Last weekend, in the Czech Republic, I took part in the launch of a new CD by Czech bluegrass band the Malina Brothers. I had helped with their English language singing in the recording studio last year, and on Sunday night, at a sold-out concert in the brothers’ home town of Nachod, in northern Bohemia, they brought me up on stage to toast the new release with sparkling wine.
The Czech Republic probably boasts more bluegrass bands and banjo players per capita than any other country, thanks significantly to folk icon Pete Seeger, who died Monday at 94. It was almost exactly 50 years ago that Seeger performed a series of concerts in the then-communist Czechoslovakia in March 1964. For the first time, people saw a five-string banjo being played, an instrument whose distinctive twang they’d heard while listening clandestinely to the American Forces radio broadcast from across the Iron Curtain. Seeger’s performance electrified music fans, who ended up launching a Czech bluegrass scene. (The first Czech five-strings were made from photos of Seeger’s; today, Czech banjo-makers export their instruments worldwide.)
From Tablet Magazine
No comments:
Post a Comment