The music has always been big medicine for us, and that's how our band name came to be. We all learned the roots of our music by ear and by heart at the wellspring, from old folks who grew up playing old-time music, from relatives and friends, from field recordings made in the depths of the Great Depression, and old commercial “hillbilly” records—including early exponents of that kind of Southern string band music which came to be called bluegrass.
If we never set foot on a stage, we’d still be playing music - at home, at gatherings of friends and family, at festivals and fiddlers conventions. It has been passed along and passed around that way for a long time by people who have shaped its rugged beauty, strength and grace. It is music that can move the heart, lift the spirits, make you cry, or tickle your feet, and we feel honored to share it with each other and with you.
Last night: Big Medicine onstage with Branford Marsalis, Joey Calderazzo, Tina Morris Anderson, Scott Ainslie, Phil Wiggins, and a North Carolina Symphony string quartet! Among other performances, Branford sat in with us on Red Rocking Chair and Rough & Rowdy Ways, and various Big Med members in various combinations collaborated on other numbers as well. We are left with some amazing music ringing in our ears!
We're good and revved up about this weekend's whirlwind kickoff of our 2010 spring and summer season! First place we're headed for, on Friday the 12th, is Newark, Delaware, where we'll be performing for the Brandywine Friends of Old-Time Music - a magnificent group of long-standing supporters of the music. That's Friday night...Saturday we're turning back south to Upper Marlboro, Maryland, where we'll play a house concert at the home of our lovely friends Jamahl and Lynda...then on Sunday, back to good ol' Raleigh, NC for an afternoon concert sponsored by PineCone, at Daniels Auditorium, Museum of History.
Hope that you have a mighty fine rest of the week, and we're looking forward to seeing some of you at one of these events!