We got this note from Ivan Rosenberg, a respected resonator guitarist and clawhammer banjo player in the Pacific Northwest. He is hoping that readers of The Bluegrass Blog might respond and help send Cluny Macpherson to college on scholarship.

The Class Act Canada contest will award 10 deserving students from around the world with an all-expenses-paid education at Sprott-Shaw Community College in British Columbia, Canada. Currently in Round 2, contestants upload videos describing their educational goals, and the top 20 vote-getters will advance to the final round. Currently in the top 20 with around 70,000 votes is one of British Columbia’s top bluegrass musicians, Cluny Macpherson, from the band Flash in the Pan.

His current video shows off his banjo chops while making the case that music is also good medicine – Cluny intends to work in the field of geriatric nursing, and his band is always happy to drop in on area nursing homes to help lift the spirits of elderly residents.

If Cluny gets in the final round – and we can help him get there with our votes – judges will pick the 10 winners using several criteria, one of which is being able to use “social networking sites, video-sharing sites, blogs and more to get as many votes as possible.” Readers of The Bluegrass Blog certainly fit the bill! Please visit Class Act Canada to see Cluny’s video.

According to the contest rules, each IP address can vote 10 times in a row each day. No personal information is required, and just takes seconds to vote. I’ve bookmarked the site and visit it daily, and with the help of more bluegrass fans, we can hopefully help a great picker get a world-class education and make a difference in the lives of our oldest and wisest. Round 2 ends this Friday, so vote soon and often!

Go here to vote.

We have posted a few times previously about bluegrass bands composed of Jewish musicians, or Jewish bluegrass artists who seek to explore their faith through music. What they produce can be a fascinating counterpoint to the rich tradition of Gospel music within our music, as well as a new avenue for converts to bluegrass.

It seems that most Jewish grassers perform, write or facilitate within our community primarily as bluegrass folks – except for the discussions that pop up when IBMA week conflicts with the High Holy Days, as they often do. Those that do make their music specifically Jewish in character have been prone to half-jokingly refer to what they do as jewgrass – a term I first heard 30 years ago within a group of Jewish bluegrass musicians from New York.

While we were absorbed with preparations for IBMA in late September, Smithsonian.com ran a very interesting article by Jen Miller on just this subject. She interviewed a number of people who celebrate this melding of identities.

Bluegrass lyrics celebrate country living, but many of the people singing them are city folk. Jerry Wicentowski grew up in Brooklyn in the 1960s and fell in love with bluegrass during the folk revival. For religious Jews like Wicentowski, there was a rebellious element to being a fan of the music. Bluegrass became his escape. During the week, he studied at an insular yeshiva; on the weekends he played guitar in Washington Square Park.

After earning a Master’s degree in Hebrew and Semitic Studies and then drifting away from Judaism, a series of life events led Wicentowski to return to religion. Eventually, he found himself a man with two strong identities: a Jew and a bluegrass musician. He began to fuse the two. Wicentowski worked on an album with mandolin virtuoso Andy Statman called “Shabbos in Nashville,” which featured Jewish songs in the style of 1950s bluegrass. Later, he founded his own band, Lucky Break. The Minnesota-based quartet bills itself as “uniquely American, uniquely Jewish,” by mixing “the stark beauty of Appalachian music with Shabbat Z’mirot,” or Sabbath songs.

If this topic interests you, the entire article can be read online.

Here’s an opportunity for a band in central Tennessee to take advantage of some free studio time later this month.

We heard last week from Robert Trapp, a student in the Recording Industry program at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. He has a project coming up that requires him to track, edit and mix a band for his Recording Techniques class, and he is offering to record an old time, country, traditional, or contemporary bluegrass bands that is available October 20, 23, 24 and 25.

“The sessions will take place on the MTSU campus in studios D and E. Each day will be broken up into 4 hour blocks, so for instance the first day will be a run through (get good mic placement and getting scratch tracks recorded) while the second day will be fine tuning the performances. Day 3 and 4 would most likely be for lead and harmony vocal tracks. This is a great way for me (the student/ aspiring engineer) to gain experience in a professional setting and also a way for a band to record for free and have something to market and promote.”

Sounds like a win-win to me. Contact Robert by email for more details.

A lot of readers were touched by the story of banjo teacher Patrick Costello regaining his hearing with an implant that transmits sound directly to the cochlea via bone conduction. After reading the story earlier this month, Mark Davies contacted us about his efforts to raise funds for hospice care and cancer research in Great Britain.

Davies is a social worker and long-time amateur rock musician who has undertaken a study of the banjo, and plans to walk the Great North Run on September 20 playing his 5 string. This half marathon is a very popular event which raises funds for a number of charities. Mark has dubbed his attempt as the Great North Strum and invites folks to sponsor him in his quest.

We think that our readers will enjoy his tale of taking up the banjo in mid life, and his quirky sense of humor. If you feel called to support Mark in his walk for charity, he can be reached by email.

“So this is how it is. I’m rapidly reaching Forty, and there’s a couple of things I want to be able to say that I’ve achieved by that milestone. One is to have completed a half marathon, and another is to learn to play the banjo (there are others, but I wont bore you with Playing the Albert Hall, with the Pixies as my back up band).

As Wham might have put it, last Christmas (08), my wife presented me with a lovely Godman 5 String Banjo, and away I went. By mid January I was informed that if I didn’t stop playing a dodgy version of (and I quote) ‘Duelling F*$!*&g Banjo’s’ that I would be acquiring a banjo shaped colonoscopy. But by then it was too late, I had heard Cripple Creek, Wildwood Flower, Wabash Cannonball, Foggy Mountain Breakdown and so much more that I’d previously been aware had existed, but never really listened to. I wanted to get into that place. I told my wife that there were other ways I could be having a mid-life crisis, she said she’d take them! (more…)