Woo Hoo! I’m already on the way! Spending the night tonight in Shelbyville, KY, after 10 hours of driving today. Tomorrow I’ll go to the Knoxville area to visit a dulcimer shop and then see my friends Shandy and Chris (aka Southern Spirit) play at the Hey Bear Cafe. Saturday I’ll drive over to Mt. Juliet. I was thinking I might go early and visit Music Row….but I’ll have my mandolin, guitar, (maybe a dulcimer) and a host of other stuff in the car that I don’t want to give up for thievery. I’m also hoping to get some pre-camp jammin’ in (as we have previously discussed) at the hotel…so the Music Row think is probably not gonna happen. (Been there once…35+ years ago!)
April Cabin Camp 2022 Nashville
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Ha! I’ve got an assortment of jazz coming in from Missouri with the guys.
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No trip to the Knoxville area is complete without a stop in Sevierville. I like to visit Music Outlet(lots of stuff to play crammed in a small space) and I can never get away without a trip to Smoky Mountain Knife Works. I’m sure you won’t be around for the night life, but there is live bluegrass at YeeHaw Brewery/Old Smoky Distillery (outside) in both Sevierville and Gatlinburg.
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Thanks, Dave! I looked it up on the Maps app and it looks like an easy detour to Sieverville for Saturday morning before heading over to the hotel in Mt. Juliet. I better lock my credit card in my car though as I may be buying a dulcimer tomorrow afternoon. Not sure why other than wife’s dad had one long ago and we have space on the wall in the music room for it. She’ll kill me (“We need to be getting rid of stuff, not getting more”) but she’ll get over it. I think. I can always bunk at my son’s till it blows over. Anyway, thanks for the tip. The knife shop sounds interesting….I have a whole story about my “sharp” knife the first time we cooked together. Perhaps they’ll have a nice kitchen knife for her that I can use to offset the dulcimer? Hmm.
Not sure if you’ve seen or responded to the pre-camp jam I’m loosely organizing at the Quality Inn and Suites in Mt. Juliet. @Mr_G is at a nearby hotel and we may try to get together and jam around 4PM or so at my hotel (or his, depends who has room!). I left a VM at my hotel asking if they have an outdoor picnic area, gazebo, something. Check out the forum (I have a thread called pre camp jam or something like that) or post your phone number and I’ll let you know if/when we are getting together.
Thanks again for the Sieverville tip!
Ron
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One more lesson to teach today, one more lesson tomorrow morning…. Then I am off to Nashville!
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I’m about 150 miles away in Knoxville…came down to see my friends Southern Spirit play at a local venue. Also bought a dulcimer! Heading up tomorrow.
We’ve talked about getting together to jam tomorrow…still interested? I called the hotel to see if they had a place we could play…the girl was very new and said we’d have to talk to the manager. She said there wasn’t a picnic area. I looked on Google Earth and there is no picnic area…but some small grassy space near the closed pool…maybe that would work.
hope you have a safe drive and I’ll look forward to meeting you!
Ron
920-312-8327
Mark,
Not sure we’ve talked about this or not. Mr. G and I have discussed getting together tomorrow afternoon for some pre-camp jam. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be any outdoor picnic or gazebo space at either hotel. I’d hate to sit in a room for that if we can avoid it. Let me know if you’re interested. My number is 920-312-8327.
Dave,
You owe me about $200. LoL! As planned (after reading your post) I went to Sieverville this morning as I was leaving Alcoa near Knoxville. Note to self…never take that 141 or whatever it was again! Talk about a narrow road, posted at 45 mph and no shoulders! It would have been a run road on my Harley but jeesh…
So I dropped about $60 at the Music Outlet. That place could be dangerous! What an amazing amount of musical stuff! While I was there a young lady (about 12 or so) was getting her first guitar. She was excited, her parents were groaning a tad about the $$ but it was cool to see the light in her eyes as she toted her new guitar, strap, stand, tuner…out the door.
Anyway, after wandering around a few minutes I saw some cool leather mandolin straps made by the Lakota tribe in South Dakota (I used to live in SD.) After a while one of the guys working there asked if I needed help. I told him I had my mandolin in the car and asked if I could bring it in to check color matching, fit, etc. He said, “Why don’t you just buy a NEW mandolin and leave that one in the car?” LoL. Instant Divorce: My wife bought that for me very early in our relationship when we were still giving each other presents. Anyway, I found a nice strap (my old one kept slipping and wasn’t very comfortable) but the strap button kept popping out. They fixed that, sold me a new button and out I went with a cool strap that won’t slip and a button that (hopefully) won’t pop out.
From there I went down to the knife place. Holey Moses it’s a good thing my wife wasn’t with….I’d have never gotten her out of there! Needless to say I pre-cleared a purchase with her and dropped $120 on a nice chef’s knife (thanks in part to a 10% military discount.)
So yeah, between the unplanned stops I dropped $200. You can pay me at camp!
LoL
Ron
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Just arrived. I checked into my room. Discovered I left a power cord for my amplifier for my bass at home. Had to leave the hotel to go find a bass amp. Heading back to hotel. Going to get something to eat. So I’m guessing a Saturday afternoon jam session is probably out for me I will see everybody tomorrow at Ben’s house!
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I gave up on it due to no space at my hotel. Just wrapping up dinner at Riverfront Tavern. Prob call it an early night. Looking forward to meeting you and the rest of the gang of 36 tomorrow!
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Man, I’m jealous. Y’all have fun.
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Absolutely love this, Ron. Glad you had a good time. You should absolutely bring the Harley back. You were incredibly close to a little stretch of road called “Tail of the Dragon”. 318 curves in 11 miles… I did it on a Suzuki Katana. It’s a little stressful for those of us that aren’t adrenaline junkies, but it’s still a pretty cool ride. I haven’t been on a bike in a pretty good while now, but I still love the drive out to Cherokee. It’s beautiful out there.
On a side note, I won’t be at this camp. I was there last fall and had a great time. I know you will love it.
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Ok… not gonna lie. I haven’t been this excited in forever. I could not sleep past 4 am today because beginning this afternoon Banjo Ben Clark’s bluegrass camp kicks off. Today, Monday, and Tuesday… all bluegrass all the time. World class instruction, tons of opportunity to jam and share music with other musicians coming in from all over! I haven’t given myself permission to do something just for me in years. I have a good friend (that I wish I could spend time with, but we are both busy, so you know how that goes) Gary Lamb who is what I would call “king of the side-hustle”. Like him, I have been all about side-hustles… looking for opportunities in my world of music and music instruction to find new revenue streams. But Sometimes you get so caught up in the “hustle” (even if it’s a hustle you LOVE) you don’t make time to do something just because it’s fun. This week, that is what I am doing. Am I a bluegrass musician? Not really. But I love it, so this week, I am going to have the time of my life with only one thought…. Gonna play me some bluegrass, adding to my soloing game on the guitar. And relax, enjoying the company of other folks like me. I will be back hustling Friday. But today…. Gentlemen, start your engines. Let the fun begin.
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Hi Dave, Sorry you aren’t gonna be at camp to give me my money! LoL
I have heard of the Tail of the Dragon and I flew with a woman one time who rode it every year (she lives in Nashville). The first time we flew together (Delta Connection) she noticed I was wearing a Harley Davidson cap in the cockpit. She dug around her bag and whipped out her HD cap. Between us we owned 7 Harleys…at that time! (I had 4, she had 3). Anyway, I may drag the bike out here to do that one time…would really prefer to do it when nobody else is on it…but we’ll see!
Thanks also for the feedback on the camp. I am really really really looking forward to it!
Ciao,
Ron
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We’re signing out of the same hymnal, Mr. G. I am retired now so I don’t have “the hustle” to get back to (DO miss my daily gym workouts) but I am as excited as a kid at Christmas. I woke up at 3AM mostly because someone was getting a car delivered (yes, delivered, not repo’d) right in front of my room! Who does that? Then for an hour there were people down there talking. So, I couldn’t sleep and I just daydreamed about the camp. Finally fell back to sleep at 4, got up at 6.
I don’t really call myself a musician, largely due to the lack of talent, but I love bluegrass and always have. My primary instrument is mandolin (as you know by now) but I brought my guitar for strumming in some of the jams (Ben mentioned that in the Cabin Camp anouncement.) I am a 3-chord strummer, that’s about it! Okay, maybe 6 but nothing fancy!
Like you I am excited to be hanging around for 3 days with people with the same interests. I’m looking forward to just playing, getting some good instruction, learning some new technique, hearing others play, etc.
This is gonna be a hoot!
See you in a few hours!
Ron
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Shep’s for breakfast before camp. Oh. My. Goodness! Five points area, it was fine!
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Nice! My primary instrument is mandolin but I brought my Ovation Balladeer guitar just in case some jammin’ needs strummin’
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