Thanks for visiting. This site is currently getting redesigned and things are a little messy. If you are looking for something and can’t find it, please email Jason at jason@knowingtrees.com . He’ll do his best to be helpful!
It was a thrill to be in a packed house at The Guild a couple weekends ago, for a screening of You’ve Got Gold. I thought it was fantastic. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings were a favorite. I also liked Jason Isbell. (I must admit that I’ve never sug into his catalog.)
The film is on a pretty big tour. You can find out more about that, and watch the trailer here. https://www.yougotgoldmovie.com/
We got to hear Robyn Hitchcock at the South Broadway Cultural Center last week. He’s such a fantastic performer.
He played two sets of music, all requests, with his wife Emma adding some harmony for the last few songs. Then, he played the “encore” in the lobby. It was incredibly beautiful when he started A Day in the Life by the Beatles and everyone gently joined in for a sing along.
Last night wrapped up the Late Winter 2025 session of Guitar Crew. The Crew was made up of five guitar players with experiences ranging from less than a year to many years.
We finished by recording our own arrangement of Bob Wills’ Faded Love. This is a recording of the five members of this sessions’ Crew. I’m accompanying on percussion.
We covered many skills and concepts this session. Some of those topics, which you can hear in this arrangement, were:
I think it sounds so good! Congratulations, Guitar Crew!
The Early Spring session of Guitar Crew begins in mid-March. We’d love to have you be part of the Crew! Send me a note if you have anyquestions.
Six classes on Wednesday evenings, 6:00 to 8:00, per session…
I was quite honored when, last summer, Jonas Friddle of Banjo After Dark, asked me to make a guest video.
The topic I choose was one we regularly work on in Guitar Crew; knowing which songs are appropriate to bring to the jam.
In this video I share my thoughts on, why it’s fun to bring a song to lead at an open jam, the types of songs to lead, and a few pointers to smooth the bumpy road that that beginning song leaders alway encounter.
Do you have any advice to share, or an interesting story from a time when you lead a song, or when you heard someone else lead a song? We’d love to hear it!
p.s. I highly recommend joining Jonas’ Banjo After Dark Patreon page. It’s free to join (although tossing a few bucks his way is always helpful) and I think you’ll find some fantastic resources.
Frank and Jason Play Little Birdie
In the previous post I wrote a about recording recording Little Birdie with puja and maria. That got me thinking about Frank Hamilton who taught me that song when I went to visit him in 2010.
Here’s a recording of Little Birdie as we sang it that day.
I talked with Frank the other day and he sounds fantastic. His enthusiasm and positivity rang through my earbuds just like always. It had been a long time since we talked and I was very glad to hear his voice.
I was so honored that maria and Puja invited me to record this song with them for their album, an area of the celestial sphere under the pecan tree.
This video is our first take of the song. It isn’t the one that made the album, but I love this version just the same. This is the album version. If you follow the link you can hear and purchase the whole album which is a truly beautiful collection of music.
A couple of our friends, Jess Baldissero (Joybird) and Jonas Friddle, have recordings of the song, too. You can add these recordings, and the accompanying albums, to your collection at their respective bandcamp pages.
It was the summer of 2015 and there was an excited buzz in the air as the audience was finding their seats for the Young Stracke All-Stars album release show. It had become known that Ella Jenkins had made it to the show, and everyone knew they were in the presence of someone very special. Ella and I had met several times and had even played some gigs together, but we didn’t know each other so well yet. I was quite honored that she had accepted our invitation, and that we could share our music with her.
By the fall of 2015 I had heard that Ella had moved into an assisted care facility not far from the Old Town School of Folk Music, where I was teaching, and the neighborhood where I lived. Eventually, something inside me clicked and I thought, “Oh. The kids don’t have school next Monday because of the holiday. We should go visit Ella!”
https://www.knowingtrees.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Charlie-IMG_7889.mov
⬆️ 🎶 Turn on the sound! 🎶 ⬆️
For the rest of my time in Chicago, we had a regular meetup with Ella when school was not in session. I’d stop at the store to pick up some snacks for the kids, a bouquet of flowers, and peppermint ice cream, which was Ella’s favorite.
We’d all gather in a communal room at the facility. This room had a piano and lots of space for us to spread out our instrument case, winter coats and snacks and little siblings would have room to roam freely. The facility staff was always very kind and graciously put up with us moving the furniture around.
Sometimes we’d have lots of families, other times it was just a few. No matter what we’d always have quite a time singing The Cuckoo, This Train, This Little Light of Mine and lots of other favorites! Often, a small crowd of other residents and their caregivers would gather to sing and clap along with us.
I’m not sure how affected the kids were by being in the presence of someone famous, which Ella was. But Ella’s aura was never about fame. The intense, potent energy that one felt in Ella’s presence came from her love of music and community.
When I think back on my time leading the Young Stracke All-Stars, and teaching in Chicago, these are some of my strongest memories. Not memories like stories, but memories of a feeling that, through our visits, we were all able to gather our lessons in music and community and take them out of the classroom and bring them to life in the larger world. In many ways, that world had, at least some way, been opened to us by Ella Jenkins and her music.
It was in afternoons like these, and other days when it was just Ella in me, that she became a very dear friend of mine. I’m not sure she could always remember my name, but I know that she knew who I was and she was always glad to have me visit. We had an understanding that we traveled together in the spirit of music.
I was lucky that she and I had some quiet, peaceful time together on her 100th birthday, last August. Ella was very tired, but the sound of my uke perked her up and soon she was all smiles and lifted up by the music and singing along and playing imaginary drums. As you might imagine, we sang through some favorites; the Cuckoo, This Little Light of Mine and one of her favorites, The Glory of Love as performed by her friend Big Bill Broonzy.
Ella’s spirit traveled on, on November 9, 2024.
It make me sad that I won’t be able to sing with her in person anymore. Thankfully, at least one of her songs comes to my lips every day.
I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to learn so much from her and to have spent so much heart-felt time together.
Putting on a show for all the other residence to celebrate Ella’s birthday.
Click on a photo to see a bigger image.
I’m so excited to share with you some new music from my dear one, Maria McCullough, and a great friend and wonderful musician, mx puja singh. They have a new album which came out this week called an area of the celestial sphere under the pecan tree
Maria and puja wrote and recorded this music over about a week’s time at our house in Albuquerque, NM. What a gift I was give, to hang around and watch and listen to the process unfold as the songs were coming together.
And, I am honored that they invited me to play my banjo on a couple of the tracks. One of the songs is sītā rām (live) which you can listen to right here.
Purchase the whole album at puja’s bandcamp page, https://mxpujasingh.bandcamp.com/album/an-area-of-the-celestial-sphere-under-the-pecan-tree
Jess Baldissero is not only a good friend, she is one of my favorite songwriters. I was honored that she sat with me earlier in the week to discuss the discoveries and accidents of the creative process. We shared some laughs, talked about good times and hard times and we each played a few songs.
Getting to Know Trees knowingtrees.com · Songwriters' Exchange with Jason McInnes and Jess Baldissero
Three tracks from The Hermit, my debut solo album are streaming during the pre-order period. The full album will be released June 28, 2024 on Bandcamp.
http://joybird.bandcamp.comPick up Jess’s music, featuring her band Joybird, at Bandcamp also.
Musical Dreaming – it’s a practice that I took part in, but had never really considered until some great chats with my old friend John Donahue.
I think about John and his musical dreaming a lot when I meet with frustrated students.
Dreaming with Your Guitar .pdf
They wanted to play more. They’re just too busy. They’re frustrated with the pace of their progress. They’re overwhelmed and don’t know what to practice.
I get it. I feel that way about music all the time. Thankfully, I’ve developed some strategies to get me out of such a funk and this is one of them.
Next time you don’t know what to play, or are bored or frustrated with the same old songs, try some dreaming.
The video is the best description I can make of this process. I’ve also made a .pdf that has some drawings that can be useful, but there’s very little instruction on it.
I hope you find this useful.
