Penny Parsons won an IBMA award for her collaborative biography of Seckler

Shortly after noon central time, Curly Seckler one of the last living links to pre-World War II southern music, died on December 27, 2017, two days after his 98th birthday. Curly began playing music professionally in 1935, more than a decade before he would become a bluegrass music pioneer. In 1938, Charlie Monroe hired him shortly after the Monroe Brothers’ streams diverged. Even before the 21st Century began, Curly had already played music professionally in seven decades.

Even when he was little older than I am now, he seemed to me of an early time, of music played in school houses, bars, and drive-in movie theaters. Like his friend Doc Tommy Scott, Wade Mainer, Aunt Samantha Bumgarner, Dellie Norton, Howard Armstrong, Norman Woodlief, or Joe and Odell Thompson. He could connect you to a time you’ll never know, in a place that hardly resembles what they knew.

Tennessean obituary for Curly Seckler (December 25, 2017)

Bluegrass Today obituary for Curly Seckler (December 25, 2017) 

No Wonder Millennials Hate Capitalism https://nyti.ms/2kq324J

44 percent of millennials would prefer to live in a socialist country, compared with 42 percent who want to live under capitalism. For older Americans, the collapse of Communism made it seem as though there was no possible alternative to capitalism. But given the increasingly oligarchic nature of our economy, it’s not surprising that for many young people, capitalism looks like the god that failed.

Nowhere is that clearer than in the wretched tax bill passed by the Senate in the early hours of Saturday morning, which would make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Singer Rhiannon Giddens keeps winning with a ‘Genius Grant’ and $625K

http://www.newsobserver.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article178174231.html

Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn let their award-winning music reflect these ‘interesting times’

But on “Echo in the Valley,” Fleck’s upcoming third album as a duo with his wife, Abigail Washburn, Fleck winds up in the surprisingly traditional realm of protest music
http://www.newsobserver.com/entertainment/music-news-reviews/bluegrass-raleigh/article175768106.html

Upcoming Shows

9/30/2017 – Rev. Billy C.  Wirtz

10/7/2017 – Red Clay Ramblers 1990

10/14/2017 – Scott Ainslie 1988 and 1986

10/21/2017 – Pierce Pettis 1989

10/28/2017 – Joe & Odell Thompson

11/4/2017 – John Dee Holeman & Fris Holloway 1985 & 1989

11/11/2017 – Seldom Scene 1988 set one

Classic Eno Festival Live airs each Saturday at 11 AM Eastern on WHUP-LP 104.7, Hillsborough, NC, streaming at www.whupfm.org

The previous two weeks episodes stream at https://whupfm.org/show/classic-eno-festival-live/ 

Lunny will be honoured for his contribution to traditional music, and his career as a founding member of Planxty, The Bothy Band and Moving Hearts. The award has gone in the past to Pete Seeger, the American folk singer and activist, and Mavis Staples, the gospel singer and civil rights campaigner, as well as to Dylan.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/global-folk-leaders-honour-donal-lunny-m2qnrzwgl

No cover, all donations go to community radio station WCOM

Learn more via Aaron Keck’s interview of Art Menius on WCHL-FM 97.9 September 12, 2017