Friday, December 9, 2022

Matt Petersen: A Bluegrass treasure

Matt Petersen, the guitarist for the Petersens, spends much of his time as a strong supporting instrumentalist and vocalist, who is particularly adept at fine harmonies with his sisters.

Matt rarely misses a note and is usually the one who corrects the others if they happen to begin in the wrong key (which doesn't happen very often).

Aside from being highly photogenic, Matt has a really smooth, fine voice. In a comment on a video of his (the first below), his sister Katie says, "This is so beautiful, Matty." We agree. It's a superb rendition of a Haggard number.

(Tho the band does traditional Bluegrass superbly, it also does plenty of "Bluegrass fusion," which includes grassed-up rock, country and pop.)

Below are videos featuring Matt.

The Petersens Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@ThePetersens

Christmas with the Petersens
Grapevine, Texas. Saturday, Dec. 10., 3 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
https://tickets.grapevineticketline.com/event/christmas-with-the-petersens-2022YMpmhgk

Thursday, December 8, 2022

New album draws more media attention

Report on the Petersens in the Catholic magazine Aleteia.
https://aleteia.org/2022/12/07/wayfaring-stranger-as-youve-never-heard-it-before-and-the-family-behind-the-music/

INSPIRING STORIES
“Wayfaring Stranger” as you’ve never heard it before — and the family behind the music

Sarah Robsdottir. Published 12/07/22

The Petersens' new album 'My Ozark Mountain Home' called on 400 fans to become their choir, and it "sounds like heaven."

The beloved bluegrass group The Petersens recently released an abbreviated version of the spiritual classic “Wayfaring Stranger” on YouTube in order to give fans a taste of what’s in store for them on their new album My Ozark Mountain Home.

The album was released on The Petersens’ website and on streaming platforms on November 18. Within a few hours of “Wayfaring Stranger” being shared on YouTube, it attracted over 50K views, and it’s easy to see why.

The remainder of the article is behind a paywall.

Tuesday, December 6, 2022

Julianne, come on home
-- where you can drive anywhere

Oxford residents face enforced 'climate' lockdown
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/12/05/oxford-county-councillors-to-introduce-trial-climate-lockdown-in-2024/

Imagine if your power mad politicians liked Covid Lockdowns so much, they wanted to continue them indefinitely. This is going to be trialled in Oxfordshire in Britain.
Oxfordshire County Council Pass Climate Lockdown ‘trial’ to Begin in 2024
Oxfordshire County Council yesterday approved plans to lock residents into one of six zones to ‘save the planet’ from global warming. The latest stage in the ’15 minute city’ agenda is to place electronic gates on key roads in and out of the city, confining residents to their own neighbourhoods.
Under the new scheme if residents want to leave their zone they will need permission from the Council who gets to decide who is worthy of freedom and who isn’t. Under the new scheme residents will be allowed to leave their zone a maximum of 100 days per year, but in order to even gain this every resident will have to register their car details with the council who will then track their movements via smart cameras round the city.
Communism will make the weather better
Oxfordshire County Council, which is run by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, secretly decided to divide-up the city of Oxford into six ‘15 minute’ districts in 2021 soon after they were elected to office. None of the councillors declared their intention of imprisoning local residents in their manifestos of course, preferring to make vague claims about how they will ‘improve the environment’ instead.
Every resident will be required to register their car with the County Council who will then monitor how many times they leave their district via number plate recognition cameras. And don’t think you can beat the system if you’re a two car household. Those two cars will be counted as one meaning you will have to divide up the journeys between yourselves. 2 cars 50 journeys each; 3 cars 33 journeys each and so on.
This story is so crazy, I wanted corroboration. This is the same story published in the Oxford Mail:
Traffic filters will divide city into six ‘15 minute’ neighbourhoods, agrees highways councillor
25th October
ROAD blocks stopping most motorists from driving through Oxford city centre will divide the city into six “15 minute” neighbourhoods, a county council travel chief has said.
And he insisted the controversial plan would go ahead whether people liked it or not.
Duncan Enright, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for travel and development strategy, explained the authority’s traffic filter proposals in an interview in the Sunday Times.
He said the filters would turn Oxford into “a 15-minute city” with local services within a small walking radius.
…
People can drive freely around their own neighbourhood and can apply for a permit to drive through the filters, and into other neighbourhoods, for up to 100 days per year. This equates to an average of two days per week.
Oxfordshire is the home of the University of Oxford, one of Britain’s premier learning institutions.
Communist states like the Soviet Union and China seem to love movement restrictions and internal passports. In my opinion Britain has been edging closer to naked communism for at least half a century, so I guess it was inevitable that an attempt would be made at some point to introduce Chinese style movement restrictions on British people. In my opinion the climate claims are just an excuse, an attempt to deflect criticism of their authoritarianism.
I would love to write that the University of Oxford is up in arms, that Oxford academics are outraged at this attempt to restrict people’s freedom, but so far I have not discovered one utterance of public outrage from university academics.
For almost a thousand years the University of Oxford stood as a beacon of intellectual freedom. A number of leading Oxford intellectuals were hanged or otherwise persecuted over the centuries, because of their resistance to authoritarianism. So it seems incredibly sad that the inheritors of that proud tradition seem so willing to turn their backs on those freedoms their predecessors sometimes laid down their lives to defend.

This story is flat out insane. Why on earth would the residents of Oxford tolerate these sandal-wearing dictators? More to come on this, I’m sure.

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Bluegrass Today review

My Ozark Mountain Home — The Petersens

Posted on November 28, 2022 By Lee Zimmerman

There’s something to be said about family bands, as evidenced by the success that was seen by the Jacksons, the Cowsills, the Osmonds, the Nelsons, and any number of sterling sibling combos in pop music history. It’s certainly not out of the ordinary in the bluegrass world, with acts like The Lewis Family running for decades, but in many cases, family bands tend to operate for a limited time outside the musical mainstream, with many relegated to a cult-like status.

Nevertheless, The Petersens have proved that familial bonds can reap prolific and productive benefits. The band, which consists of four adult brothers and sisters — Katie (fiddle), Ellen (banjo), Matt (guitar), and Julianne (vocals) — and their parents Karen (bass) and Jon (guitar), as well as family friend Emmett Franz (dobro, production), have become a cottage industry of sorts, one that’s crisscrossed the country through touring and performances on the festival circuit. But their mainstay is regular two-or-three-times-a-week concerts at The Little Opry Theater in Branson, MO where they can brag of being the resort town’s most highly rated show.

They’ve also released a string of independent LPs in the process. The group’s new album, My Ozark Mountain Home, mainly consists of standards and traditional tunes, but even with that familiarity factor, they manage to infuse their own distinctive identity into each of their offerings.

That heartfelt sentiment is evident in the new album’s title track. So too, the sun literally seems to shine through on a tender and transformative take of Here Comes the Sun. In each case, The Petersens show their ability to adapt their harmonious sound to a variety of songs and settings, be it vintage or otherwise. Even when they retrace well-trodden musical terrain — John Denver’s Annie’s Song and Take Me Home, Country Roads being two more obvious examples — it’s charm, not challenge that finds both purpose and prominence.

That said, one should already know quite well what to expect when it comes to covers such as Wayfaring Stranger, Wild Mountain Thyme, Amazing Grace, and Down to the River to Pray, given the fact that these songs find a natural fit within the group’s traditional template. Yet the seamless blend of classic and contemporary remains a consistent mark of their credibility and commitment.

Ultimately, the new album demands nothing more than a desire to simply relish a soothing musical sojourn, one capable of lifting the listener well beyond their everyday cares and concerns. For that reason alone, consider My Ozark Mountain Home a comforting homecoming in every regard.

The Pookie Monster

She hunts pookies.

Saturday, November 26, 2022

What I'm saying...

In the "Live Album Version" of "Wayfaring," we have an arrangement that omits the bass. No bass just to have a bass, I guess. But, that's how it should be. By skipping the bass, Julz, well supported, was able to do a more experimental, sort of exotic "Wayfaring."

Interestingly, the dobro is much more spare than usual. Sometimes less is more, for sure.

On the other hand, the previous version of "Wayfaring" featuring Julz, well supported by all band members, is really, really fine also.

[I just love the flowing rhythm of Julz's singing. She really rolls.]

Version 2.

Version 1.

Thursday, November 24, 2022

Wonders of his love

At the refrain "the wonders of his love," Katie casts loving looks at a 14- or 15-year-old Julz. Julz doesn't notice, but shortly thereafter casts a loving look at Katie.

What's up with this "blog"?

This "blog" is meant more as a message board than a blog. I post many quickie ideas for a few people to take or leave. Other random viewers may be perplexed that so many posts are taken down after only hours or days. Well, the stuff isn't meant for anything more than a quick heads up, or a "that's real cool," or a "what about this (probably zany) idea?" I also post all kinds of music videos -- just 'cauz. This way, I needn't fill up certain inboxes with a bunch of unsolicited stuff. In any case, great words of wisdom are definitely not what this message board is about.

♬ A Lowly Fan's Notes on Notes ♬