I don't play as many Civil War events as I'd like to, here in the US but I spent last weekend doing just that, at Liendo Plantation in Hempstead TX.

It was great! Cold, wet, misty, muddy - lotsa horses and guys with bits of sharp pointy metal and explosive gun barrels. I slept in a cattle pasture 50 yards from a Brahma bull and his ladies. I got up each morning with the sun and wandered out to the front gate where I sat under a canvas "fly" and played my banjo for 10 hours each day - and I did that for three days in a row. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!

"Do you play the banjo?" I asked every kid that walked by and stopped to listen, "No? Not yet, you mean. Remember Christmas is coming. You need to ask Santa to bring you a banjo!"

Then I'd spend a little time talking about where the banjo comes from and how they are put together, what the different ones sound like and how they are played.

"Girls really make the best banjo players," I swore to all the young girls. "They just seem to get the right hand thing," I'd give as the reason. Of course I have no idea if it's true - but it sparked their interest and made them smile.

In between these discussions, I'd sing a few songs and sell a few CDs. I did get the chance to sneak off for the odd turkey leg once a day and a cup of coffee or two ... but mostly I just played my banjo. I made things up. Played songs I didn't know I knew. I put the A part of one tune to the B of another, then put them back together again. I just kept those notes rolling off my fingers all weekend long.

Toward the end of the day on Sunday, one sassy little fella with a Dallas Cowboys football jersey on, bounced by my site with his Mother. "Who's number 24?" I wondered out loud to him about the number on his jersey.

"Barber," he replied with confidence.

"Are you a running back?" I asked him.

"Yep," he responded with 8 year old pride.

"Well you know, all running backs are good banjo players first," I assured him.

"Really?" he thought about it.

"Yes and Marion Barber is one of the very best banjo players."


I love this job!





A Quick Home Vid from Youtube

My album CROSS OVER THE RIVER has been nominated for Album of the Year - and my song COME BACK KATY was nominated for for Song of the Year in the 2009 JP Folk Awards program - both in the Traditional/Folk categories.

JP Folk describes itself as the "worlds largest grassroots music organization" and their awards program is by far the biggest in the world. For the 2009 awards they have judged over 42,000 albums and 560,000 songs.

I am honored to be listed among the nominees. - Jed Marum





I am honored to be listed among the nominees. - Jed Marum

Somehow I've managed to be excused from the fussier parts of Christmas Tree Decorating. I get to cut and trim the tree, as may be needed, and place it in the stand, but I am released from duty early on when the final placement begins of lights, ornaments, ribbons, garlands, and so forth.

Mostly I can look on in silence, book in my lap, pen in hand while my wife works contentedly on her own, getting things just so. Occasionally she might ask for an opinion, "Don't you love this ball?" she'd ask, holding up an old tree ornament she just found in the bottom of the decorations box, "I think it came from Ma and Pappy's."

 "Yes," I'd say, nodding, "I think I remember that one," I'd lie, and return to my book.

 I love Christmas!

(c) Jed Marum, 2008
Published in the June 2008 issue of The Ceili Magazine

I remember driving a few years ago along I-44 near St Louis, driving from a festival in Pilot Knob MO to some shows on the east coast. I had about 90 minutes of spare time in my schedule, not a lot of spare time in a long distance drive – but when my eye caught the sign for a shop called "Music Folk" just off the highway, I found myself checking the rear view mirror and hitting the off ramp as quickly as possible.

I have to admit it; I am a music store junkie! I know there are a lot of folks among the Ceili readership with the same happy addiction. We just can't drive by an opportunity to wander through a music store we've never seen and try out all their beautiful instruments.

"Music Folk" it turns out, is one of those rare and truly fine stores for acoustic instrument lovers like me. It was chock full of fine, new and used guitars, bouzoukis, mandolins, banjos and more. I happily blew my 90 minute spare time window in that store, and then some! I just had to try their Collings OM guitar, a Webber Mandocello and my three favorite Deering banjos. The instruments wouldn't let me walk by without giving them each a few turns of my favorite melodies and doodles. I know every music junkie in SCMA-land identifies with this behavior. If we just had the time and the where-with-all, our houses would be totally devoid of furniture and our bank accounts empty!

So in my travels I am always finding excuses to look up the local music store and browse for as long as my schedule allows. I have my home town favorites too. Likewise, I have my favorite instrument makers and models and over the last few years I have been pleased to see the growth in small business guitar makers. They've done so much good for the instruments in general, driving the big guys to make better guitars and providing the musician with a greater variety of choice.

I play Larrivee guitars. I have an endorsement arrangement with Larrivee, so it might seem like an easy choice for me – but the truth is, I have that endorsement because I love their guitars. I don't really understand why every guitar player doesn't have a Larrivee! So when I was offered their endorsement I said, "Yes, please!" But in truth I know that a musician's love for his instrument is so much a matter of personal taste. So it goes with music stores too. We all have our favorites; places we like to shop, places where they know us, give a break on instrument strings, get our repairs done expertly and on time, and so on. But it's always a treat to explore a new music store, especially one that has lots of instruments that Celtic and American folk artists play.

I visited Toronto in 2002 to record an album and my Toronto-based friend Rick Fielding took me around to his favorite shop – a place called "The 12th Fret." He knew I had a keen interest in Civil War history and had plans for an album. So when I had some free time during the recording project he dragged me along to "The 12th Fret." You see he'd found an 1850's German made guitar there, with gut strings and friction tuning pegs, the kind of tuning pegs you see on a fiddle. Rick was convinced I needed to buy that guitar – and he worked on me hard over two visits to the store on consecutive days. Finally he said, "It's worth the $280 just for the album cover photo!" I knew he was right. I brought it home with me at the end of the week. The guitar never made the album cover, but it was a true beauty and I played it for a couple years, mostly at home - the friction pegs made it very difficult for on-stage use, but I did play it at some shows. The guitar simply had a beautiful sound, and probably a very interesting history. I sold it on Ebay after a few years to a collector, for very nice profit.

A few years back I played Chicago Gaelic Park Irish Festival. I had always heard about a great music store up that way called Elderly Music – and I had seen an article about an unusual hybrid instrument they carried called the Banjola. So I added a day to my drive time and swung through Lansing MI on my way to Chicago from Dallas. Seven hundred-some odd dollars later I had my very own Goldtone Banjola! That was a tough one to explain when I got back home, but it's become part of the family. I still use it frequently on stage and in recordings.

These are the stories musicians love to tell one another over a pint or between tunes sets or songs. "I'm still kicking myself for selling that old Martin 12 string," one might  say or "I found a perfect pre-war Gibson Octave Mandolin in that little shop in Missouri" and everyone pictures the instrument and imagine its sound and touch. We never get tired of swapping these tales. They're all true and all stem from our happy music store addiction. I am convinced there are wonderful music stores in every community and I hope to find every one them. I've made it my life's mission.

(c) Jed Marum, 2008
Published in the Sept 2008 issue of The Ceili Magazine

When I was a younger man I worked an apple harvest season at an orchard in Southborough MA – the little town where my wife and I lived with our brand new baby. I loved apples (still do) and I was comfortable in the trees as long as I could remember, so this was a good temporary job for me.

Bill was the orchard foreman, a forty year old black man from Florida who had grown up working orchards and farms all over the east coast. Bobby was a high school friend of mine who was also working the harvest that season. Bill found it hilarious that Bobby and I were enthusiastic about picking, even if we weren't the masters of the craft.

"Doan-choo bruise none o' them apples now, layin' 'em down in the crate so hard, like that! You gotta let 'em down easy like this," and he'd dip his bag low and expertly release two dozen apples into the packing crate without so much as a bump or a roll. "And le' me tell you, if you keep eatin' all them apples like you are, you're gunna be so sorry. I know that for sure!"

We'd pick apples all day. Going from tree to tree, row upon row – and then in evening we'd sort and pack them. Bumped, bruised or imperfect fruit went to the cider press. The good ones were sorted and bagged or bulk packed, depending upon factors determined above my pay grade. I was 18 years old, just out of high school and not an experienced farm hand. My job at night was to carry heavy things around from place to place – helping out the more experienced sorters.

One evening Bill brought Bobby and me into a large warehouse cooler to move a pile of peach crates onto a truck. The peaches had been picked the week before I started and they had been in the cooler for a few days already. When I took my first breath in that warehouse a powerful and incredibly delicious smell penetrated me to my very soul. Wow! It was the most glorious peach smell you can ever imagine – and I knew for sure, instantly; what heaven smelled like. I wasn't even sure I believed in heaven – but I was sure I knew what it smelled like!

That powerful memory has stayed with me all my life, and every now-and-then some other sensory experience reminds me of that smell, but nothing has ever come close. Then one day I was working on my calendar, looking for worthwhile bookings for next year when I came across the website of the Cleveland Irish Festival. I had talked with them a time or two in the past, so I thought I'd see what their website could tell me before I called on them again. As I checked out their homepage I noticed they'd installed a "jukebox" style display with MP3 recordings from the previous year's headliners. I'd always enjoyed CHERISH THE LADIES and theirs was the first sample in the jukebox. It was their version of "Broom of the Cowdenknowes" – so I clicked it.

And WOW – what do you know?? 5 or 6 powerful, beautiful female voices in perfect harmony, burst into the air and filled the room with the song's first chorus. It was breath taking! Stunning! I couldn't move. And when the instruments and lead vocal came in with the verses – well somehow the sounds just got better! I played the track over and over and over. I went into the living room and insisted my wife follow me to the office and sit and listen the recording on my computer. "Isn't that just incredible? Isn't that beautiful? Have you ever heard anything so beautiful?" I bubbled over and over.

After all those years since discovering what heaven smelled like, I now knew what it sounded like! I'm still not sure I know what heaven is – but I know what it smells like, and now I know what it sounds like. Of course I went out and found the album that included this recording. It is on "The Girls Won't Leave The Boys Alone." The whole album is beautiful and it is certainly one all Celtic music lovers will appreciate. It is a delightful collection of great songs and tunes from some of the finest, world class performers. Also featured on this album are "male artists such as Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Liam Clancy, Bobby Clancy, Brian Kennedy, Davy Spillane and many more. Including their fathers." (as quoted from the album description on their website). I love this album!

OK, so it's a little unusual to write a sort-of album review several years after the fact. "The Girls Won't Leave The Boys Alone" was released in 2001 on the Windham Hill label. But I know Ceili readers will love this record as much as I do. If you don't already have it in your collection, I hope you look it up.

I spoke briefly with Joanie Madden of Cherish the Ladies, in preparing this article. The first thing Joanie said was, "The Girls Won't Leave the Boys Alone is an old album!!!" but as we talked a bit more about it, and how my comments fit the article I was writing, she said, "I have to admit I do love that album."

The newest recording from Cherish the Ladies is called "Woman of the House" and it is released on Rounder Records label. You can find more about it at Rounder Records or at the Ladies' website http://www.cherishtheladies.com/

(c) Jed Marum, 2008
Published in the Nov issue of The Ceili Magazine

Uncle Joe and I had spent the better part of two weeks working together at a variety of excavation jobs around the towns of Sudbury, Concord and Wayland Massachusetts. I worked in those days for Joe's nephew Mike, operating a backhoe, shovel dozer and a dump truck. Joe had been around that summer for an extended visit – his first time to America and the first time in about 60 years that he'd seen his younger sister, Mike's mom.

Uncle Joe was born and raised in the Midlands of Ireland. He had a story that was almost word for word the same as that of my great-grandfather. Joe said when he was 17 his father came to him and said "Here is the fare to England, son; God Bless You!" Since Joe had a number of younger brothers and sisters and the family was poor, he knew it meant the time had come for him to make his own way in the world.  

Now some 60 years later here was Joe in New England retelling the stories of a lifetime to me; a young man, a stranger eager to hear the tales of a life so different – but a life not unlike that of my own family. I listened. I was amazed at the hardships. I marveled at the challenges Joe had faced and I was in awe at the humor he had retained. Uncle Joe lived hand-to-mouth and labored at menial tasks throughout his life, building only to the level of day laborer in the streets of, first Liverpool and later London – and yet Joe had one of the sunniest dispositions and kindest hearts I'd ever known. He had married while in Liverpool, raised a family in London. His eldest daughter, now grown with a family of her own – had convinced him to find his sister and come to America to pay a visit. So they looked up Mike's mom, made contact and flew to Sudbury Massachusetts one summer for a holiday. That's how I met Uncle Joe.

Mike ran a small excavation business out of his home and since Joe had worked as a hand laborer for many years, he found coming to work with Mike me more to his liking then doing the tourist things with his daughter and family. Joe would sit on the fender of my backhoe and we'd swap stories all morning, get out the rake and shovel in the afternoon or drop into the trench and lay pipe – or complete whatever tasks we had - all the while swapping stories. Joe reminded me of my father's uncles. I was young when they passed away but I still remembered the accents and the humor. I still remembered the stories and the light in their eyes when they sang their favorite songs. Joe had that same light, that same joy at remembering the good times and retelling the stories. He had that same love for music.

I worked music in those days too; one or two nights a week at local pubs or restaurants. Shortly before they returned home, Mike brought Uncle Joe and the family to one of the pubs I played regularly.

"Oh you played Spancil Hill and Wild Colonial Boy," Joe went on, the next day after visiting the Pub where I played. "I always sing those songs back home. Then you played the harmonica. Oh I love the harmonica! I always wished I could learn to play the harmonica," he went on and on. We talked more about some of our favorite songs and how much we loved music. All the while we were working on a new excavation project.

This day Joe and I were laying in a new water service to an old building. The new pipe would run alongside the water main that supplied the town of Wayland. I spent a few hours carefully exposing 300 feet or so of the water main with the backhoe, and finishing the work by hand to be sure we didn't damage the pipe. The time came for us to connect the new pipe with the old so I dropped through a man-hole cover into the pit where the pipes would be joined. It was a simple matter; push one brick out of the cone-shaped well that made up the pit and then run a new line through the hole. I didn't need any help, but Uncle Joe wanted to give me a hand. "I'm in the trench and I have the crowbar with me," he spoke from outside the pit. There was a short pause then excitedly I heard him say, "OOops! We've got water comin' in!"

"WHAT??" I thought. I couldn't believe it! I'd spent hours carefully, painstakingly uncovering the water main so as to be sure it was not damaged. How did this "leak" suddenly appear?? I climbed out of the pit just in time to see the sandy soil of the trench falling in around Joe's feet as he hopped out the hole. Water pouring up from the main and had already bubbled up high over his ankles, reaching almost to his knees by the time he got out.

"What in the heck happened?" I wondered to myself, but didn't speak because Joe was looking a bit guilty. The water department fellows were close at hand, as they always are when work is being done on their pipe, so they quickly shut down the main supply and stopped the flood. But that meant they'd shut down the entire water supply for the whole town of Wayland and several other towns just west of Boston. This was looking like a costly and troublesome error!

Once the water was shut off and we'd drained the trench, I was able to see that a nice neat, dime-sized hole had been punched into the top of the pipe. It seemed obvious to me that the hole was precisely the size of the crowbar tip. And it turned out that because the hole was small and neat, we were lucky. We'd be able to fit a patch onto the pipe – a high tech, expensive patch, to be sure – but it was much less costly and disruptive then having to replace a section of water main. We had the pipe fixed and operational within a half an hour. Nephew Mike was not happy, of course, about spending five or six hundred dollars to patch a hole that his Uncle Joe had accidentally punched into the water main - but it was a lot better then several thousand dollars that a full scale repair would have cost. We counted our blessings!

After hours, that day we stopped for a beer at Mike's favorite local and Joe told us the full story, "I jumped into the pit to help Jed make the connection," He said, "but when I dropped the crowbar, it bounced off the side of the trench and landed directly on the top of the water main." Joe admitted the error sheepishly but by now we could all get a good laugh about it. Still, that was it for Mike. He stopped calling Joe, Uncle Joe and started calling him Crowbar Joe and the name stuck for the rest of the visit.

Joe and his family were scheduled to head back home a few days after this incident, so I stopped at the music store and bought a harmonica for Joe as a going away gift. He and I were finishing work on a new roadway we'd made for a golf course along the Sudbury River when I gave Joe the harmonica. I was totally amazed at his response. You'd think I'd given him a string of pearls! Tears ran down his cheeks. He walked away a few steps, trying it out; blowing in, drawing back, moving up and down the row of holes - then he ran back over to me and gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. He was just so touched at "such a thoughtful gift" as he said, and he "really was going to learn to play it, too!"

I spent a few minutes explaining the basics of "harmonica music theory" and then Joe worked at it. He worked at it all afternoon and he really was finding a few melodies before long. He really was learning to play.

So many years have passed since I said goodbye to Uncle Joe. I'd always remembered his stories and his way with the truth. I'd always remembered his kind heart and his joyous spirit in a world; that, toward him had not been all that kind. One day just a few months ago I was sitting at home playing with a new melody and Joe popped into my mind. A few hours later I had my new favorite song. A song I simply call, Uncle Joe. I hope the song pays homage to a lovely old man who gave a wide eyed young man some great stories and a few hours worth living.

It may be just a tad early, but here's a new video up at youtube - just to get you into that sort of banjo-Christmas mood!

I've released a new recording. AIN'T NO GOIN' BACK is available now at CDBaby and all of the MP3 Services. It has three new Americana singles, including a new Christmas song - and two instrumentals that I've licensed to a film that will be out next year.

I hope you'll take a look and listen at the CDBaby page linked above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE_P72NuRnQ

A live recording of Jed Marum singing WILD MOUNTAIN THYME at the Texas Scottish Festival, circa 2005. Recorded by Travis Ener. The video uses a slide of pictures taken at the festival over recent years.