Pittsboro NC Janie's Jumpstart
Friday-Sunday Feb 22-24, 2019
Janie Rothfield
Fiddle
Joe Newberry
Clawhammer Banjo
Jim Watson
Guitar/Songs
Janie Rothfield is an award winning clawhammer banjo player and fiddler who has been playing old-time music “forever.” She has toured professionally for over 35 years, during which she has also been a composer, recording artist, band leader, teacher, and event organizer, with fans around the world. Her clawhammer banjo style borrows heavily from both the traditional and inventive aspects of her fiddle style, and is characterized by great power, drive and in-the-pocket rhythm. Her teaching method combines an easy to learn technique that combines strategies for learning to play by ear quickly with a focus on musicality and rhythm! Janie performs with numerous old time and dance bands, and currently tours with the duo, Hen's Teeth. Her latest solo CD, “Out of Thin Air,” features 15 of her own compositions.Two of her tunes have won the Best Non-Traditional Tune at Clifftop Appalachian Stringband Festival! Her newest solo CD, OUT OF THIN AIR, features all of her own compositions and songs, and in 2016 she release both wonderful CD of Fiddle/Harmonica duets with harmonica master, Brendan Power called PUFNSAW, and OFF THE CUFF AND ON THE FLY with her duo Hen's Teeth (With Nathan Bontrager)! Jane performs with numerous bands, including Coracree, Hen's Teeth, The Janie Rothfield Old Time Trio and with daughter Shona Carr as Little Missy.
Janie has taught clawhammer banjo and fiddle for over 35 years, privately and at camps and festivals such as Banjo Camp North, Midwest Banjo Camp, Old Songs Summer Camps, Janie's Jumpstart, Heart of the Alleghanies Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Folk College and the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, FOATMAD Weekend (Wales), in England, Scotland, Germany and the Netherlands, and Australia.
"Janie came highly recommended so I had high expectations. They were met and exceeded. I've been playing fiddle for years, trying to learn from books and the internet. After Janie showed me the proper way to hold the fiddle and bow, and proper bowing technique, all those tunes I know became so much easier to play. Then she showed me the most important thing about playing any instrument; the difference between playing notes and making music. And the whole time I never feel like I'm taking lessons. I feel like I'm just hanging out playing music and learning new things. Most importantly, I'm excited about learning because it has become fun again." Jamie McCracken- Janie's Fiddle student
“Janie has shown me how to pull the melody out of old time tunes on my banjo… to make them less busy and more musical. I had developed some poor habits throwing every banjo cliché I ever learned into each tune I played. Janie showed me how to strip out all of the unnecessary stuff… to concentrate on the melody and rhythm which ultimately “pops” the tunes and makes them more beautiful.” Tim Wade-clawhammer banjo (Doylestown, PA)
https://hensteethduo.bandcamp.com/releases Listen to Janie with Hen's Teeth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZW6NbBw1kI Janie playing Buck Mountain
About Joe Newberry
Known around the world for his clawhammer banjo playing, Joe Newberry is also a powerful guitarist, singer and songwriter. The Gibson Brothers’ version of his song “Singing As We Rise,” featuring guest vocalist Ricky Skaggs, won the 2012 IBMA “Gospel Recorded Performance” Award. With Eric Gibson, he shared the 2013 IBMA “Song of the Year” Award for “They Called It Music.” Newberry has the distinction of having captured each banjo prize at the Appalachian String Band Music Festival in Clifftop, WV, over the years - from Fifth to First Place.
A long-time and frequent guest on A Prairie Home Companion, he was a featured singer on the Transatlantic Sessions 2016 tour of the U.K. with fiddler Aly Bain and Dobro master Jerry Douglas, and at the Transatlantic Session's debut at Merlefest in 2017 with fellow singers James Taylor, Sarah Jarosz, Declan O’Rourke, Karen Matheson, and Maura O’Connell. In addition to performing solo, he plays in a duo with mandolin icon Mike Compton, and also performs with the dynamic fiddler and step-dancer April Verch.
Newberry has taught banjo, guitar, singing, and songwriting at numerous camps and festivals, including Ashokan, Midwest Banjo Camp, American Banjo Camp, the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Targhee Music Camp, the Swannanoa Gathering, Centrum Voice Works, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, Pinewoods Camp, Vocal Week, Bluegrass Week, and Old-Time Week at the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, WV, the Australia National Folk Festival, Sorefingers Summer School in Kingham, U.K., the Blue Ridge Old-Time Music Week, and the Bluff Country Gathering. He was for many years the coordinator of Old-Time Week at the Augusta Heritage Center.
Growing up in a family full of singers and dancers, he took up the guitar and banjo as a teenager and learned fiddle tunes from great Missouri fiddlers. Newberry moved to North Carolina as a young man and quickly became an anchor of the incredible music scene in the state. Still going strong more than 35 years later, he does solo and studio work, and plays and teaches at festivals and workshops in North America and abroad.
Video Clips
Last Chance
Missouri Borderlands
Resurrection Day
Quotes
“His lyrics read like a cross between Longfellow and Johnny Cash. The muse is sometimes gentle and other times rough. But she never strays too far from Joe Newberry's side.” -- Independent Weekly
"Most contemporary old-time artists get their inspiration from recordings either commercial or field made. Most of the time the artists spend their energy trying to copy the sound of their source. Joe Newberry goes one step further... He takes the music and makes it his own, and always respectfully." -- SingOut!
Transatlantic Sessions review... "Appalachian veteran Joe Newberry allied his trenchant, raw-boned holler with lickety-split banjo picking." -- The Scotsman Newspaper
Jim Watson has had a long career in old time music and bluegrass. He was a founding member of the Red Clay Ramblers in 1972, playing guitar, mandolin, and bass, and also toured for many years with Robin & Linda Williams, playing bass with them. He presently plays with a variety of groups around his home in Chapel Hill, NC. More recently he has performed with The Red Clay Ramblers, Crave Hicks Watson & Newberry and the Piedmont Melody Makers.
In addition to his recordings with The Ramblers, Craver, HIcks, Watson and Newberry and the Piedmont Melody Makers, Jim has released 4 solo cds, including a live recording of his Christmas show at the Cave in Chapel Hill which he has been doing yearly since 1986. He also was on the 2nd Hollow Rock String Band album in 1974 and recorded again with Alan Jabbour on the album You Can’t Beat the Classics, which included Ken Perlman on banjo, released in 2015.
Jim is in much demand as a teacher of bluegrass and oldtime style guitar and mandolin He has taught at various camps, including Common Ground on the Hill (old time mandolin), Augusta (old time mandolin, beginning bluegrass guitar, beginning old time guitar), and the Swannanoa Gathering (a Carter Family singing class, and an old time song class) and now, Janie's Jumpstart!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foamhL5xAqo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptct3aH3L3g
