Joe Val was a great one, indeed. He loved Lorraine’s music and encouraged her dulcimer playing. The annual festival in his name is the most fun  you can have in Framingham, or in a Sheraton hotel anywhere, for that matter!

 We’ll hold a workshop called Appalachian Antecedents – The Roots of Bluegrass. The best Bluegrass starts out as old-time music. We’ll follow some old time songs and tunes on their way from the farm-house kitchen to the Grand Ol’ Opry.

   http://www.bbu.org/events/joe-val-festival/

Lorraine and Bennett play their Kitchen Junket concert, and Lorraine and Colleen Cleveland share a ballad workshop at New England Folk Festival, Mansfield, MA.  www.NEFFA.org/

NEFFA is all about love and folk music. None of the performers is paid. Players who are only in it for the money do not play NEFFA. Look for us at the Old Time jam, which gathers under a tree near the  gourmet hotdog wagon  between the two school buildings.

What, another New Year already? I was just getting used to this one…  Oh, well – on the bright side there’s the SAMW Reunion in the Ryan Lounge, on the UMass Boston Campus, coming up on Sunday the 5th of January.  We’ll all be together again to talk about the Summer line-up, eat lunch and drink coffee, have a guided jam, you know, the usual SAMW routine. Bring along a pigeon, uh, I mean a friend who could use a lil’ SAMW in their life.

for information and to sign up email  samw@umb.edu or phone WUMB/fm, 617/287-6900

www.sallyobriensbar.com/

Everyone around here knows already that Dan and Faith Senie’s house concert series is a fabulously cozy little venue. The music room is just off the live-in kitchen and the only down side to playing there is audible tummy gurgles evoked by the aroma of fresh-baked bread.

www.danandfaith.com

Banjo Camp! Where Old Time and Bluegrass players play together. Can a more soul-satisfying place exist?

Lorraine  has been everything at Banjo Camp, from Music Director to resident goddess.She teaches her customary user-friendly banjo curriculum, beginner and advanced levels, and presents  workshops on the music of some great figures in the history of the banjo, of Country Music and of the recording industry, who are less well known, perhaps, because they happen to be women.

Bennett teaches his uniquely simple little thumb-and-index picking he calls RockaFolky, and his customary de-mystification of the left-hand.

Check ’em out: Google Banjo Camp North, or mugwumps.

May 16, 17, & 18, 2014

Lorraine teaches intermediate mando. at the John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown NC