveling a bit with Lee Bidgood, an American fiddler and mandolinist who teaches at East Tennessee State University, which has a Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country Music Studies program -- and his colleague from ETSU, the documentary filmmaker Shara Lange.
Lee did his PhD on Czech Bluegrass (we met in 2004 at the Caslav Bluegrass Festival in CZ) and he and Shara are making a documentary film on Czech Bluegrass music and musicians -- I am thrilled to be onboard as a sort of consultant or production assistant....
The film now has a web site -- you can click HERE to find out information, see some video, hear some music and find out more about the project, screenings, events, etc.
One upcoming event is a concert August 8, in Johnson City, TN, at which Lee and fellow musicians will perform Czech translations of bluegrass classics as well as original material by Czech bluegrass musicians, in both Czech and English.
Here's a clip I took of Lee jamming late a night with Lubos Malina, of Druha Trava.
During out brief travels last summer, we also visited Marko Cermak, the godfather of five-string banjo playing in CZ, at his cabin in the woods.
Interviewing Marko Cermak. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber
According to his own and other accounts, Cermak, who was active in the Czech tramp music scene, built his own long-necked, five-string banjo by studying photographs taken of Pete Seeger at Seeger's seminal 1964 concert in Prague concert. Cermak went on to become one of Czechoslovakia's first banjo virtuosi.
Marko Cermak. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber
Among other things, Cermak founded one of Czechoslovakia's first American-style country and bluegrass groups, the Greenhorns. The Greenhorns became extremely influential by playing Czech language versions of American folk songs, copying arrangements they heard on American Forces Radio. In doing so, they, and similar groups, brought these songs firmly into the local musical tradition, fostering a total assimilation of many songs into the Czech repertoire.
After visiting Marko, we went on to spend the night at the home of banjoist and banjo-maker Zdenek Roh, near Jihlava, where I had visited the previous year with Lubos Malina and Robert Krestan of Druha Trava.
More DT and Shuttle to Bethlehem -- the band's English-language CD that mainly features my translations of Robert Krestan's original Czech songs.
A story on the band and the CD, by NPR political correspondent Don Gonyea, ran on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition" show today. Read a short version of it HERE or listen to the full story HERE.
The first time I heard Druha Trava play was April 2009. I was covering President Obama's trip to the Europe. There was a big outdoor speech in Prague, and the band was playing Czech versions of Bob Dylan songs.
I did a short radio postcard story back then, figuring it was the kind of experience that every music fan knows: You stumble upon a great band somewhere and never see them again.
Now it's the fall of 2011, and I'm chasing candidates around Iowa. Who should be doing a show at the Czech and Slovak Hall in Cedar Rapids? Druha Trava.
I just spent three days with Druha Trava in California (around the Bay Area) helping out with some of the PR for the new CD "Shuttle to Bethlehem" -- the CD showcases my English language translations of Robert Krestan's original Czech songs, and I also wrote the liner notes for the album.
It was fun. Three good and very well received concerts in three quite different venues as part of the band's current five-week U.S. tour (a sold-out gig at a coffee house in Santa Clara, a crowded concert in someone's house in Redwood City, and a lunchtime show at a Mexican Restaurant called Don Quixote's near Santa Cruz....see clip below
I also took part in a two-hour radio show on the local KRCB NPR affiliate in Sonoma country about the CD and the band, hosted by my friend Linda Seabright -- and ahead of the Don Quixote gig, I spoke on-air between songs during a live performance by the band on KPIG FM. (The studio is located in a former motel in Freedom, CA, and is decorated with layers of pictures and posters testifying to 40 years of rock...)
KPIG studio. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber
The band's tour has been getting good write-ups: to me it's interesting how the sets they sing are different in the States from what they do in CZ. Here in the US, most is in English -- new songs from "Shuttle" and a range of covers -- and there's more bluegrass. But in CZ, Robert's songs make up the major part of the onstage repertoire, with only a very few songs in English.
Shuttle to Bethlehem, the new English-language CD by the Czech band Druha Trava, is officially out now in the Czech Republic -- and the band is in the US at the start of a five-week tour to launch it. I take particular interest because I was involved with the CD production -- I translated Robert Krestan's songs and also helped out in the studio during recording. You can find the English lyrics HERE.
I'm eager to see how the CD is received -- so far, comments are very positive. One newspaper editor I know in Minneapolis called it on Facebook "a great album, and a wonderful introduction to the renowned "Czechgrass" band."
In mid-July I spent two days in a Prague studio helping record the vocal tracks for a new CD by the Czech country/bluegrass/fusion group Druha Trava. Founded 20 years ago, in 1991, DT and its various members have brought out more than a score of albums, including several in English -- see a history of the group by Lilly Pavlak, posted on the European Bluegrass Blog by clicking HERE
But the new Druha Trava CD -- tentatively titled "Shuttle to Bethlehem" after one of the songs (the inspiration was Bethlehem PA, not the "other" one) is the first that will primarily feature English-language versions of singer-songwriter Robert Krestan’s distinctive original songs.
I made the translations, and the studio session was the culmination of a collaborative project that had taken more than five years to come to fruition.
During the recording session, we were joined in the studio by Lee Bidgood -- a wonderful musician who did his PhD on Czech bluegrass and now teaches at East Tennessee State University, which has a Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country Music Studies program -- and his colleague from ETSU, the documentary filmmaker Shara Lange, who are making a documentary on Czech bluegrass. They filmed the session and also interviewed Robert, banjoist Lubos Malina and me.
Lee and me when we met in 2004
Lee is one of the first people I got to know what I was starting to follow the Czech bluegrass scene -- we met at the Caslav bluegrass festival in 2004 and I recall how wonderful it was to talk to someone who also was looking at the scene and the music from the "outside" and considering the same questions that I was.
While he was doing research in CZ a few years ago, Lee kept a wonderful blog in which he described music and musicians and reflected on the history and trajectory of the music in the Czech Republic. He hasn't posted anything lately, but it is a terrific resource.
I wrote about the Prague recording session this week in a post on the Arty Semite blog of the Forward, describing a bit of the complex process of translation. I started translating Krestan's songs into English in 2006 and continued working on them as one facet of the "Sauerkraut Cowboys/Indian Dreams" project for which I had a Guggenheim Fellowship and NEH summer grant.
My first goal was basic: I loved the Czech originals, but I wanted to know what they meant. As I started working, though, it seemed much more logical — and in fact, even easier — to put them in a rhyming form that could be sung. The process was surprisingly straightforward.
A young student in Prague, David Kraus, supplied me with word-for-word equivalents. David’s father Tomas is an old friend, the secretary of the Federation of Czech Jewish Communities, but he also knows a lot about the Czech country music scene. In Communist times Tomas’s late brother [Ronald Kraus] produced, wrote and translated songs for several key Czech tramp and country-style groups [including the iconic band KTO]..
I took the words that David gave me, compared them to the rhythm of the original Czech lyrics, and listened over and over to the original songs in order to capture their meaning and rhyme structure as well as to fit them to the melodies.
Czech is a more bristly language than English, with quite different sounds and cadences, and Krestan uses words for their tonality as well as meaning. But remarkably, my lyrics got to a point where they seemed to click into place. Later, Krestan and I spent a couple of sessions together tweaking the English to improve both nuance and “singability.”
In the studio, as Krestan sang into the microphone, I stood in the sound booth with DT’s banjo player Lubos Malina, who is co-producing the CD with Nashville-based Steve Walsh. Five years on, it was the first time I heard the songs sung in their final form. (Walsh oversaw the recording of the instrumentals in Nashville last spring.) They sounded, well, right. I focused on recording levels and intonation, but I couldn’t keep a goofy smile off my face.
Here's a brief video clip I took of one of the recording session takes of the song "Before We Say Good-Bye".
And here's the original Czech version, sung by the band performing outside Prague castle in 2009, when President Obama was there meeting with Czech leaders.
My friends, the Czech bluegrass/fusion/rock "Czechgrass" band Druha Trava are recording a new album in Nashville -- and are maintaining a very interesting and revealing blog that reflects on and describes the process of crafting songs (the Czech translates pretty well in google translate).
There are pictures and some fascinating video showing how the songs come together. (It's not as dramatic as Godard's film One Plus One, one of whose running themes was the Rolling Stones working on Sympathy for the Devil....)
The bluegrass band Relief plays at Strakonice 2007. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber
The Strakonice Jamboree is one of the biggest bluegrass/acoustic festivals in the Czech Republic. Taking place at the end of May near the grounds of a castle in a small town south of Prague, it more or less kicks off the outdoor Czech festival season and draws the top names in Czech acoustic and bluegrass music, as well as foreign acts.
This year the Jamboree takes place May 28-30. The program is now up on line -- click HERE.
Strakonice was the first Czech festival I attended when I started looking into the country/bluegrass/western scene in Europe, and it was here that I got my introduction to many of the musicians, the history, and the trappings (and the tramps...) that I have experienced elsewhere.
An unusual fan, Strakonice 2004. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber
Last night in Prague I attended the launch concert for the new CD by the Czech singing legend Pavel Bobek. The CD is Czech language covers of Johnny Cash songs and much of it was recorded in Nashville. This sparked the main Czech TV news to feature it on its broadcast on Sunday.
I found the concert poignant: the passage of time and all that. Bobek, who is in his 70s, had a bout of bad health in recent years. He got his start in the late 50s/early 60s as "Mister Rock and Roll." I watched videos of his youthful performances before going to see him live....
Backed by the Malinaband (mainly members of Druha Trava), Bobek performed some of his big hits -- covers of Kris Kristofferson and Bruce Springsteen songs, and also the perennial fave "Country Roads".
He encored with the duet "Jeste neni tma" from DT's Dylanovky CD, with Robert Krestan -- a Czech cover of Bob Dyland's "It's not dark yet"
The hall, at a local culture center, was packed with fans of all ages, and they cheered and whooped -- giving him a standing ovation.
Thanks to the tenacity of Greg Buhr working from Minnesota Senator Al Franken's office, I just received word a few minutes ago that Druha Trava's visa petition has been approved! Greg left a message last Thursday at USCIS, then spent 55 minutes holding on the phone on Friday waiting to speak with the Congressional Liaison there, and called again this morning receiving a promise that they would make a ruling on the petition today! He kept working it until they acted. They called him just a bit ago and he immediately called me. Since the US Embassy in Prague is ready to interview Druha Trava, all should go well from here on out! Bea Flaming - DT US Representative
The late Milan Leppelt (r) and his band Bluegrass Cwrkot, at the Banjo Jamboree, Caslav, CZ, 2007. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber
Milan Leppelt, a leading Czech bluegrass musician, has died, aged 49, following a heart attack apparently triggered by a wasp sting. Leppelt was a longtime member of the band Bluegrass Cwrkot and very active in the Czech bluegrass scene -- the (proportionally) biggest bluegrass scene in Europe.
His death is also a great loss to Bluegrass Cwrkot (he was their banjo-player since 1991, and wrote most of the band's original material); to the Bluegrass Association of the Czech Republic (for whom he was membership secretary and chief contact with the EBMA); to the Czech bluegrass scene in general; and to its links with bluegrass in the rest of Europe.
It's more than a week since the International Bluegrass Festival in La Roche-sur-Foron, France, and I've only now found a little time to reflect on the experience. I'm prompted to do so by listening to the quite pleasant CD I was given there -- a compilation of bluegrass music called "France Bluegrass 2" played by local French bands. Some 30 bands are represented, with names such as "Nashville Airplane," "Lonesome Day," "Sainte-Foy Family Reunion" and "Bluegrass Deluxe."
The first such compilation came out five years ago, with 21 groups represented. I was told at La Roche that there are about 40 really active bluegrass groups in France today. The heyday of the genre in France was apparently in the '70s and '80s -- according to the CD's web site and thick information booklet, bluegrass was introduced in France in the 1960s thanks to the efforts of the guitarist Marcel Dadi and bano players Jean-Marie Redon and Bill Keith. (Somewhere I have a booklet/magazine by Dominique Fosse put out a few years ago that details 18 years of bluegrass in France.) Some of the early groups -- Bluegrass 43 and the Sainte-Foy Family Reunion -- are still active and included on the CD.
Several French groups on the CD were among the 35 -- count them 35 -- groups that performed during the four days of the La Roche festival. (And I should note that the organizer of the festival, Christopher Howard-Williams, plays in a group represented on the CD called Moonshine.)
There were groups from more than a dozen countries at La Roche -- from Russia to Spain. They played in a variety of styles, from historical re-creation of old recordings (eg the Czech band Sunny Side) to a bluegrass base infused with rock, blues and swing (eg the British band Toy Hearts). Most of the bands were decidedly youthful in their demographic makeup.
A band contest was part of the festival -- and the difference in styles caused consternation among some of the judges. "Bluegrass content" was one of the scoring criteria, and some of the judges refused to acknowledge anything but the strictly traditional.
The Czech band Kreni, which won first prize at the La Roche bluegrass festival. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber
Once again, the Czechs (and Slovaks...) proved themselves to be at the epicenter of all the styles. The young Czech group Kreni won first prize, with its virtuoso playing, singing and original songs and instrumentals. "They represent the future," said "Big Herbert," a German promoter (and fan and afficionado) who was on the jury.
Big Herbert, with Lilly Pavlak to his right. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber
The second prize went to a band with a totally different demographic (ie, older) and sound -- highly traditional. The New Essex Bluegrass Band from England. The traditional sound and style is studied and deliberate -- as the band's web site puts it:
Since 1994, the New Essex Bluegrass Band has enjoyed over twelve years as perhaps the most traditional sounding of all the UK bluegrass bands.
The material comes from the repertoires of the early bluegrass bands, Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Stanley Brothers, Reno & Smiley, and Jim & Jesse, as well as more modern bands who have created fresh new work in the same tradition. Banjo, mandolin and fiddle drive the faster songs, and provide subtle back-up to the authentic duet and trio vocal harmonies of the slower songs.
From the outset the band adopted the single microphone as the most appropriate form of stage sound, and have inspired many of the other British bands to do the same.
The New Essex Bluegrass Band plays in La Roche town hall for the Mayor. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber
The third place was a tie -- between the Czech Bill Monroe clones Sunny Side (which gives a great show hewing note by note to the old music) and the Slovak/Czech group Blueland, with a more modern sound featuring original material.
In advance of the upcoming U.S. tour of the "Czechgrass" band Druha Trava, DT's U.S. web site has posted the translations that I made (with David Kraus) of 10 of Robert Krestan's original songs. See them by clicking HERE.
The songs include some that the group will perform during the Sept. 3-Oct 4 tour.
I'm sad to report that the legendary Czech singer and actor Waldemar Matuska has died at his home in Florida, at the age of 76.
Matuska was a towering figure in Czech popular music and culture and was instrumental in popularizing American folk and country music to the Czech audience. (Singing, as was required under communism, Czech lyrics to American songs.) He also appeared in the seminal 1964 movie "Limonady Joe" -- a wonderful send-up of the singing cowboy genre of movies and a classic of Czech cinema.
Matuska was important to me in my connection with Eastern Europe, and in my feel for the music and popular culture of the Czech Republic in particular. He became my idol when, as a kid, I spent the summer in Prague with my family in the 1960s. I bought picture postcards of him -- he was lean, bearded and extremely handsome. And I convinced my entire family to go hear him at a rather weird performance of "Rosemarie" at a sort of indoor sports arena...Matuska played the role of the mountie that was taken by Nelson Eddy in the classic movie. I remember that it was a rather static performance, as they all seemed to sing to the microphones that were hanging prominently above the stage...
When I actually met Matuska decades later, at the Strakonice Jamboree folk and bluegrass festival in the Czech Republic in 2004, it was a remarkably emotional experience. I had just begun following the European country scene, and Strakonice was my first Czech festival. And there he was -- the idol of my youth!
Matuska -- who had "defected" to the United States in 1986 but, after the fall of communism, returned frequently to CZ to tour -- was the headline act. Heavier, even bloated-looking, with clearly dyed hair, he didn't look much like the slim, handsome singer/actor of the 1960s, but he had the audience in the palm of his hand.
I went backstage and spent 20 minutes or so talking with him. I felt shy and fluttery! What I remember are his hands -- very small and delicate, with polished nails and an almost dainty ring.
My friend Lilly Pavlak -- who was also there at Strakonice (I think that may be where we met) wrote the following memoir of him:
On Saturday 30 May the country & western music world lost one of its most famous Czech sons. The singer and actor Waldemar Matuška died at his home in St Petersburg, Florida, from pneumonia and heart failure, aged 76.Waldemar Matuška, a charismatic personality known by the whole loving nation as 'our Walda', was one of the most memorable voices of the twentieth century. His career lasted over four decades. He recorded about thirty albums and starred in more than twenty movies, including the award-winning 1968 film All my countrymen by Vojtech Jasny.He was the opposite of his show-business friend Karel Gott, as a rebel, hothead, and tramp. His beautiful baritone and black full beard earned him enormous popularity, and he played several instruments – most people remember him as a banjo man. He had his first hit in 1960, and two years later he won the first Golden Nightingale ever awarded for the best Czechoslovak singer. The second time for him was again in 1967.He toured the world, Paris, London, Nashville – where he performed several times with his band K.T.O. in the 1970s. Bill Monroe told me once he liked Matuška very much – even though, as he said, his music was more 'Czech grass' than real bluegrass.In 1986 Matuška decided to leave communist Czechoslovakia and settled with his family in St Petersburg, Florida. He was already ill with severe asthma, and the climate there was much better for him than in Prague. After the fall of the communist regime in 1989, he visited frequently his old homeland. His last public appearance there took place in 2007.I saw him for the last time at the Jamboree Festival Strakonice in 2004. This year, at the same festival, we learned of his passing. We held a minute of silence and his friends sang his song for him. His last wish was to lay him to rest in the Czech Republic. The last farewell ceremony is supposed to be held in Prague on 21 June.You will live forever in your music in our hearts, dear Walda!Lilly PavlakBülach, Switzerland, 8 June 2009
For several years I've been exploring the imaginary wild west in contemporary Europe -- observing and experiencing the many ways that Europeans embrace the mythology of the American Frontier to enhance, imbue or create their own identities. (Or, indeed, just have fun.) On this blog I will post pictures, stories and links relating to this multi-faceted subculture, from European country music to rodeos, theme parks, round-ups and saloons....
I'm an American writer and photographer who has researched and written widely on Jewish culture and heritage issues for more than three decades. I've written several books on the topic and manage the website www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu, a project of the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe.
I also am working longterm on "Sturm, Twang and Sauerkraut Cowboys: Imaginary Wild Wests in Contemporary Europe," an exploration of the American West in the European imagination for which I won a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEH summer stipend grant. In 2015 I was the Arnold Distinguished Visiting Chair in Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston, SC. My other honors and awards include Poland's “Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit" and the Michael Hammer Tribute Research Award from the Hadassah Brandeis Institute (HBI).
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