Recording my first cd with Producer Baxter Taylor, BAXTRAX STUDIOS, Plano Texas. Mixed by Johnny Horton, Las Vegas, NV. Baxter was an original member of early 1960's folk group THE WAYFARERS along with Mason Williams and Billy Cheatwood. Baxter was a member of THE NEW CHRISTY MINSTRELS (1962) along with founder Randy Sparks. An award-winning BMI songwriter, Baxter co-wrote the popular tune country rock tune "Marie Laveaux" with Shel Silverstein. The song was covered by Bobby Bare Sr. and was 1 on the Billboard Charts in 1974, for which both writers received a BMI Achievement Award in 1975.
Baxter Taylor, Johnny Horton, Steve Brainard, Mason Williams, Billy Cheatwood, Butch Crouch, Joe Lawrence Hempsen and others travelled around the midwest and ultimately onto their solo careers on the West Coast to New York. They all travelled the music circuit in the late 1950's, helping to create the early coffeehouse circuit especially in Oklahoma City at THE GOURD, and other places including Kansas, Arkansas, New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana. THE BLUE DOOR in Oklahoma City is the modern day cousin to THE GOURD which later bacame THE BUDDHI, OKC's most famous folk venue in it's day.
THE BOSTON MINSTREL COMPANY (July 2006-ongoing)
Making Music With Heart
Tim McHale, Artistic Director, 102 Litchfield Street, Brighton , MA 02135
617-787-2122 tel, 617-787-0077 fax
Website: www.bostonminstrel.org
Email to: bostonminstrel@aol.com
Visit the Schedule? www.bostonminstrel.com/sched.htm
The Minstrels are a lively troupe of volunteer singers and musicians who have seen how music heals, having visited shelters, residential facilities and prisons each month since 1991. Their interactive pop, rock and folk events touch audiences of about 4,000 each year. The Boston Minstrels make a strong impact on groups and individuals during shared songfests. A key objective is to motivate individuals in the audience to perform a solo. As singers take the stage, they become the center of “affection” for the entire gathering, and such moments transform entertainment into expressive therapy. Repeating such moments in a community can impact lives in lasting ways.~~ Led by charismatic Tim McHale, the Minstrels’ first goal at a venue is to generate musical energy, using microphones, amplifiers, and drums. Once the place begins to “rock,” the group sings a few familiar songs, as Tim woos members of the audience to the microphone for a selection from the Minstrels’ songbook. While some sing, others dance, clapping to the beat and singing back up. Whatever anyone has to give is good enough, and Tim keeps everyone from straying too far from the tune. ~~
After an hour of songs, residents and Minstrels form a circle for a couple of closing tunes and spontaneous words of hope and promise at a microphone. In the end, audiences inspire the Minstrels as often as the Minstrels inspire them. Singing together creates safe haven for residents and Minstrels alike, while building bridges between diverse social and ethnic groups. ~~
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION:
Boston Minstrel Company Chosen for
2005 Massachusetts Catalogue for Philanthropy:
The Boston Minstrel Company has been selected as a Massachusetts 2005 Catalogue for Philanthropy charity. ~~
The BMC was recognized for its community service by the United Way. As a result, Tim McHale, BMC founder, was selected to carry the Olympic Torch as it came through Massachusetts in 1996. ~~
The BMC was honored by WBZ-TV Channel 4, Boston with an award presented on air by Liz Walker in her “Heroes” community service series. ~~
Founder of BMC Tim McHale was commissioned by First Night Boston to compose the “Boston Millennium Song,” which he performed in opening ceremonies on New Year’s Eve, 2000. ~~
ALLIANCES: The Boston Minstrel Company has an alliance with Berklee College of Music, Music Therapy Department and seeks talented college interns for practical training with targeted populations. Professor Peggy Codding offers the Boston Minstrel Company program advice, program evaluation and design advice and promotes the company among students and faculty. The BMC is looking to build further alliances with additional academic programs to reach young talent at area colleges -- from performance to outreach. ~~
Alliances with music therapy and education centers around Boston can help us: 1: Achieve Minstrel goals including shifting audiences from sorrow to joy; isolation to connection; withdrawal to participation, and self-abasement to self-esteem. Refine evaluation measures of BMC impact at performance venues. Recruit administrative interns. Recruit additional song leaders. Produce new events, recordings and venues.
COMPLETED PROJECTs: (2005-2006) BUTCH CROUCH, Santa Fe, NM;
His first cd titled I GOT SO CLOSE, all original tunes. I performed all female vocal parts/harmonies on the cd. Recorded at BAXTRAX STUDIOS, Plano Texas, with Neil Fitzpatrick (rhythm guitar), Tony Vinsey (deceased) on harps, fiddle, chat-scat comedy, Dr. Jim Wagner (standup acoustic bass), Christopher Cave(harps), Baxter Taylor (vocal bass harmony), Johnny Horton (The Goodtime Singers, The Andy Summers Show) is engineering and mixing the recorded tracks. The CD was released in 2007.
(September 2004) LIVE @ MACHENRY'S PUB, Ft. Worth TX, with THE STEVE LONG BAND: AND 16 other regular venue performers and bands. CD Vol.1 - released in 2005. This venue is owned and operated by performing songwriter John Walker. Recorded and engineered by Travis Baits.
http://www.geocities.com/longscience
http://www.machenrys.com /// A link to pictures of the evening is here: http://www.savidetup.com/absoluteig/gallery.asp?action=viewimage&categoryid=188&text=&imageid=4633&box=&shownew=
(2002) BAXTRAX STUDIOS - Dallas Acoustic Musicians Network (DAMN!) Live jam and studio recordings of local influential acoustic musicians and singers from Dallas.
Influences
Musical theater; Solo artist influences of country, blues, and rock; the delicate finger-pickin' guitar writer/performers James Taylor, Steve Fisher and Jamie Byrd, Dave Rawlings. Vocal duo's: Emmy Lou Harris and Gram Parsons, Chris Smither and Anita Suhanin, Steve Fisher and Jamie Byrd, Carole King and James Taylor, Carly Simon and James Taylor, Eva Cassidy and Charles Brown, Chris and Lynn Rosser, Cliff Eberhardt and Liz Queller, Tammy Wynette and George Jones, Lynn Adler and Lindy Hearne, Michael Elwood and Beth Galiger, Beth McCabe and Jeff Carr, Beth McCabe and Jack Hardesty, Beth McCabe and Steve Long, Beth McCabe and Butch Crouch, Kelly and Becky Cutler, Simon and Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville, Roberta Flack and Peabo Bryson, The Muldaurs, Kimmie Rhodes and Willie Nelson, Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, Ellis Paul and Patti Griffin, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, and The late 1990's - early 2000 Dallas independent music scene including the local Lillith Faire performing songwriters Heather Clickard, Emily Aronson, Marj Troyer, Cary Cooper-Prasao-Rao, Stephanie Fine, Brigette Miller, Sally Ritchie-Williford, Karen Anderson and Lilth Faire.
Dolly Parton, Nanci Griffith, Eric Taylor, Bruce Coburn, Cliff Eberhardt, THE RICHTONES, Slaid Cleaves and Karen Poston, Nathan Hamilton, Michael Hearne and the South By Southwest Band, Shake Russell, Johnsmith, Donna Summer, Eliza Gilkyson, Larry Muante, Jonathan Kingham, Suzanne Buirgy, Tom Kimmel, Jenni Mansfield-Peal, New Christy Minstrels, The Wayfarers, The Mamas and The Papas, Bob Dylan, Peter Paul & Mary, Tom Paxton, Jerry Jeff Walker, Bill Cosby, The Goodtime Singers, The Hollies, The Bixbys, Jonathan Edwards, Gordon Lightfoot, John Gorka, Rolling Stones, J. Geils Band, Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder, Etta James, Sarah Vaughn, Sammy Davis Jr, Dean Martin and Doris Day, Burl Ives, Sinatra, Sarah Brightman, Bernadette Peters.
"Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling that the artist has experienced." -Leo Tolstoy (Thanks David Habbin!!)
Here's a brief article from the 29-OCT-2007 Boston Globe on Music Therapy!
HEALTH SENSE- The Power Of Music
With brains wired for song, we derive pleasure, feel less pain and transcend our body's limits.
By Judy Foreman | October 29, 2007
Dan Ellsey, 33, was sitting in his wheelchair in a soulless room at Tewksbury Hospital, his virtually useless arms and weak torso strapped to the chair for safety.
Suddenly, as soon as we were introduced, he arched his back, grinned broadly, and aimed the riveting power of his dark brown eyes at me, as if eye contact were his only means of transcending the prison of his body.
But it isn't. In the last few years, Ellsey, who was born with cerebral palsy, has discovered another, almost miraculous, way of expressing himself: music. Not just listening to country and soft rock, as he has done for years, but composing music himself with a special computerized system called Hyperscore, developed by composer-inventor, Tod Machover, professor of music and media and director of the Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab.
I stand there, awed, as we listen to Ellsey's music, which on the computer has an abstract, eerie sound that swells and recedes like ocean waves. As we listen, we watch on the computer screen as the "score" - colored lines on a graph that represent different instruments - unfolds before our eyes.
A look of pure bliss crossed his face. For Ellsey, as for most human beings, music has almost inexplicable power - to rouse armies to battle, to soothe babies, to communicate peaks of joy and depths of sorrow that mere words cannot.
Just why evolution would have endowed our brains with the neural machinery to make music is a mystery.
"It's unclear why humans are so uniquely sensitive to music - certainly music shares many features with spoken language, and our brains are particularly developed to process the rapid tones and segments of sound that are common to both," said Dr. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist whose latest book, "Musicophilia," is about the brain's sensitivity to music. Some researchers, he added in an e-mail interview, believe that in primitive cultures, music and speech were not distinct. Other researchers debate which came first in evolution, speech or song.
What is clear is that the brain is abundantly wired to process music.
Scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute, for instance, have found dramatic evidence on brain scans that the "chills," or a visceral feeling of awe, that people report listening to their favorite music are real. Music that a person likes - but not music that is disliked - activates both the higher, thinking centers in the brain's cortex, and, perhaps more important, also the "ancient circuitry, the motivation and reward system," said experimental psychologist Robert Zatorre, a member of the team. It's this ancient part of the brain that, often through the neurotransmitter dopamine, also governs basic drives such as for food, water, and sex, suggesting the tantalizing idea that the brain may consider music on a par with these crucial drives.
But music has the power not just to awe but to heal. If a person has a stroke on the left side of the brain, where the speech centers are located in most people, that "wipes out a major part of communication," said Dr. Gottfried Schlaug, chief of the Cerebrovascular Disorder Division and Stroke-Recovery Laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
But if the right side, where a lot of music is processed, is intact, some stroke patients can use "melodic intonation therapy," which involves singing using two tones (relatively close in pitch) to communicate. Schlaug's research suggests that with intense therapy some patients can even move from this two-tone singing back to actual speech.
Stroke patients with gait problems also profit from neurologically based music therapy. At the Center for Biomedical Research in Music at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, director Michael Thaut and his team have shown that people partially paralyzed on one side can retrain to walk faster and in a more coordinated way if they practice walking rhythmically, cued by music or a metronome. Combining rhythmic training with physical therapy also helps stroke patients recover gait faster, he said in an e-mail.
"Music helps us organize our movement," said Kathleen Howland, who has a PhD in music and cognition and teaches at Lesley University in Cambridge. Twenty years ago, she said, therapists tried to get stroke patients to walk better by flashing lights at them. But music, especially rhythm, works much better, she said.
A number of studies show that music therapy - the use of music for medical goals - can reduce pain. In a 2001 study on burn patients, whose burns must be frequently scraped to reduce dead tissue, researchers found that music therapy significantly reduced the excruciating pain. Patients undergoing colonoscopy also seem to feel less pain and need fewer sedative drugs if they listen to music during the procedure, according to several studies.
But not all studies have been so clear-cut. One 2007 review by the Cochrane Collaboration, a nonprofit, international organization that evaluates medical research, involved pooling data from 51 pain studies; it showed that listening to music can reduce the intensity of pain and the need for narcotic drugs, but cautioned that, overall, the benefit was small.
Music therapy may also improve mental state and functioning in people with schizophrenia, according to a 2007 Cochrane review. Premature infants who listen to lullabies learn to suck better and gain more weight than those who don't get music therapy. And Deforia Lane, director of music therapy at the University Hospitals Ireland Cancer Center in Cleveland, has found an improvement in immune response among hospitalized children who played, sang, and created music compared to children who did not get music therapy.
Indeed, the list of potential benefits from music therapy seems almost endless (check out the website of the American Music Therapy Association, musictherapy.org).
For some people, like Dan Ellsey, they can be nothing short of liberating.
As the sound of Ellsey's music faded away the other day, I asked him what message he would like to tell people through his music. Painstakingly, he tapped out his answer, aiming a laser device on his forehead to highlight pictures and letters on his computer.
"I am smart," he wrote, arching his back, joy beaming from his eyes. "I have a good personality."
Anything else? Eyes alight, he tapped: "I am a musician."
"Dublin Blues" - THE STEVE LONG BAND:Steve Long (lead vocal, guitar, Mike Kelley, (harmony vocal, acoustic guitar solos, Beth McCabe (harmony vocals): The 2 cd set contains performances from 16 regular venue performers and bands. LIVE @ MACHENRY'S PUB cd, Ft. Worth TX, CD Vol.1 - released in 2005. This venue is owned and operated by performing songwriter John Walker, a contemporary and friend of Townes Van Zandt. Recorded and engineered by ever-talented Travis Baits. http://www.geocities.com/longscience
http://www.machenrys.com
A link to pictures of the evening is here: http://www.savidetup.com/absoluteig/gallery.asp?action=viewimage&categoryid=188&text=&imageid=4633&box=&shownew=
"Ivan Denton" - Butch Crouch (Songwriter, vocals, guitar), Beth McCabe (acoustic guitar, lead vocals, harmony vocals, eggs) Baxter Taylor (Producer, harmony bass vocals), Tony Vinsey (deceased) on harps, fiddle, general humor and commentary, Dr. Jim Wagner (acoustic bass), Neil Fitzpatrick (rhythm guitar), Christopher Cave (harps), Nancy Kamm (fiddle), Bill Niles (electric bass), Johnny Horton - (Mixmaster, and electronica; Recorded at BAXTRAX RECORDING STUDIO, Plano TX, Summer 2005.
Demo Traditional - "Red Is The Rose"- Beth (vocals, Bax's rosewood Martin acoustic guitar); Recorded at BAXTRAX RECORDING STUDIO, Plano, TX, on an early Saturday morning, unrehearsed and with no coffee. Fall 2005.
"Water In The Fuel"- Beth (lead vocal, acoustic finger picking on Larrivee D-05 guitar, Jeff Carr (harmony vocal, Taylor 12 string acoustic guitar), Kay Foster (standup acoustic bass), Jim Foster (wonderful rhythm acoustic and solo on a Takemine guitar); recorded in Baxter Taylor's living room, August 2002.
My musical influences are broad.
Early 1960's folk like Joan Baez, The Wayfarers, Burl Ives, Jonathan Edwards, Carol King, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Linda Rondstadt and J.D. Souther, Elvis, Mitch Miller, Roger Miller, Charlie Pride, Tammy Wynette, Dusty Springfield, The Grand Ole Opry!!!! and singers like Al Green and Marvin Gaye, Sly & The Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Carol Burnett, Gladys Knight, Della Reese, The Spinners, Tavares, The Four Tops, The Commodores, Donna Summer, Dionne Warwick, Bette Midler, Bernadette Peters, and then moved into artists like Joe Cocker, The Rolling Stones, CSNY, Barry Manilow, Joan Armatrading, Bill Withers,
Janis Joplin, The Beatles, The Eagles, Aerosmith , J. Geils Band, Duke and The Drivers, The Charlie Daniels Band, Marshall Tucker Band and James Montgomery Band, and onto George Benson, Ruth Brown, Sarah Vaughn, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Barron, Chet Baker, Kenny Burrell, Tom Harrell, Dexter Gordon, Lester Young, Thelonius Monk
Boston Jazz / Blues / Rock scene: Mark Pucci, Gray Sargent, Marshall Wood, Donna Byrne, Dave Whitney & Craig Ball in The White Heat Orchestra, Peter Parcek and Mike Fritz of Nine Below Zero (Boston), FACE TO FACE, Duke and The Drivers, James Montgomery, Dennis Brennan, Mark Erelli, Susan Tedeschi, Liz Lannan, Erica Rodney & Fat Wall Jack, Mr. Steve Sadler.
Texas Blues / R & B scene/ Country: O.K.O.M., The Texas Music nation, Rosanna Eckert, John Adams (bass), Alan Haynes, Jim Schuler, Pete Barbeck, Greg Smith, R.L. Griffin, Andrea Dawson, Jay Johnson, Eleven Hundred Springs, Gatemouth Brown, Mr. Kelly Cutler, Bobby Blue Bland, Little Milton, Lightnin' Hopkins, Arthur Riddles, Dave Burris, Erik Barnes, Marshal Ivery, 1 O'Clock Lab band, The Dallas Jazz Orchestra, Skip Cave, Christopher Cave.
Another round of modern independent American songwriters and bands such as Kimmie Rhodes, Eliza Gilkyson, Nanci Griffith, Nathan Hamilton, Slaid Cleaves and Karen Poston, Lisa Markley, Annie Benjamin, Brian Burns, Rusty Weir, Gary P. Nunn, Ronnie Spears, Radney Foster, Houston Marchman and Gabe Rhodes, Susan Gibson, Damon Carroll, Mary Cutrefello, Ed Rogers. John Nitzinger, Bruce Williams, The Trinity River Whalers, The O'Bobs, Darryl Lee Rush, Cheap Fast & Easy!, Rick Yost, Jimmy Lee Beavers, Derral Gleason.
Major influences: Carole King, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Stephen Bruton, Kimmie Rhodes, Bill Nash, Jack Hardesty, David Etta James, Lucy Kaplansky, Cheryl Wheeler, Acuff/Rose, Jonathan Kingham, K.D. Lang, Ellis Paul, Patti Griffin
National: Lucy Kaplansky, Cheryl Wheeler, Cliff Eberhardt, Christopher Williams, Jonathan Kingham, Don Conoscenti, Bill Nash, Willy Porter, Albert and Gage, Ken Gaines, Tom Prasado-Rao and Cary Cooper, Tom Kimmel, The Sherpas, The Kerrville Folk Festival, The Boston Folk Festival, more, more, more.
An Acapella Chorus Singer, Songwriter's Vocalist, & Harmony Assistant!!
THE RICHTONES CHORUS, Sweet Adelines International - Farmers Branch, TX (1999-2001) I was an acapella contralto in this internationally famous, 10-year international award-winning champion chorus within The Sweet Adeline's global organization. It's 210+ women singing their acapella hearts out- what a great time, tremendous performers, awesome human beings
www.richtones.org/
I grew up canvassing the sidewalks of Harvard Square, Cambridge singing acapella 4-part harmony on street corners and in storefront doorways with my girl friends from Elementary and Junior High school who were in the All-Town Chorus and Jazz Band with me. We'd find a doorway and sing out songs by Carly Simon, Joan Baez, James Taylor, Carol King, etc. I'd love to find out where the ladies are now! Back then, they were very talented musicians as well! In high school, my friend Nancy and I would sing rock songs on The Squares' street corners and we called ourselves THE SPRINGSTEEN SISTERS. She passed away the summer of our freshman year in college and I stopped playing for 20 years. I picked up my guitar again six years ago, and a semi-professional music career has materialized.
Harvard Square was different then; many more street performers were out doing their thing than there are these days. Competition for prime doorways was great! (There were some doorways that had great acoustics for harmony singing, such as the old, main doorway to the Harvard Coop on Mass. Ave. I remember seeing Tracy Chapman there before she became so famous.) The girls and I would walk around listening to street musicians and spend many, many, many nights listening to the roots and folk music coming out of CLUB PASSIM, a place that I revere. (www.clubpassim.com)
My dad always had big band and swing music on in the house so that has always been in my musical psyche. My mom loved Elvis's music. The "Blues After Midnight" radio program had always been on in my house and WUMB being on the airwaves for so many years helped provide the folk soundtrack to my life for which I am grateful, and a member. WWW.WUMB.ORG. My sisters brought LP's into the house by artists such as Carly Simon, Joan Baez, James Taylor, Carol King, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, Jonathan Edwards, and more. We all played a variety of instruments which made it fun to learn songs by these artists.
I worked at Tech Hifi in the Harvard Square, MIT, B.U. and Lechmere locations for 4 years after high school. Loved it! It was a great job and I had customers from all walks of life in Boston and New England - people who love music and gear: professors, mothers, teenagers, Swiss yodellers and alphorn players, performers like Peter Wolf, Joe Perry, Steven Tyler, Shirley Lewis, Laurie Sargent, jocks like Tank and Charles Laquidaira (sp?) from WBCN, all sorts of people buying equipment, record player cartridges and styli, recording tape, first generation BETA VCRs, CD players, computers, monitors, etc when they were first invented. Two of the three executives who started ROUNDER RECORDS, Ken Irwin and Bill Nowlin came in for "stuff". It was one of my favorite times in life.
I am currently working on my first cd with Producer and original WayFarer Trio member & New Christy Minstrel singer-songwriter Baxter Taylor of Plano, Texas. A chance meeting brought us together 5 years ago a house party in Plano. I have worked on several recordings now as a harmony and lyric vocalist. I feel honored, blessed and humbled that such talented performing songwriters, musicians and bands have asked me to work with them. I count my blessings each and every day.
Thanks Beth! It was nice to meet you as well. I had NO idea my story could have the impact it had last week, I am touched, truly. God Bless and hope to see you again! xoxo Jim
I loved the story about Harvard's Square. I remember an album that I bought when I was about 14 called 'Folk Singers 'Round Harvard Square'. It featured a young Joan Baez, Bill Woods and Ted Alevizos. After hearing that album, there were two places that I had to go: Washington Square Park (in NYC) and Harvard Square (in Cambridge). I made it to both and my life was never the same!
Thanks for the kind words. I really like your music as well.
See you on Highway 67 (or 99... or one of those roads.....).
hey Beth!! Thanks for the beautiful comment & the friend request. More importantly..i finally got to hear you sing here& it is beautiful1!!!!! I just love your style & hope I get to hear it LIVE soon:) Tell Burt I say hello & hope to see you again both very soon! ~Nicole
Ms. Rapunzil; Just wanted to let you know, I WILL NOW BE ON HOTMIX 106 RADIO BEGINNING MONDAY JUNE 23RD !! Hi Friends; Effective immediately this date I have tendered my resignation as a DJ for Krush Radio. I would like to thank those of you who were listeners, supporters and friends. THANK YOU ALL.......I have been afforded the opportunity to DJ at several other Radio Stations and the decision has been made !!!! Juke Joint Jimmy's House Party will now air on HotMix106.com Radio starting Monday June 23. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse !!! So, please tune in Monday's from 7:00 til 9:00 PM EST live to rock with the blues, classic rock and J. Geils at it's best. It will be a pleasure to work with the high calibre professionals here at my new home Hotmix 106. In closing, once again, thank you all, I sincerely appreciate all you have done but most of all your "true friendship and much valued support, and hope we can all continue on this new journey together." So, "LET'S GET READY TO ROCK BABY"...... CLICK HERE DIRECT LINK: HotMix106.com
