September 30, 2022 The IBMA Awards

The excellent bluegrass site Bluegrass Today has the full list of IBMA awards winners from last night.

Congratulations to all winners and nominees!

Country fans who don’t follow bluegrass closely will quickly notice the couple of wins for Dolly Parton for her collaboration with Jerry Salley, Carl Jackson, Larry Cordle, and Bradley Walker. I will see Salley, Jackson, and Cordle as a trio at the Bloomin’ Bluegrass Festival in Texas in a couple of weeks. IBMA male vocalist of the year Del McCoury will be there, too.

Béla Fleck had the most IBMA wins with four.

Billy Strings won IBMA Entertainer of the Year for the second straight year. He also recently won the Americana Music Association Artist of the Year.

In April, I saw Billy Strings in Austin and in June, I saw him perform at Marty Stuart’s Late Night Jam at the Ryman Auditorium. Here’s my phone video from April (blurry picture, but pretty good sound):

Moody Amphitheater near the Texas State Capitol

September 25, 2022 Kazoo History

Unfortunately, most online results when searching for the history of the kazoo appear to be some quite fanciful fiction by the comedy act Kaminsky International Kazoo Quartet in the late 1970s. The simple truth of the matter is that various instruments with kazoo-like membranes have been known for hundreds of years or more on multiple continents, whether it’s the African horn mirliton or the Chinese dizi or the various onion flutes and eunuch flutes of Europe. The idea that anyone “invented” this way to make sound in the 1840s (hundreds of years after it was well documented on multiple continents) is laughably stupid, yet somehow widely treated as gospel fact by those who prefer “narratives” to facts, which is all too common in modern society. Facts are facts.

The site Kazoologist hasn’t been updated in years, but the site looked up the actual kazoo patents (follow the given link). The most familiar “submarine” kazoo design wasn’t patented until 1902, with commercial production over a decade later. The first patent that referenced the word “kazoo” was in 1883. A company called Knobtown Kazoos makes handmade versions of kazoos based on this patent and other patents that soon followed. The Kazoologist found a patent from 1879 that appears to be a kazoo instrument. This patent often gets overlooked because the term “kazoo” wasn’t used.

However, the very earliest patent for a kazoo-related instrument on the Kazoologist site is from 1877. This instrument design does not have a membrane as such. Rather, the frame itself of the round instrument provides the sound effect. Later patents such as the 1917 Buchler patent followed the same basic idea. I know of no common name for this sort of instrument. The Hum-A-Tune was so popular in the 1930s that special souvenir versions were sold for the 1935 San Diego Expo and for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The excellent Nose Flute blog even found a silent film clip of someone playing one at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. I could not find a single audio clip anywhere of anyone playing one of these things, but I found one cheap and posted a video myself: Robert plays 1930s Hum-A-Tune instrument,. This whole classification of “frame-type instruments that sound akin to kazoos” was patented before the familiar kazoo itself and is largely unknown today despite enjoying considerable popularity in the 1930s. There were other related designs in the 1940s-1950s, but they’re mostly forgotten now, in favor of the much more common kazoos with membranes. The South American instrument matofono appears related.

In the early 1940s (patent filed in 1941 and approved in 1942), there was an instrument called a Sing-A-Tina which is some sort of kazoo relative. The only video online of this instrument is by Poorness Studios, so be sure to check it out. It is hard to tell without seeing one in person exactly what is going on inside the device. Of particular interest to country music, Zeke Manners of the Beverly Hillbillies (the 1930s country group, not the 1960s-70s television show by that name), sold the Sing-A-Tina by mail order. He called himself the Jewish Hillbilly and had a very long career.

The Early Sports and Pop Culture History blog published an outstanding article in 2017 about the etymology of the kazoo and bazooka. One might recall the Bob Burns bazooka instrument that was popular during WWII. Especially interesting is the bit about Thomas Edison drawing inspiration from the comb-and-paper when designing the phonograph.

September 24, 2022 Current Update: Pech & Schwefel, etc.

There’s a ton of new music out in the last couple of weeks, including albums by Dailey and Vincent, Sunny Sweeney, Kendell Marvel, and Gene Watson.

The Lowdown Drifters have an album coming out next week and they have a couple of shows in central Texas coming up, so be sure to check them out when they come through your town. The band was formed in Washington state, but is now based in Texas.

A Las Vegas sister duo to watch is “The Pretty Wild,” who recently signed with the Sony partnership Records Co. They recorded for years as “Jill and Julia.” I do not use the description “pop country” as a pejorative, but simply to describe an act that plays both country and all-genre festivals.

Yesterday, I saw Austrian band Pech & Schwefel at Krause’s Cafe in New Braunfels, Texas. The band has been around a long time, but they don’t play very many dates in the US, so catch them if you get the chance during this US Oktoberfest tour. Krause’s is one of my favorite venues in Texas. The food is very good and there’s a good variety of musical acts. Polka bands are especially well represented at Krause’s, but there are country and other bands, too. The most viewed post in the history of Robert’s Country Blog is from a charity event at Krause’s that featured many of the top names in the Texas/Red Dirt Scene: Evan Felker, Wade Bowen, Randy Rogers, Cody Canada, etc.

Pech & Schwefel were a lot of fun yesterday. The four-man band mostly sang in German, but the lead singer mentioned that his father is Croatian, so they also did a Croatian song. They sprinkled in a few songs in English, like “Sweet Caroline,” “(Is This The Way To) Amarillo,” “(Simply) The Best,” “Proud Mary,” and “Achy Breaky Heart.” Yes, the Austrian polka band covered “Achy Breaky Heart.” They did an accordion version of the classic “Clarinet Polka.” When you listen to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio, notice the fiddle version of “Clarinet Polka” at commercial breaks.

September 15, 2022 The 100 Sounds Series and Slideshows

I’ll go “off topic” for today’s post. I’m not a proper musician or performer. I simply like making noise. To celebrate 100 subscribers on my YouTube channel, I decided on a whim to create the

100 Sounds Series

No, this isn’t “country music.” It’s just me goofing around on as many noisemakers as I could find, even tin cans and other kitchen items. I doubted that I could even think of a hundred things. It took me nearly a month to put together this collection of about 100 minutes of action. I have a lot of fun with it, even if nobody else enjoys what I do.

I’ve taken thousands of phone photos over the years, so I have also begun assembling some of these into slideshows. With the exception of the Country Slideshow, I also made the backing tracks. For the Country Slideshow, I used William McEwan’s version of “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” and Bentley Ball’s version of “Dying Cowboy.” These are very old, very scratchy records, but there’s such great history to these songs. I have made seven slideshows so far and I have plans to make more in coming weeks. Here’s my slideshow playlist:

In other news, I am looking forward to the Bloomin’ Bluegrass Festival in Farmers Branch, Texas next month. This is easily the biggest annual bluegrass event in the Lone Star State. My brother and I had a great time there last year. This weekend also kicks off Oktoberfest season, so we plan to see Alex Meixner this weekend. Alex was recently inducted into the International Polka Hall of Fame. He collaborated with area country artists Walt Wilkins and Jade Marie Patek at shows this summer. I had also planned to go to the Lockhart Western Swing Festival next week, but it was cancelled. As always, thanks for reading!

I do still keep up somewhat with current country music, and my 2022 Country Videos list is up to 65 entries. I limit this playlist to one video per artist. The video must have been released during the calendar year 2022 and must include some visual component (not just an audio file). This is not meant to be a “best of” or “most traditional,” but rather somewhat of a cross section of releases, like a time capsule. I have been making YouTube country lists of this sort since 2015. There are traditional artists, but also modern. There is a good bit of bluegrass, too. If I could find more cowboy and western swing entries, I’d include them, too.

September 7, 2022 Award Nominees

There are so many awards that it’s hard to keep up with them all, but we’ll look at a few today:

The Academy of Western Artists 26th awards will be October 13th.

2023 Ameripolitan Awards will be February 17-19th.

The CMA Awards will be November 9th. Nominees were announced this morning. Lainey Wilson has the most nominations with six. The first time I saw her was in 2016 when she was an independent artist opening a show for Frank Foster. Morgan Wallen has dominated the charts the last couple of years and he is up for three awards including entertainer. The eligibility for the “New Artist” category is the head scratcher every year. Hardy was also a “new artist” nominee last year and Cody Johnson three years ago. Cody Johnson released his first independent album in 2006. Walker Hayes released his first single in 2010.

The Dove Awards will be October 18th.

The IBMA awards will be September 29th.

The Grand Master Fiddler Championship was September 3-4th.

The IWMA awards will be November 12th.

The Josie Awards will be October 23rd.

September 5, 2022 Steve n Seagulls

Steve n Seagulls is a band from Finland that covers rock and metal songs (especially 70s-90s) with bluegrass instruments and an accordion. On Friday, my brother and I saw them perform in Austin at a venue called Come And Take It Live. The five-piece band kept the energy high throughout their 90-minute set. They also brought their own sound guy and their tour manager.

The accordion player also played keyboard, flute, and mandolin. The lead singer played mostly mandolin and guitar. The bass player played fiddle on one song. The banjo player sang lead on some songs and also played acoustic and slide guitar. The drummer drummed. There was plenty of musicianship on display.