The Poor Ellen Smith Band will be performing at The Barrel Oak Winery located in Delaplane, Virginia on Sunday afternoon, September 5, 2010 and then again the following weekend on Saturday, September 11, 2010.
Due to previous personal commitments Steve and Barry won’t be playing the Sunday show on the 5th – so Armin and Howard will be performing as a dynamic duo at the band’s favorite vineyard. To make the show a little more exciting Poor Ellen Smith’s good friend Todd C. Walker will be splitting sets with Armin & Howard through out the day. The boys will be starting up the music on Sunday afternoon at around 1:00 PM and will be playing till around 5:00 PM.
The Poor Ellen Smith Band is very pleased that Todd C.Walker has graciously accepted the offer from the band to share the bill with Armin and Howard. Currently hailing from the Frederick, Maryland area Todd is certainly no stranger to clubs and stages through out the area. For many years he has been a staple of the acoustic music folk scene – as well as a regular host of several open mics and songwriter showcases in Frederick – including the Brewer’s Alley and Frederick Coffee Company shows.
A wonderful singer, songwriter, entertainer, and guitar player Todd always puts on a great show and leaves you just itching for more. One more good reason to drive out to The Barrel Oak Winery on Sunday!
You can learn more about Todd and his music, (including seeing pictures of the three thousand plus guitars he owns) by checking out his website at www.toddcwalker.com
The Poor Ellen Smith Band picks up its instruments and heads up Route 270 to Brunswick, Maryland at the end of the month to take the stage again at Beans In the Belfry on Saturday night, August 28, 2010. Lately its been a lot of back and forth for the band traveling to gigs in Maryland and Virginia – an extended game of musical chairs of sorts.
Tales From The Vineyard
The band had a lot fun at The Barrel Oak Winery show over the weekend of August 8. The weather while hot, had manageable humidity, which made the guitars stay in tune in for the most part, left Howard with plenty of lung power for his harps, and kept personal perspiration levels at an acceptable level.
Several song requests came the band’s way during the day and Armin obliged a song request from a member of the audience by doing “Church Street Blues” – a seldom performed, but very poplar recorded Norman Blake tune. It’s one of the many songs that the band knows collectively- but some how often gets left off the set list for some reason. Its really kind of a tricky song to flat pick your way through correctly on the guitar, but Armin still usually sails through it with finesse with plenty of room to spare. Even in Sunday’s afternoon heat Armin breezed through it quite nicely – both guitar wise and vocally.
The band played three long sets to about a half filled audience. Having played at wineries many times before - the band has come to accept the fact that sometimes, for what ever reason – the house is not always full as the band would like it to be. Which was the case on Sunday afternoon. Still even with some empty seats – the audience was generous with their applause after each song – which certainly the band, like all musicians - enjoyed hearing. Throughout the day the band got a very good response from Steve’s original songs – which were mixed into all the sets. During the set breaks and after the show, several people approached the band members inquiring where Poor Ellen Smith would be performing next, which was also very flattering to the band. The previous weekend the band played the same venue on a Saturday night with a packed house through out the whole show. Just goes to show a band never knows how large or small an audience will be untill it takes the stage.
The Poor Ellen Smith Band is looking forward to returning to The Barrel Oak Winery located in Delaplane, Virginia on Sunday, August 8, 2010 – to do another outdoor show. Now celebrating its second anniversary, The Barrel Oak Winery has firmly established itself as one of the most enjoyable winery experiences in the surrounding Shenandoah Valley. With its casual, laid back, and non-pretentious atmosphere, Barrel Oak is the perfect destination for weekend wine lovers in their quest for finding the perfect local Chardonnay.
Situated high on a hillside overlooking the sprawling vineyards below it, the outdoor winery patio performance area offers breath taking scenic views, prevailing breezes to cool its guests, and is a wonderful and relaxed place to watch The Poor Ellen Smith Band perform. There’s no admission charge, plenty of parking, shaded outdoor seating, and the winery boosts an incredible dog friendly environment to its quests. The Poor Ellen Smith Band will be starting up the music at around 1:00 PM and will wind things down around 5:00.
The Poor Ellen Smith Band looks forward to seeing old friends at Sunday’s show – and is hoping to cultivate some new fans as well during their afternoon performance.
Summer vacation is over for The Poor Ellen Smith Band and the band members will be re-grouping for a lively band reunion concert at The Barrel Oak Winery in Delaplane, Virginia on Saturday evening, July 31, 2010. Being invited to do an evening show at the winery will be a first for the band, having done all their previous shows there on Sunday afternoons. Given how the summer has been going so far for everyone in the D.C. area - the band is looking forward to escaping the summer heat and humidity of the city, and certainly will enjoy making music in the coolness of a moonlight night out in The Blue Ridge Mountains.
The Poor Ellen Smith Band is extending a heartfelt invitation to join them in spending a relaxing evening listening to the band – while enjoying a sampling of unique wines, the scenic beauty of the surrounding vineyard, and sharing the fellowship of The Poor Ellen Smith Band through out the evening. The Poor Ellen Smith Band will start their show around 5:30 PM, and will be continuing their show till about 9:00 PM.
There is no admission charge to the winery, nor the show, and a good time will certainly be had by all.
The Poor Ellen Smith band opened the 3rd Annual Independence Day Blues Festival sponsored by The D.C. Blues Society located on the grounds of the Hershey Restaurant in Gaithersburg, Maryland on Saturday, July 3, 2010. Much to the delight of the band, the Poor Ellen Smith band enjoyed an afternoon of fantastic weather throughout the festival – and although it was a 4th of July weekend in Washington - the temperature and humidity really wasn’t too bad for everybody concerned.
The Poor Ellen Smith band found a stage full of back line band equipment upon their arrival at the festival, with a host of amps and mics to choose from for the band to use. Armin opted to run his acoustic Taylor guitar through a dedicated acoustic guitar amp, rather than using a direct feed through the PA to amplify his guitar – which is the norm for him. Barry plugged his acoustic bass guitar into an Ampeg bass rig about the size of a sub-zero refrigerator with a deluxe front door ice maker option built into it – with maybe about five hundred watts of pure power just itching for some funk master bassist to release it’s fury onto the audience to shake up the house. While Barry was tuning up his Martin bass he plucked the low E string on the bass and it vibrated the whole stage riser – which and in turn made his bottle of spring water dance across the stage in sympathy with the low E string vibration and then fall over – which was pretty amusing. This definitely was a serious bass amp, and definitely not the kind of bass amp that you find on most bluegrass stages used to play “Rocky Top” on.
On a one, two, three, four count from Armin, the Poor Ellen Smith band opened the festival with an up tempo version of “In the Pines“, an old time Appalachian music classic written in the 1870’s and originally recorded by Lead Belly in the 1940’s. In later years the song has been covered from everybody from Loretta Lynn, to Dolly Parton, to Bill Monroe, to Bob Dylan, to Tom Petty, and maybe by a hundred other bluegrass groups over the last twenty years. Armin probably learned the song from an old Louvin Brothers’s recording, and then created his own arrangement of the song, later teaching it to the whole band. Barry likes to open the door for discussion on the song even more; and often steers people to Kurt Cobain’s version of “In the Pines“ performing the song with his grunge band Nirvana on their 1993 MTV “unplugged” performance – which he feels is worth checking out on “You Tube“. Whether you like grunge band music or not- certainly by Nirvana covering the song – Barry feels that it introduced the song to a whole new audience that might of never been exposed to it if not for them doing it on MTV. Nirvana’s inclusion of the song on their MTV performance maybe was the first public marriage of grunge and bluegrass music; and now there’s the Poor Ellen Smith band’s version for people to ponder over – which brings the song to a another level as well.
Anyway, given the audience was primary a blues and funk audience the band wasn’t sure what to expect when the song was over. The happy ending for Poor Ellen Smith was the audience liked the song and the rest of the band’s set list as well – even though the band didn’t do many blues songs, do any Stevie Ray Vaughn song covers. or play Albert King’s “Born Under A Bad Sign” anywhere in their set.
“The Just Us Band” introduced by the festival MC as a “soulful-funk-hip hop-blues rock band that does everything…” followed Poor Ellen Smith’s set. The six piece black funk band was composed of two Stratocaster bearing guitarists with every guitar pedal effects option known to man at their disposal, a five string bass funk fingered string popping bass player, a drummer with every individual drum he had on stage miked in stereo, and two lead singers that would of given MC Hammer a run for his money and his Hummer .
The Poor Ellen Smith band in the past has usually been paired up with folkish and bluegrass type of performers sharing the bill at shows - so this was quite interesting to the whole band to say the least – that is being part of a “funk show” in any capacity. It didn’t take long for “The Just Us Band” to get down to business funk wise and to rock the house. Among other cover songs played in their set – the group played “Them Changes” a Jimi Hendrix tune that Hendrix recorded with his group “A Band of Gypsies” in 1969; and Sly and The Family Stone’s 1970 pop hit “Thank You (for letting me be myself)”. Needless to say the Poor Ellen Smith band didn’t have to worry about being upstaged by the other band covering a Doc Watson classic or some Appalachian folk tune that the band might do. After their show Barry introduced himself to the bass player from the band who was very approachable, and he got to look over his five string bass a little closer with him while getting down to “bass-ics” conversation wise as they both listened to “The Ron Land Band” in the background, who were the the next band on the bill.
Also on the festival bill was “The Nobel Front“, “The Garrett Fitzgerald Band,” and the festival headliner, “The Bobby Lewis Blues Band“.
* The Poor Ellen Smith band was very grateful to The Bobby Lewis Blues Band for supplying their amps and the PA system to the Poor Ellen Smith band for them to use. Certainly this made the band’s appearance a lot easier.
Poor Ellen Smith Goes On Vacation
So after this weekend’s blues festival appearance The Poor Ellen Smith band is taking a break from playing out for awhile collectively – taking the month of July off from doing any shows.
Armin Hadamer heads off to visit his family back in Germany next week, and will be staying in Germany through out the month of July. Steve Galbraith and Howard Parks head off to their regular day jobs and occasionally to Steve’s home studio to continue work on the band’s upcoming second CD. Barry Bryan goes back to his day job as well, and will be dropping in at a few open mics in the area as his schedule allows – but mostly he will be heading off to his beeyards in his spare time in his role as a beekeeper to start gathering this years honey crop from his bees out in the West Virginia countryside along The Blue Ridge Mountains.
The Poor Ellen Smith band will be posting an update on the band’s website sometime during the end of July 2010 – to give everybody an update as to their future plans – and to give the details of their next show. The Poor Ellen Smith band is very grateful for the many people that continue to come out and support the band at their gigs and continue to befriend the band at their gigs throughout the extended Washington D.C. area.
The Poor Ellen Smith band will be playing closer to home when it takes on its role as the opening act for a blues oriented festival being held on the grounds of the Hershey restaurant located in Gaithersburg, Maryland on Saturday, July 3, 2010. The annual 4th of July charity event is being held from noon to ten, and will feature several local blues bands throughout the day. While certainly not a traditional blues band, the Poor Ellen Smith band feels confident it can hold its own by show casing some of its blues material, and might even manage to turn some heads at the show – in spite of the band lacking drums, a Hammond B3 organ, and Ray Charles’s former horn section to round out the band’s sound.
www.hersheysatthegrove.com
“Rolling Down The River…”
Last Saturday brought Poor Ellen Smith playing under the big top in a tent at the Brunswick Campground providing music for The Brunswick River Festival. A first visit for the entire band, everyone was impressed by the campground amenities and the warm hospitality of the festival promoter. While the humidity was definitely high and the whole band was sweating like BP board members at a congressional hearing – the tent supplied to the band did provide great shade from the midday sun; and offered a little bit of relief from the heat of the day for the seated audience as well. The tent setting actually brought a more intimate concert experience than the band had expected for an outdoor concert – with many people in the audience calling out song requests and joking with the band members from their seats throughout the show.
Scarlet Taylor “an element of surprise…”
Through out the day the band enjoyed the rapore with the audience; and later in the day even invited a young lady named Scarlet Taylor to join the band onstage after some heavy lobbing from her father who was sitting in the audience -asking Barry to please let her sing with the band. Between set breaks Barry and Armin, always itching for a new musical experience, got together with Scarlet backstage and listened to her suggestions as to what songs they might collectively know together. Finding common ground on a few tunes – the band’s second set opened with Scarlet at the mic center stage with the band backing her up.
Much to the audience’s (and the band’s) delight Scarlet had a voice as smooth as Jack Daniels going down on a full moon on a summer night, and sang with a smile that would certainly lead to people holding doors open for her anywhere she goes. Scarlet Taylor, a Brunswick native, easily crooned out a great rendition of Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou” – which landed her a strong applause from the audience and a standing invitation to join the Poor Ellen Smith band onstage next time they are in town. The band is looking forward to the possibility that sometime down the road Scarlet will once again share the stage with the band - filling the air with her wonderful voice!
The Poor Ellen Smith Band will be paddling forty five miles upstream to headline at The Great Potomac River Race Festival being held on Saturday, June 26, 2010 in Brunswick, Maryland. An annual event held at the Brunswick Family Campground located on the river banks of the scenic Potomac River, the band is looking forward to spending the day at this unique festival. The festival will feature a race on the Potomac River comprised of eclectic home made river raft entries, and will have several craft and food vendors set up for the festival attendees enjoyment. A local river and trail outfitter will also be selling kayaks, canoes and related boat accessories.
Poor Ellen Smith will be doing several sets of music, starting up the strumming around noon, and winding things down around four o’clock. To get to the Brunswick Family Campground and the event site go to the Brunswick, Maryland MARC train station – which will lead you to the entrance to the campground. The campground entrance is on the other side of the train station – just follow the signage which will direct you there. There is no admission fee and the event is being billed as a family fun oriented event. The band is looking forward to having you spend the day on the river with them!
www.rivertrail.com for more festival details
Like many people in the area The Poor Ellen Smith band is looking forward to the Brunswick Music Fest which takes place on Saturday June 19, 2010 in Brunswick, Maryland. A musical first for Brunswick, this promises to be an all day music extravaganza – and certainly has something to offer to everyone musically! A full listing of the musical artists may be found at www.BrunswickMusicFest.com
The Poor Ellen Smith band has been booked by one of the festival sponsors to play at Beans at the Belfry on Saturday evening June 19, 2010 at the conclusion of the Brunswick Music Fest from 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM. The band is looking forward in winding down the festival with their evening performance in the air-conditioned comfort of Beans in the Belfry, which is just around the corner from the festival site. The after party at Beans in the Belfry has no admission charge and is open to the general public. It’s a great place to meet and mingle with some of the festival performers and the event staff in a relaxed and informal setting while enjoying drinks, dinner, or a snack. The Poor Ellen Smith band will be extending invitations to several of the festival performers to sit in with the band through out the evening – and is looking forward to jamming with such a diverse gathering of musical quests.
Grape Expections
The following day, Sunday June 20, the Poor Ellen Smith band takes a spin over to Delaplane, Virginia to The Barrel Oak Winery to do an afternoon show there from 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM. Setting up stage on their usual spot on the spacious outdoor patio overlooking the vineyard – the band will playing at their favorite winery located in the beautiful rolling hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains all through out Sunday afternoon.
The Poor Ellen Smith band hopes that you can join them at either of their shows on the weekend.
The folks in Brunswick, Maryland certainly rolled out the welcome mat for Poor Ellen Smith last Friday night at Corner Square Park on June 4. The band’s two hour concert was well attended by an eclectic audience composed of everything from families with toddlers, to students, to yuppies, to dating couples, to senior citizens, and even to several local musicians coming out to watch the band. Certainly from the stage’s viewpoint while performing the Poor Ellen Smith band could easily see the wide diversity of folks that make up of the working Brunswick community. Before the band had even set up the PA system not wanting to miss anything, a few fans had already staked their claim to real estate directly in front of their stage with their lawn chairs. Unknown to the band until last Friday night - a lot more people in Brunswick seem to really like the music of Poor Ellen Smith than the band thought.
Like most performers the Poor Ellen Smith customarily does about an hour set and then takes a fifteen minute break before going into the next set - flattered by the warm reception of the audience the band played the two hour concert straight thorough with out a break. The treat of an evening thunder shower never materialized, and while warm out, the humidity was manageable for the most part to the audience and to the band - except for affecting the band’s acoustic guitars – which needed more attention to retuning than usual. So Armin and the boys spent a little more time fine tuning, but still managed to crank out the tunes with very little down time due to the humidity tuning issues.
The Poor Ellen Smith band was also enlarged from a quartet to a quintet for the evening – when the band’s good friend and fellow musician Tomy Wright dropped by and sat in with the band for the last hour of their show. Tomy Wright who is regular and well known performer in the Frederick and Brunswick area, seemed to feel right at home with the band – perching himself on one of Barry’s speaker cabinets while maintaining the rhythms of the evening with his shaker egg, and was often seen sharing a mic with Steve – while singing back up vocals with the band.
The evening ended for the band on a civic note with the Mayor of Brunswick, The Honorable Carrol Jones, approaching the band while packing up to thank them for putting on a good show and with him expressing an invitation to come back to Brunswick to do another concert in the fall.
The Poor Ellen Smith band is very thankful to Rick Hill for recommending the Poor Ellen Smith band to the City of Brunswick; and for taking care of all the many behind the scene concert chores, which also included handling the publicity for the concert. Rick Hill, a performing musician himself, singer and performer on eight different instruments, and renown local dulcimer wizard - presently makes his home in Thurmont, Maryland.
www.ricksfolk.com
www.tomywright.com
The City of Brunswick has invited the Poor Ellen Smith band to perform as part of their “First Friday evening concert series” on Friday, June 4, 2010. The band is looking forward to gracing the “Corner Park Stage” located at the corner of Maple and Potomac Street in Brunswick, Maryland from 7:00 to 9:00 PM. The outdoor concert is being held in a community park in the heart of Brunswick. Free parking is very plentiful and is to be found with in easy walking distance all around the park. The stage is surrounded by a lush grass lawn which is very suitable for blankets, personal lawn chairs, picnic suppers, and pets on leashes. The Poor Ellen Smith band will be doing two sets of material and cordially invites you join them at this free evening concert.
Last Sunday’s show at the Barrel Oak Winery in Delaplane, Virginia went really well for Poor Ellen Smith – with the band playing to a full and very appreciative house through out the day. The band had been invited to perform as part of the weekend celebration to mark the 2nd anniversary of the opening for the winery- and due to the same, the winery pulled out all the stops to make sure that their guests had a great time on the vineyard grounds through out the day. The winery even decided to enhance its usual offerings by bringing in additional outside food vendors, which made the air rich with the intoxicating smells of slow fired barbecue drifting across the vineyard grounds through out the day. Needless to say, it wasn’t very hard for the band to figure out what, or where, to eat on their break.
While it was a little warm last Sunday, the band was grateful for the pleasant rain free weather for its outdoor show and for the large enthusiastic crowd. Brian Roeder, the owner of the winery, surprised the bandby providing a shade canopy over the entire stage area which which kept the band cool andout of the sun. After a pleasant day of hot pickin’ through all the hits the bandwrapped up its show a little after 5:00 and ended the day with a brief photo shoot with a photographer on the winery grounds – to accommodate a request from a newspaper for a group picture of the band.
Part of the band’s compensation package when playing at the Barrel Oak Winery is a free bottle of wine. Each time the band plays there they usually pick a different bottle of wine to take home. At Howard Parks suggestion each of the band members chose to take a bottle of “Norton 2009” from the Barrel Oak Winery cellars. The label boasts; “this true native has racy undertones and a hint of wild blueberry offering a complex, dry sophistication that surprises…” From the label it sounds like it might fit in pretty well with the music of Poor Ellen Smith - and may well become the wine of choice for the band to drive home with.
The band hopes to see you on Friday night in Brunswick.
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