Cooling at the Cave, Dunbar Cave, July 30 2011!

From the moment we arrived to start setting up for the "Cooling at the Cave" event at Dunbar Cave in Clarksville, TN on Saturday, July 30th - we were surrounded by enthusiasm, friendliness and helpfulness. With some help from Sally Schiller, of "Friends of Dunbar Cave" we decided to setup as close to the cave mouth as we could get to take full advantage of the cool air coming from the cave. This was instead of playing on the concrete stage area that has been in place since the early days of the 20th century when musicians from Nashville traveled to Dunbar Cave in the summer to take advantage of the coolness of the cave to play dances on Saturday nights. The stage to me, was too hot (always worried about the dulcimer) and too removed from the audience.

Of course, setting up near the cave entrance meant trying to find areas where the ceiling was not dripping on the floor. The evidence was in the wet areas on the floor - and there were a lot of them! Note how carefully we positioned our instruments to avoid the damp spots on the floor which indicated water drips!
As the "Friends of Dunbar Cave" bustled around setting up chairs (which needed to be moved because we moved - and no one was upset!), tables for the board games, and the concession stand, we got to work setting up for our 2 hour concert. Amazingly, on such a hot day on a Saturday afternoon, the cave parking lot was full when we arrived at 2:30 and the participation for the event was amazing!

Even before we were all ready to start playing, the chairs to watch our performance were filling up and we could feel the enthusiasm growing. Children discovered the stage area we had opted not to use and their laughter echoed through the cave overhang as they climbed over the levels.

Oh for a magaphone, or a microphone! While the audience could hear us play just fine, talking to them to tell the stories of the next tunes they were about to hear took every bit of lung power I had (and I have a lot) to be heard above the ambient noise ricochetting through the cave overhand - kids having a ton of fun, folks playing board games and just general noise from people having fun. The audience was amazing. Everyone was very warm and enthusiastic and the applause was defeaning! And thanks for laughing at my jokes! When the audience is enjoying what we are doing and engaged with us, we can't help but play to our best - despite low light and water drips, and an interesting combination of cool air from the cave and hot air from the outside mingling right around us.... amazingly, the hammered dulcimer held its tuning pretty well!

To the "Friends of Dunbar Cave" and all the folks who shared two hours of our music with us under the overhang to the cave, we had a blast! We hope to see you at another of our performances soon!

All photos taken by David Magers, except for the last one which was taken by the Leaf Chronicle.

We Have New Music.. Or Is That "New Old" Music?

It's been a busy and productive summer for us. We've played a number of events... many of them outside in what has turned out to an unusually hot summer! ... as well as at our weekly Friday night gig at The Looking Glass on Warfield Blvd in Clarksville, TN. We have many more events on the schedule. Check out where we are going to be playing this month and next at our calendar page on our website at http://www.redriverbreeze.com/.

Our performance list of traditional tunes currently contains 63 sets of tunes for a total of 119 different tunes. We are working on 26 tunes which are new to us even though they have been around for at least 200 years. Learning new tunes to add to our repetoire is always an exciting time as we practice these "new" traditional tunes and arrange them so that they maintain their distinct cultural flavor but are also uniquely "us"!

Traditional music with Celtic origins as well as other world cultures often have interesting titles that make us wonder what the story behind the tune is. Sometimes, we can discover the history and story of the tune - which we love to share with our audiences. But for many of these tunes, we never find out the meaning of the titles but enjoy playing them anyway. Several of the tunes we are currently learning and adding to our repetoire have unusual titles including: Down the Broom, Sleep sound in the Mornin, If You Will Not Have Me You May Let Me Go (a rollicking fast tune that is barely longer than the tune!), Lilting Banshee, Wha Wadna Fecht for Charlie (Who Wouldn't Fight for Charlie), Shall I Sue (and it doesn't mean sue in a court of law!), and Mairi's Wedding.

We will debuting these new tunes over the coming weeks at our Friday night gigs at The Looking Glass as well as our other performances. We hope you come on out and listen to our unique interpretations of these traditional tunes as well as all of the tunes you have heard us play and grown to love!

We've Changed...But We Are Still Red River Breeze!

It's been awhile since I've posted on this blog. Which is definitely my bad...! But we have been actually very busy so far this year and now I would like to catch you up on some of the changes to the band. As you can see from the picture, we have a new look. The biggest change is that earlier this year we officially "down sized" from eight members to the four of us in the picture: Stephanie on hammered dulcimer, Byron and Melanie on fiddle, and David on guitar. We are even changing this up a bit at times by moving Bryon to guitar, David to hammered dulcimer, and Stephanie to Irish whistle with Melanie remaining on fiddle. So, we are quite a bit smaller but we have quite a lot of flexibility!

We have had to say goodby this year to Sarah (whistle), David Elder (mandolin), Dixie (guitar) and Steve (bass). All have found their lives changing and going in new directions and the four of us wish them the best of luck and happiness in their new pursuits. The reality of bands are that they are constantly changing, but the spirit of Red River Breeze is alive, well and very busy making music!

Check out out new and updated web site - it has a new look and our full year's schedule is now being kept there: http://www.redriverbreeze.com/. And, you can also stay in touch with us on our facebook page. We would love for you to "like" us, check out the event photos we've posted there, and drop us a comment. Find us on facebook by searching for Red River Breeze.

We are starting to "talk about" recording our next CD, which will be the band's third recording. Our 2nd CD, "Morgan's Song", has done amazingly. But, it's time to do another recording to reflect who we are and what are music is today with the four of us. Stay posted as we decide what type of CD to record (should we do a traditional Christmas CD, Civil War tunes, or a variety of Celtic, Renaissance, Old-Time and World tunes?) And let us know what you'd like us to record by posting on our facebook page if you have any ideas!