We are beyond thrilled to have two incredible old-time performers play for us at our next meeting on Monday, March 11, 2019 at 7: 00 pm at our usual spot: the lovely Medford Memorial Community Center, 21 South Main Street, Medford, NJ: Kellie Allen and Pete Peterson.
Guests and Visitors $10 at the door.
Admission is free to current SJARMS members.
Info on membership: please see the membership tab at the top at www.sjarms.com
Please park in the gravel lot behind the Center and enter the building through the back porch entrance.
Of course we will have an all-level acoustic jam after Kellie and Pete perform until 9:25 pm.
As always, we can utilize the various rooms on the first floor of the Center for jamming.
Just a reminder, SJARMS is allowed to use the first floor only. We do not have access to the 2nd floor of the building.
About Kellie Allen and Pete Peterson:
Kellie and Pete have been harmonizing and making music together since 2000. They both enjoy deconstructing a old-time or early bluegrass song or tune from the original recording and turning it into their own music. They can be found during festival season in the middle of jams at Mt. Airy, Clifftop, Lake Genero and other festivals, and hosting parties at their house in Oxford, PA.
Since 2003 they have been members of a five-piece band, the Orpheus Supertones (with Walt Koken, Clare Milliner and Hilary Dirlam), which has traveled extensively in the United States, Australia and Europe. Additionally, the Supertones run a local concert series in Oxford, PA, the Fiddlers’ Follies. http://www.mudthumper.com/orpheus-supertones.html
They also play regularly with Jane Rothfield as two-thirds of the Jane Rothfield Trio and are a sought-after back-up duo for fiddlers and singers from all over the U.S. and beyond.
In addition to performing, they really enjoy showing other how to play and sing in the styles they have learned in individual lessons, short workshops, and week-long classes at music camps.
They believe that the second Golden Age of old-time music is right NOW.
Their duet CD, “I’ll Never Forsake You,” is available for sale or download on Amazon, iTunes & CDBaby
Here is a partial list of larger venues at which Pete and Kellie have taught and performed: Philadelphia Folk Festival (PA), Clifftop (WV), Wheatlands (MI), the MBOTMA Bluegrass Festival (MN), Mars Hill Old-Time Music Week (NC), Rockbridge (VA), the Florida Folk Festival (FL), Sonoma County Bluegrass Festival (CA), Gainsborough Old-Time Music Festival (UK), Maldon Folk Festival (AU), Mountaingrass (AU), LEAF (NC), Cornish Bluegrass Festival (UK), Blackwood Festival of Arts and Music (US), Stephen Foster Old-Time Music Weekend (FL), Augusta Old-Time and Vocal week (WV), Southwest Pickers Festival (NM), Charlotte Folk Music Society Concert Series (NC), Brandywine Friends of Old-Time Music Concert Series (DE), Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival (NJ), Portland Old-Time Music Gathering (OR)
About Kellie Allen:
Kellie grew up listening to her grandma’s piano playing, her dad’s barbershop quartet singing, her mom’s tales of playing the snare drum in the ladies’ USO band in Victoria, TX, her five siblings’ vocal harmonies, and the beginning days of brother Greg’s old time banjo playing and fiddling, which led to his persistent requests for guitar backup from Kellie. She responded by using her guitar skills to form an alternative rock band, Pay Attention. The Allen family still spends time singing whenever they get together.
Kellie has developed a driving backup guitar style with bass runs, listening extensively to guitar heroes such as Roy Harvey, Riley Puckett and Charlie Monroe. She has adapted that to the upright bass, and in recent years has been playing mandolin. Her vocal influences start with Maybelle Carter, Julia Mainer, and gospel great Jeanette Cooke, and include the tenor singers of the great brother duets such as Ira Louvin and Bill Monroe. She is also an excellent lead singer, having won a number of singing prizes at festivals.
Some Of Kellie’s past workshop topics and classes have been:
Introduction to Backup Guitar
Bass Runs for the Guitar
Playing Guitar in a String Band
Introduction to Upright Bass
Bass Runs for the Upright Bass
Finding Your Vocal Range (with Pete)
Duet/Harmony Singing (with Pete)
Lesser Known Old-Time Gospel Songs (with Pete)
About Pete Peterson:
Pete’s earliest musical memories are singing songs from the “Fireside Book of American Folk Songs” to his mother’s piano accompaniment. Although she taught piano professionally, he resisted learning, and was given a guitar at Christmas 1959. Four months later, he was singing a Tom Lehrer song in his high school’s talent show. A banjo followed several months later, which led to the New Lost City Ramblers and, eventually, to County Records reissues and reel-to-reel tapes and to a lifelong interest in the music of the Carter Family, Uncle Dave Macon, the Skillet Lickers and most of all, Charlie Poole. In fact, Pete owns and plays one of Charlie Poole’s banjos, presented to him him in a midnight seance organized by the late Ray Alden, where “a long-distance call to Hell” informed him that Poole himself wanted him to have that banjo. He has used this banjo to win a number of banjo contests (including the Charlie Poole Festival’s Grand Prize for fingerstyle banjo) and have a great deal of fun along the line, playing in the pre-Bluegrass three-finger banjo styles of Poole, Macon and others.
Some of Pete’s past workshop topics and classes have been:
Introduction to Fingerstyle Banjo
Maybelle Carter’s Guitar Style
Music of the Carter Family
Finding Your Vocal Range (with Kellie)
Duet/Harmony Singing (with Kellie)
Lesser Known Old-Time Gospel Songs (with Kellie)
Link to Kellie and Pete’s Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/GnarlyDuets/?modal=admin_todo_tour
