The New Lost Times

The Lonesome Sisters

Tracy Schwarz' niece, Sarah Hawker, is one of The Lonesome Sisters, an oldtime folk duet that seems to be getting great reviews everywhere, including the Boston Globe, the Old Time Herald, Dirty Linen, and Sing Out!

Their third CD was released last month. It's got some fretless banjo. Sweet.

Uncle Tracy says:

Rivet your attention to The Lonesome Sisters and their artful arrangements, well-crafted songs and hynotizing voices if you know what's good for you!

 

Schwarz at Augusta's Cajun week

Tracy Schwarz co-founded a week of Cajun and Creole workshops and instruction at the Augusta Heritage Center. Well, that week is THIS week!

It sounds like an extended version of American Banjo Camp, which I attended a few years ago. At Augusta, you enjoy a whole week of jamming cajun-style and instruction from masters such as Tracy Schwarz, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, and Keith Frank and the Soileau Zydeco Band.

The tuition ($410) would start to seem like a bargain as soon as your boots hit the ground, if my experience is any judge. It's probably too late for this year, but think about next year. Hooo!

 

Schwarz at Mt. Airy Fiddler's Convention

The website of Tracy Schwarz and his partner Ginny Hawker suggests that they're back from some weeks in Scotland -- and now they're off again to the Mt. Airy Fiddler's Convention (the 35th annual, in North Carolina). Why don't they just relax for a weekend?

The convention's website makes no mention of Schwarz and Hawker, so I don't know what to promise on their behalf. Maybe they're competing? Just jamming?

 

Schwarz continues tour of Scotland

Tracy Schwarz continues his tour of Scotland in support of The Crooked Road, a campaign for southwest Virginia tourism. He is joined by a number of other American old time and bluegrass musicians, including Ginny Hawker, his wife and musical collaborator

From the The Herald of Glasgow:

Ginny Hawker ... and Tracy Schwarz come from different areas of the US – Virginia and New York respectively – but when they met at the Ashokan music camp in the Catskill Mountains in 1988, they discovered much common ground. Schwarz was smitten by "cowboy songs" on the radio as a boy, while Hawker grew up surrounded by a large musical family. Her father was one of 10 children, each of whom sang. Indeed, he and her uncles once drove down to Nashville just to breathe the air among the music.

For her part, she discovered early on that she could earn a nickel from the neighbours for singing on the front porch ...

... The Masters from the Crooked Road play Rothes Halls, Glenrothes, on Friday. At the time of going to press, tickets were also still available for the Birnam Arts Institute, near Dunkeld (Saturday 13); St Bride's Centre, Edinburgh (Sunday 14); Greenock Arts Guild (Tuesday 16); the Magnum Theatre, Irvine (Thursday 18) and the Tron Theatre, Glasgow (Sunday 21). Big Big Country runs from May 16-May 28.

Read the article, "On the Road to a Good Ol' Broken Heart".

 

Schwarz tours for The Crooked Road

The Crooked Road is a marketing campaign funded primarily by the Appalachian Regional Commission. Its goal is to increase tourism in southwestern Virginia by emphasizing the area's deep and influential musical roots.

To raise money for the Crooked Road campaign, New Lost City Rambler Tracy Schwarz and his partner Ginny Hawker have joined a group of American musicians performing a series of concerts in Scotland in March through May. Note that American folk music has long been at least as popular in that part of the world as it is in the USA.

There's an example of the local press generated by this Scotland tour in the April 13th Greenock Telegraph.