Do Yourself a Favor Part #2: Steve Forbert & The Sound Benders

While I'm feeling inspired, I figured I'd include some content about Steve Forbert, a guy who put his whole life on the line to live the dream of a professional musician.

Growing tired of his life as a truck driver out of Meridian, Missippippi, Forbert quit his truck-driving job and moved to Manhattan at the age of 21 where he worked odd jobs and played his acoustic guitar for SPARE CHANGE. And he loved it! Imagine quitting a steady job with a regular income in order to pay the bills as a street performer?? It's guys like him that inspired me to move to Nashville in 2005 to work as an intern at Compass Records, leaving behind a solid yearly salary, friends, and selling most of my possessions because I had a crazy dream of working in the music business. Taking these kinds of chances pays off - I'm telling you right now.

Forbert eventually landed some gigs at fabled venues like Folk City and CBGB which lead to a record deal with Nemperor records on which he released four albums, spawning the Top 20 hit "Romeo's Tune." Check out this link for a rare live recording of "Romeo's Tune from his 1979 performance at The Palladium in New York City, of which the socialite Andy Warhol was in attendance.

Forbert has been likened to Bob Dylan (check out the comparision below with Forbert on the left and Dylan on the right) throughout the years for reasons ranging from his rootsy acoustic style, to his well-worn physical appearance, which struck a chord with the middle class American demographic. Forbert is currently touring behind his most recent 2007 release, Strange Names and New Sensations. Come check him out in a rare appearance with his full band The Sound Benders.

Later on,

Graham

Do Yourself a Favor Part #1: Bettye LaVette

Happy Monday. Just to kick things off, just want to share that I'm particularly inspired in all aspects of my life after screening Sean Penn's film adaptation of Into the Wild yesterday afternoon. A simply phenomenal film that brings into question humanity's dependence on material wealth.

Why you should cancel your plans on Wednesday night and come see Bettye LaVette -

If you have been following this woman's career since she got her start in the 60s, you're probably befuddled by her inability to hook a larger fan base. She has found the majority of her success and enjoyment from incorporating her soulful sensibilities into covers by notable artists such as Kenny Rogers, the Beatles, Erma Franklin, and Free, but she has plenty of excellent original material as well that spans her 40 year career. In my opinion, this is a woman who could easily pack our Filene Center, but she has only recently begun to garner the attention she deserves.

Signed to Atlantic Records in the early 1970s, the label rejected her breakthrough album, drastically curbing any anticipated hopes of major future success. She's been performing under the radar for the last two decades, but recently has enjoyed a major surge in popularity, largely due to her wise decision to sign with the Los Angeles indie label, Anti-Records, home of Galactic, Michael Franti, Tom Waits and other similarly modish artists. Anti-Records paired her with the alt-country group The Drive-By Truckers for her recent release, The Scene of the Crime, helping her to reach an entirely new audience. Expect a wide range of age in attendees at The Barns this Wednesday, all of whom will congregate to give LaVette the overdue respect she deserves.

For further editorial persuasion, check out this dual Bettye LaVette/Queen Latifah recent record release review by Sarah Godfrey in the Washington Post. It's worth the read if you're at all on the fence about a LaVette album or ticket purchase.

Part 2 tomorrow...

-Graham

Select 2008 Filene Center Performances On Sale Soon

Our programming department has been busy booking Filene Center performances for summer 2008, several of which will be announced on November 13 and then put on sale December 8 both via Wolf Trap's website and live at the Center for Education at Wolf Trap. More details on this in the days to come.

Also, the November 1 deadline for spring media relations internships is rapidly approaching, so we're looking forward to some excellent candidates. If anyone wishes to speak with me about what we're looking for in an intern, always feel free to post a comment or a question here, or give me a call at 703-255-1917.

In a nutshell, we are searching for someone who can:

- Write press releases in a very objective fashion so the media can easily pull the essential facts about our upcoming schedule, programs, initiatives, etc;


- Manage the fairly massive influx of media clips that are sent to us through media clipping services like BurrellesLuce and Vocus, and organize them accordingly;


- Assist Chris and me with media pitches, media list maintenance, web 2.0 tactics, and night of show press office duties;


- Act as an occasional liason between artist management and the press in order to effectively/facilitate interview requests.


Look out for a post in the next couple days for some interesting details about our weekend Barns performers, Speidel, Goodrich, Goggin & Lille and Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver.


-Graham

John Eaton's Recording Session, Del McCoury Show at the Barns to be Released as a Live CD

Yesterday I had the pleasure of witnessing a live recording session by world-class jazz pianist, John Eaton. For those of you who aren't as familiar, Mr. Eaton is considered one of the 20th centuries' best interpreters of the American Popular Song, channeling the innovation of artists like George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter.

He has been travelling to Wolf Trap's Center for Education for a few years now to record volumes for his "American Popular Song" series during which he presents casual radio-style commentary along with musical selections from historic American songwriters. In conjunction with Mr. Eaton, Wolf Trap has released these recordings through our in-house record label, Wolf Trap Recordings. You can listen to selections from his celebration of Richard Rodgers of Rodgers and Hammerstein on Volume One by accessing this link to Wolf Trap's online store. http://wolftrap.shop.musictoday.com/Product.aspx?cp=949_4976&pc=WLCD02

I wasn't quite sure what to expect right off the bat, but if you appreciate live music in a storytellers type format (very similar to the intimacy you experience from watching an MTV unplugged performance or a storytellers with Bruce Springsteen or Pearl Jam, except moreso), John Eaton could not fit the bill more perfectly. The performance was a mixture of dry, sarcastic banter with bassist Jay Leonhart, an impressive wealth of knowledge and insight into the musical genius of George Gershwin, and dead on renditions of Gershwin classics with some occasional scatting from Leonhart.

To me, this is one of many things that makes Wolf Trap such a great place to spend my 9-5. Phone call, press release, media pitch, oh...do I want to spend an hour listening to a world-class jazz pianist who has performed at the White House? Yes, please.

Del McCoury Band (kudos to our programming director for booking some killer bluegrass this fall, Mike Marshall and Darol Anger tonight by the way, but unfortunately without Chris Thile this time) finished up back-to-back performances at the Barns last night, the second of which was recorded for an upcoming live CD. Our multi-talented media intern Jennifer Stratton was hired to take some photos of the band last night, so I'll hopefully have some posted soon if I can get the proper approvals. I saw my first Del McCoury band show at none other than the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, TN., on the recommendation of my former boss Alison Brown (who is a riduclously talented banjo player, one of my former colleagues at Compass Records claimed that she can play arrangements that even Bela Fleck cannot handle). http://compassrecords.com/alison-brown

I will be running a contest soon asking people to post their "Best Wolf Trap Experience" of which the prize will be a pair of tickets to an upcoming Barns show of your choice, so stay tuned for contest details.

Be back soon,

Graham

Introducing the new media relations blog –

New life has been breathed into the Wolf Trap media relations blog, which has re-emerged from the depths of the retooling process to take its rightful place alongside our colleague Kim Witman’s, Wolf Trap Opera blog.

A quick introduction – my name is Graham Binder and I serve as the Wolf Trap Foundation’s Manager for Media Relations and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to provide our patrons with more subjective content about all things Wolf Trap, with a particular focus on our upcoming Barns at Wolf Trap (382 seats, http://www.wolftrap.org/performances/barnsfacts.htmllftrap.org/performances/barnsfacts.html) performances and our 2008 Filene Center schedule (7,028 seats, http://www.wolftrap.org/performances/filene.html.
To the left is a shot of me with Joey Molland from Badfinger at this year's HippieFest, and another shot below with Arlo Guthrie (Woody Guthrie's son! You'll begin to understand my obsession with musicians like Jeff Tweedy who are influenced by Woody as this blog takes shape) from his summer performance at the Filene Center .

Please check in with regularity for some of my (and Chris’) previews, links, photos, contest information and other personalized content that hopefully will serve as a supplemental resource to the other information included on http://www.wolftrap.org/