San
Diego Folk Song SocietyFounded
in 1957 by Sam Hinton
San Diego's Premier Folklorist
We've
been getting together to sing and play since SDFSS was first founded by Sam
Hinton in the 1950s. We meet on the second Sunday of each month at San Diego Old
Time Music in North Park, at 2:00 PM, unless otherwise stated on the Meetings
page. We welcome all instruments and people at all levels of musicianship, from
beginners up, so, please, don't be shy. We invite you to come, bring your songs,
your instruments, and, your friends, to join us anytime. 
Hi,
fellow folkies!
If
your address label says “1/10” then please consider renewing your membership now
so you won't miss out on all the latest in acoustic music news. Where else can
you get this information without having to scour the internet yourself? Let us
do that for you and save you the hassle. We look forward to another great year
of wonderful and varied music and to serving your needs. The contact
page of this newsletter has our address and the yearly dues rate.
Thanks
for your continued support! --Larry
& Tanya ============================================================
Next
meeting: Sunday, February 14th, 2010 ~~ 2:00 - 6:00
PM
The
San Diego Folk Song Society meets every second Sunday of the month, from 2:00
to 6:00 PM, at San Diego Old Time Music in North Park. A special leader picks a
theme and leads the song circle. The leader starts the circle off, plays some
songs related to the theme, then the rest of us follow, playing theme related
songs, first time around the circle. After that, it's open choice. So please join
us, for an exciting musical time, sing some songs, just listen, play your instruments
and enjoy being a part of the great folk tradition.
The
store's owner, Bob Page, wants us to feel at home and help make San Diego Old Time Music
the premier traditional music store in San Diego. He has requested no food
in the meeting room. Just
music and fun.
San Diego Old
Time Music
2852 University Avenue
San Diego, CA. 92104-2930
Telephone:
(619) 280-9035
www.SDOldTimeMusic.com
MAP ============================================================
SDFSS Ramblings
By Allen Singer
===================================================================
=========================================================== We
are the Coal HoldersEver
since the cave dwelling beginning, there's always been the guy who's job it was
to carry the last hot coal. (Remember?) See, when the tribe moved on, someone
had to carry the last hot coal to start up the next fire at the next campsite.
They needed this fire to cook with, sleep near, talk and sing around. Now, many
of these coal-holders, over time, became folk singers. Later
on, some went electric. Some even became rock and roll singers, punkers and rappers.
Hey, different tribes, different instruments. But the job itself has never changed.
My dad was one of these guys. And a lot of his songs were pretty damned hot! We
are Woody's coal-holders. We do this to keep our present day tribe warm, fed,
and informed. Sometimes
it gets real cold out there (Have you noticed?) and it seems like a chilly wind
is just going to blow us all off the map. A
lot of people are feeling the effects of the chill; no food, no shelter, no singing,
no rights. And other people are chilling inside; no warmth, no joy, no song, no
tribe. Coal-holders
are real important right now! They
will be the ones who will make it possible to build the next fire. They will be
the ones to serve up our next hot meal or our next warm talk. And though it seems
that there are no bonfires burning just yet, I do feel that things are warming
up! --Nora
Guthrie ============================================================ Why
Do We Care? "When
someone asks, why all this fuss and bother, this endless trouble and expenditure
of time on an old song, the answer is: because this old song, in its mere, sheer
commonness, strikes to our very roots. There is no obligation on these old things
to survive. They have lived on in the minds and hearts of countless men and women,
untainted by compulsion, for the purest and most disinterested reason possible
to be conceived: because they have continued to give joy and solace, on the basic
levels of artistic experience, to generation after generation of our humankind.
'The proper
study of mankind is man, and so long as this precept remains valid, folk song
will continue to be an important subject for human inquiry." --Bertrand
Bronson "The
piano may do for lovesick girls who lace themselves to skeletons and lunch on
chalk, pickles and slate pencils. But give me the banjo, when you want genuine
music, music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your
system like strychnine whiskey, ramify your whole constitution like the measles,
and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose--when
you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!"
--
Mark Twain "I
hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that
makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody.
No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim
too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on
account of your bad luck or hard traveling. I
am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of
blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and
that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter
what color, what size you are, how you are built. I am out to sing the songs that
make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And
the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just
about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get
several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing
the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even
more and the ones that make you think you've not any sense at all. But I decided
a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that.
The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already
loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow." --
Woody Guthrie A
Bluegrass Haiku practicing
banjo
my wife slams bedroom door shut
shh! Idol is on |
