Friday Frolics at the giant NAMM Show in Anaheim. Fri Jan 25 2019

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All the CONCERTS, FESTIVALS, club gigs, SPECIAL FILM EVENTS and more across the vast array of Southern California acoustic and Americana venues is in our PRE-NAMM edition at:

https://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2019/01/wonderment-namm-concert-scene-special.html 

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THIS EDITION continues our series of reports from the NAMM Show in Anaheim.

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Day Two at NAMM

The astonishing array of every aspect of music performance -- exceeding all you can imagine -- whirls like a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds and gear and instruments and artists and skilled techies. Thing is, every year for four days, That's the status quo at the NAMM Show in Anaheim, California. We gave you an intro yesterday, so we'll jump right in.

First, get a sturdy bag to haul all the flyers, brochures, colorful catalogs, price lists, gig postcards, and everything else you collect as you make your happy odyssey through the matrix of aisles and booths and two-storey temporary structures that comprise this tuneful NAMMtown. Every third or fourth exhibitor is equipped to give you a bag of some kind.

But the best freebie giveaway we found today is available at Messe Frankfurt (booth 3033) in the lobby of the main hall. 

As you can see, it's a bag that doubles as a little backpack, as modeled by the lovely FRANZISKA LIND, here to represent the German trade show organizer who produces music shows and more in Europe. 

That bag will return with us tomorrow. Sometimes the simple things are appreciated most.
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PERFORMANCES TO CATCH

We're excited about a bunch of artists we've seen, but we'll begin with two shows to see TONIGHT if you're here at NAMM.

First, at 5:30 pm, get to the very top of the Anaheim Convention Center. A "ROOMFUL OF PIANOS" concert event should be like nothing you've ever experienced. The world's top high-end makers of concert grands,  baby grands, and more are all represented there, and their endorsed pianists are collaborating across brands to present an all-piano, many piano concert.

Then, at 8 pm, ONE OF THE FEW NAMM CONCERTS ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC happens in the ballroom of the Doubletree hotel, 2085 S Harbor, a few blocks walk from the convention center in Anaheim. It's the one that beckons us every year: it's THE JOHN JORGENSEN TRIO with Djangostyle Gypsy jazz and more acoustic string magic, plus two opening acts. Things get started with either NEW WEST, a beloved and award-winning Western / Western Swing / traditional cowboy band, or the other openers, and THE TORA BORA BOYS, a bluegrass band of musicians who happen to be music industry execs, mostly from Saga Instruments and Shubb Capo -- plus their young'un member who is still in school and who can blow you away with his playing. Three acts, all delightful.

To attend this one, just get over there by 7:15-7:30 pm. Get in line for the door and talk about needing a ticket. One for you will magically be put in your hand. Really! Just understand that parking is crazy, and you'll need to wait until the NAMM Show closes for the day at 6 pm before you can park anywhere within hiking distance.

Other artists you can still catch at NAMM on Saturday and Sunday are ukulele stars DANIEL HO and JAKE SHIMABUKURO, and various ukesters in ensemble with acoustic bass master JENNIFER LEITHAM. Just get to Hall E, on the lower level, and It's easy to find two "blocks" of ukulele neighborhood.

In that same Hall E are the Deering Banjo folks, and they have a talented bevy of banjo masters performing about three shows a day in the little stage area of their booth.

And you'll accuse us of "burying the lead" when we tell you the next part.

You MUST see young fingerstyle guitar master ADRIAN BELLUE from Sacramento. He combines the lightning-fast precise dexterity essential to his craft with hurricane-like power. He is someone you'll heard about much more, here in the Guide, and before long, in every source that celebrates great guitarists.

You can catch Adrian twice a day at the Furch booth. They are instrument makers from the Czech Republic, at their first NAMM Show. Adrian is endorsed by Furch (pronounced "Furq") and it's the right fit for both. Their handmade line of acoustic instruments combines old world craftsmanship with exceptional sturdiness.

Adrian says, "They are the only guitars I don't break with my playing style."

That will make sense when you see him. If you're not at NAMM, catch the performance links to YouTube on his website: www.AdrianBellue.com

Now, while you're at Furch, you need to hold, play and get the demo disassembly/ reassembly of their travel guitar. You've seen others that partly disassemble, but this one is unique. It uses a single clamp, completely recessed so it can't hook you or your clothes, and it stays in tune when reassembled. The way it packs for travel is a lesson in compact wonder. It's a must-see.
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MORE GOOD THINGS FROM EXHIBITORS

Washburn Guitars, building on the success of its AGM5K Apprentice G-Mini Guitar, today announced the addition of the "G-Mini5 BK" model featuring a stunning matte black finish. It's now joined the company's 2019 line of Apprentice Guitars, debuting here at Winter NAMM 2019. Those at the NAMM Show can give it a test drive in Booth #6814, says Washburn Vice President & General Manager Gil Soucy.

Sharing the scaled down proportions of its sister instrument, the matte-finished select spruce top with classic Washburn “Heritage” rosette and Sapele back and side pairing of the G-Mini5 BK lend to a mellow and well-defined tone with surprising note clarity for an instrument of smaller dimensions. 

The natural matte finished Okoume neck is extremely comfortable and feels smooth in the player’s hands, while the Techwood fingerboard and bridge ensure stability. Soucy calls it "Ideal and at home in the living room, at the chalet and campfire or anywhere you may find yourself," and proclaims, "the new G-Mini5 BK will be your faithful little musical companion."

He continued, “Washburn’s Apprentice Series is the perfect instrument for any player looking for a rock solid guitar to join them on their journey, be it the beginning player, or the well travelled musician looking for an instrument for the office, beach or road."

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Take a look at the all-new Rhythm Village Benkadi Club™ Bongo Set, new from Rhythm Tech, creator of the world’s first crescent-shaped tambourine. These drums feature easy play finely pre-tuned heads and exclusive new exterior pattern designs by famed New York City artist Robert Pizzo. 

These bongos are just the right size and appropriate for all ages and level of player. Rhythm Tech asserts, "The vibrant new design captures the rhythmic fun of playing."

This Bongo Set is a 6” Hand Drum, 10” Tom with Mallets, 14” Rally Drum with Mallets and 9” Djembe. Whether you're alone in the living room, looking to do your part to propel the drum circle, participating in a group jam, or as a member of a band, this will get percussions excited about keeping the proper beat.
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That's it for today. MORE from NAMM while we're here and for some time to come, as we process, comprehend, and report on what we're seeing and hearing here.

'Til then, remember that ALL THE EVENTS ON THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA MUSIC SCENE are in the pre-NAMM edition, at: 

https://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2019/01/wonderment-namm-concert-scene-special.html

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We'll be back again soon with music news and more "News of the Non-Trumpcentric Universe." (c)

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LEGALESE, CONTACTING US, 'N SUCH...

Boilerplate? Where's the main pressure gauge? And the firebox?

What "boilerplate"? Who came up with that goofy term for the basic essential informational stuff...

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Direct to the Guide's current editions /

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Entire contents copyright © 2019,

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♪ The ACOUSTIC AMERICANA MUSIC GUIDE endeavors to bring you NEWS – and views of interest to artists everywhere – more specifically to musicians and the creative community and music makers and fans of acoustic and Folk-Americana music. That includes both traditional and innovative forms. From the deepest roots to today’s acoustic renaissance, that’s our beat. We provide a wealth of resources, including a HUGE catalog of acoustic-friendly venues (now undergoing a major update), and inside info on FESTIVALS and select performances in Southern California in venues from the monumentally large to the intimately small and cozy. We cover workshops, conferences, and other events for artists and folks in the music industry, and all kinds o’ things in the world of acoustic and Americana and accessible classical music. From washtub bass to musical spoons to oboe to viola to banjo to squeezebox, from Djangostyle to new-fangled-old-time string band music, from sweet Cajun fiddle to bluegrass and pre-bluegrass Appalachian mountain music to all the swamp water roots of the blues and the bright lights of where the music is headed now.
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The Acoustic Americana Music Guide. Thanks for sittin' a spell. The cyber porch'll be here anytime you come back from the road.
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NAMM is underway! Day One of the world's biggest congregation of all things musical. Thu Jan 24 2019.

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Hardly anyone ever uses the full name -- the National Association of Music Merchants  -- they just say NAMM. That's not as much because the acronym is handy, as it because the very global NAMM Show outgrew the idea of merely national status a long time ago. There are people from 127 nations playing roles at this year's NAMM event.

Running for four days, Thursday through Sunday, it has again arrived as a very welcome invasion at the cavernous Anaheim Convention Center and in every square foot of meeting and convention space in the matrix of surrounding hotels. While NAMM is a massive trade show, it is so much more. 

Live performances are everywhere. You find them on the plaza stage, where the arena "stage package" of sound and lights equals anything in any stadium or spacious meadow hosting a concert for a couple hundred thousand fans. You find stages in all the hotel lobbies, and at night, in the big meeting halls. And you find exciting live performances in exhibitor boots, from some, like Taylor Guitars, that runs a full-fledged standup venue to even the booths of modest size, blooming with sound throughout the packed exhibit halls. There artists play in the booths of their sponsors. 

A quick heads-up for acoustic Americana music fans at the show -- today at 1:15 pm, the Deering booth presents "OLD TIME BANJO, AND ITS RESURGENCE. That's in the Deering Banjo booth, 2206 in Hall E. The artist is DAVID BANDROWSKI.

While we're talking about Deering, you can catch their 3:45 pm event, "HOW VERSATILE CAN THE BANJO BE?" with artist BOB HAMILTON demonstrating a variety of 6- and 5- string banjos, showing a vast range of styles from trad bluegrass to jazz, and swing to rock 'n roll.

Already this morning, the US MARINE BAND SAN DIEGO performed on the plaza to officially open NAMM, while NANCY WILSON of the legendary sister duo HEART was being interviewed and receiving a top award at the first daily breakfast session.

"NAMM U" presents a dazzling array of education sessions, all day, each day. These range from a NAMM Polict Forum: International Trade Policy" to lighting, live recording, wonky tech immersion in "Dynamic EQ with Parametric Filters," "iZotrope RX7 Training," "Dante Level 2 Certification," "Alteros 6.5GHz BY A Intro and Training," to preparing for Today's darker possibilities, in "Emergency Preparedness: Exceptional Focus, Performance and Control in Extreme Situations."

Tonight at 5:30 pm, thousands will turn out for the "Industry Tribute: Remembering Those We Lost in 2018"  to be held on the Yamaha Grand Plaza Stage. 

While respectful moments lkie these look back, everything else is celebratory and looks forward. Whether that's about techniques for a mom-and-pop music store to build a better program for music lessons, or the dynamics of an instrument -- or audio or sound, or lighting -- manufacturer to develop a better product. 

The theme at this morning's breakfast set the tone: "Originality."

Right now, some of our readers are gasping or laughing, with big corporate recorded music constantly cranking-out more of the same interchangeable pop tarts with their peculiar affectations. We'll take heart -- the banner slogans, projected before Daniel Ho dazzled with his six-string baritone ukulele expressed things like, "I'd rather fail at originality than succeed at sameness."

The spirit of the artist is alive and well at NAMM.

Performing artists in attendance face scrambles and tough choices, with offerings that include "Propelling Your Career: Marketing, Media, Endorsements and Music," "Effective Video Strategies for YouTube, Instagram and Facebook" which rates a double-session time block, "The Musician's Business Canvas: Create a Business on a Single Sheet of Paper," and many, many more sessions, trainings, workshops, and demos, some quite interactive some more standard classroom in nature. 

If you get the idea that this doesn't happen anywhere but NAMM, you're right.

Fortunately, they publish "The 2019 Show Guide" as a slick-paper booklet, and this year's "NAMM App" is today's most-downloaded creation in the OC. 

Both those also provide schedules for performances on the principal stages. Which, as we noted, are really only a few of the performances happening at any given moment while the halls are open. 

Much here has expanded, as incomprehensible as that seems. The 2019 NAMM complete campus includes the new "ACC North," and we don't know yet what that is. For those here, with a need to know -- and those elsewhere, wishing they were here, everyone can virtually navigate the show with "My Show Planner" online at namm.org/plan, as well as download the new mobile app. Just search “NAMM Shows” in the App Store or Google Play for access to 3D navigation, a complete listing of events and exhibitors, and much more.

We'll spend most of our day in the labyrinth with the exhibitors, getting information and interviews to bring you in upcoming editions. 

Here are few on our "hit list."

Audeze, maker of the of the world’s most accurate and detailed high-end headphones, showcasing their comprehensive, award-winning product lineup at NAMM. 

IK Multimedia's unveiling of their new iLoud MTM reference monitor, a compact monitor with high-end design that they say "re-invents nearfield monitoring for professional and home studios."

LEE ROY PARNELL performing at 2:30 pm on Gibson Guitar's "Gibson Experience" stage.

The Avid Stage, with its daily "eight or more compelling sessions," ranging from how-to tips and tricks in Mix with the Masters, to live interviews. Booth 15502, North Hall

Epiphone,  for a sneak peek at brand new instruments and signature artist models including::

* Ltd. Ed. Peter Frampton “1964” Texan Premium Outfit and Les Paul Custom PRO

* Ltd. Ed. Slash Firebird

* Ltd. Ed. Joe Bonamassa ES-355 Outfit

* George Thorogood – Epiphone Ltd Ed Thorogood “White Fang” ES-125TDC

* Jared James Nichols – Epiphone Limited Edition Jared James Nichols ‘Old Glory’ Les Paul Custom Outfit

* Dave Rude – Epiphone Limited Edition Dave Rude Flying V Outfit

Of course, We'll chat with old friends at Saga Instruments, and capo competitors Shubb and Kyser, and too many more that we'll try to see and won't get to until tomorrow.

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That's all for this edition. Remember our current annotated Guide to CONCERTS, FESTIVALS, CLUB GIGS, SPECIAL FILM EVENTS, MUSICAL THEATRE, and more is still available, too, at:


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We'll be back again tomorrow with more from NAMM, and as always, back frequently with music news and more "News of the Non-Trumpcentric Universe." (c)

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

LEGALESE, CONTACTING US, 'N SUCH...

Boilerplate? Where's the main pressure gauge? And the firebox?

What "boilerplate"? Who came up with that goofy term for the basic essential informational stuff...

________________________________

Direct to the Guide's current editions /

MOBILE-DEVICE-FRIENDLY

editions load quickly at
.
www.acousticamericana.blogspot.com
.
<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>
.
CONTACT US -- Post Comments / Send Questions / say Howdy at:

Tiedtothetracks (at) Hotmail (dot) com
.
OR USE THE COMMENTS FUNCTION on the Blogspot site.
.
<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>

Entire contents copyright © 2019,

Lawrence Wines & Tied to the Tracks.

All rights reserved.

<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>
.
♪ The ACOUSTIC AMERICANA MUSIC GUIDE endeavors to bring you NEWS – and views of interest to artists everywhere – more specifically to musicians and the creative community and music makers and fans of acoustic and Folk-Americana music. That includes both traditional and innovative forms. From the deepest roots to today’s acoustic renaissance, that’s our beat. We provide a wealth of resources, including a HUGE catalog of acoustic-friendly venues (now undergoing a major update), and inside info on FESTIVALS and select performances in Southern California in venues from the monumentally large to the intimately small and cozy. We cover workshops, conferences, and other events for artists and folks in the music industry, and all kinds o’ things in the world of acoustic and Americana and accessible classical music. From washtub bass to musical spoons to oboe to viola to banjo to squeezebox, from Djangostyle to new-fangled-old-time string band music, from sweet Cajun fiddle to bluegrass and pre-bluegrass Appalachian mountain music to all the swamp water roots of the blues and the bright lights of where the music is headed now.
.
The Acoustic Americana Music Guide. Thanks for sittin' a spell. The cyber porch'll be here anytime you come back from the road.
.
<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>

His legacy still speaks: Martin Luther King Jr would have been 90. Jan 21 2019 edition

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For the latest MUSIC & ARTS EVENTS edition, go to:

 https://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2019/01/wonderment-namm-concert-scene-special.html

THIS is a special edition with just one feature topic. 

Editor's note: the Guide is experiencing formatting issues that cause paragraph spacing to collapse, and allow some paragraphs to appear twice -- publishing both edited and unedited versions of varying amounts of text, one behind the other. We do not always see that here, until we publish. And sometimes we must close and reopen the site more than once to experience it as a reader does. We often publish field reports using a variety of devices -- as we will do this week, live from the NAMM Show. We are working to identify and fix the problem. It's proving elusive to sort-out. We apologize if it annoys you. It certainly annoys US. Meantime, this important special edition is now fully corrected -- though the size of the gap between some paragraphs may vary slightly.

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THE LIVING LEGACY OF A MODERN HERO

 by Lawrence Wines

Today we honor a singularly modern hero, and the day marks what would have been the celebration of his 90^th birthday. Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. was a man once targeted and threatened by the FBI as "a dangerous subversive." Yet today he is universally honored. His life was taken by the very injustices he eloquently spoke and nonviolently fought to defeat -- marginalization, segregation, and violence as status quo. Yet his legacy stands as a powerful force to defy and defeat those same terrible and persistent aberrations that run counter to civilization.

 

Today, all around the country, memorials and service projects are taking place as actualizations of activism -- for the rabble rouser who had a dream for a better world. We offer several examples of a living, if endangered, legacy, along with one way you can participate, wherever you are, in taking action for our time. (It's in one of the links.)

His legacy lives on through every person who continues to strive for universal social justice, inclusion of all the people in a true democracy, and for the absolute necessity of peace in the world. Someday that can include all of us, and that day cannot come too soon.

Let’s be honest. Dr. King is presented to our elementary school students in a scrubbed and sanitized package that omits much of what he said. His advocacy of direct action, his strident opposition to militarism and a litany of injustices and structural economic inequities are inconvenient truths that are edited-out of the approved narrative of his advocacy for racial equality.

Of course he was the man most associated in America with the practice of non-violence in a time of reflexively-enacted reaction and violence motivated by fear and retaliation, but he was not a man who kept quiet about the issues that mattered.

Even as Dr. King called-out the forces that motivate through fear of losing unearned privilege, and subjected them to the sunlight, he chose to act fearlessly, motivated by serving the needs of others. He knew it would take only one person powered by hate and rage, and his own life could be violently ended. Yet he persevered. 

When he was shot by a bullet that came so close to killing him that the surgeon told him he would have died if he had moved a slight amount in the wrong direction, or merely sneezed? He delivered a speech after the terrifying event that focused not on what motivated his shooter, but on his gratitude and his ability to renew his commitment because he "did not sneeze."

His words were never movie-script bravado. They were the content of his character. And they resonate and motivate.

Jeff Clements, president of the organization "American Progress," recalls and applies Dr. King's sentiments, when he recalls "a man who defined his life by a belief in the ability of dedicated individuals to drive human progress through hard work and sacrifice."

Clements quotes Dr. King: “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable,” Dr. King wrote. “Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

Citing the 1968 assassination of Dr. King, many individuals and organizations hasten to assert that his words and spirit and legacy are as alive and relevant today as ever.

"Fifty years later, our nation continues the work to realize the Constitutional promise of equality under the law," says Clements, continuing, "As we work toward the systemic changes our nation needs in this time of turmoil, no one could offer a better role model for action and service in the face of adversity than Dr. King."

"Expanding democratic rights for all citizens is in our country’s DNA. People in every generation have stepped up to fulfill this pledge of our nation. Today, in honor of the many who have fought for equality before us, we must reconnect with our nation’s history and work toward equal political representation for all Americans, not just the wealthiest," says Clements.

His organization, "American Promise," is all about getting Americans to act together to win passage of the 28th Amendment in the wake of Supreme Court decisions that identify money as "free speech," and thus let rich interests make unlimited and even secret political contributions. 

A 28th Amendment to the US Constitution is needed to undo that, so people, not money, will govern in America. The struggle of ordinary citizens against the hegemony of an elite is never over.

The influences of Dr. King are felt every day across culture and politics, among the downtrodden, all who are dedicated to peace, and an incalculable number of advocates for change.

In 2014, a documentary by "Brave New Films" featured Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, in their film, Our Turn to Dream. 

The film reminds us of the exacerbations of racial and social control through mass incarceration -- something Dr. King spoke against -- and it shows us the growing movement to end commercialized, economically exploitive, mass incarceration today. Today, the United States is the nation with more people behind bars than any other nation on Earth.

Together with the positive things he left us, there is the legacy of Dr. King’s assassination. In it we see and feel the inescapable tragedy of dehumanizing other people, and how that continues to infect society and affect all of us 50 years later. 

Dr. King still calls each of us to be a "Drum Major for Justice." He still calls to renounce war as amplified bullying that enriches the merchants of death and oppresses and impoverishes all who find themselves in the path of exploitive Empire or in the way of overinflated national ego. 

Dr. King still calls us to be a "Drum Major for Justice." He still calls to renounce war as amplified bullying that enriches the merchants of death and oppresses and impoverishes all who find themselves in the path of exploitive Empire or in the way of overinflated national ego.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s value of radical inclusivity could be the antidote to fear-driven stupidity that expends our blood and treasure and empowers the very ideology that has produced centuries of human conflict. Note that phrase of his, "radical inclusivity."

He lives among us, a man for OUR time.

And we can choose to empower his legacy over the constant calls for walls and barriers and military deployments and occupations of other people's countries. After all, the fundamental nature of things is still the same.

We can choose inclusion and embrace participation and the worth of every individual as someone who can contribute, or we can choose the fear-based paradigms of suspicion, exclusion, occupation, subjugation, exploitation, and expensive barriers that drain our energies and resources.

Yep, good and bad, replete with power and the need to speak truth to it, and with all the ever-present realized and unrealized manifestations of potential, the fundamental nature of things is still the same. 

Take this example. In 1966, Dr. King sent a telegram to Cesar Chavez, the head of the United Farm Workers union. UFW members were mostly undocumented immigrant workers, though mainstream America was embracing the union's call for lettuce boycotts, then raisins, and other crops, to pressure agricultural interests to treat workers fairly and with fundamental decency. Dr. King wrote Chavez in his telegram, “As brothers in the fight for equality... Our struggles are really one: a struggle for freedom, for dignity and for humanity.”

You may have noted the art for our story. It is from two organizations, "People's Action," and "American Promise."

James Mumm, a spokesman for "People's Action," says of today's political train wreck, "We are in an emotional and spiritual struggle for freedom, dignity and humanity. That’s why the stakes are so high for the Right, and for us. This is about the meaning of freedom... As we ramp up the pressure on Congress to reopen our government without funding for Trump’s ego-sized wall, we need to ask how we can demonstrate the value of radical inclusivity today." 

"Radical inclusivity." A phrase that could find ready application now. It's just one more of the countless citations of Dr. King's legacy.

Meanwhile, Aaron Scherb of the nonpartisan "Common Cause" reminds us that today isn't only the day we honor Dr. King. "Today is also the nine-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling -- one of our democracy's lowest points that put our elections up for sale to corporations and special interests."

Scherb continues, "...we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a man whose living example represented democracy at its finest -- organizing people together to fight for equity and justice... One anniversary represents the freedom to fully participate in our society -- and calls for recommitting ourselves to the still-ongoing fight to dismantle racism. The other represents the exact opposite -- but has also sparked a powerful movement for a democracy where everyone has the right to participate, every vote is counted, and everyone’s voice is heard."

If that sounds like a call to action on this day when there are so many ways to take action, it is. Today, we can carry Dr. King's work forward by demanding that our democracy finally lives up to its promise.

We've heard from some contemporary voices about legacy and need and potential. Now it's time to switch the focus to empowerment of our voices.

The new majority in the US House of Representatives has taken-up the "For the People Act" as its first order of business -- a groundbreaking package of democracy reforms that would give each of us the voice we deserve, and to which the US Constitution entitles us, as "We, the people." Because that's what it says -- "We, the people." Not "We, the corporate oligarchs."

So, on this Martin Luther King Day, this day of taking action, you have a vast number of ways to make a difference in the lives of others and to shape the future for all of us. And that is the best way to pay homage to the memory of the man we honor today.

We've shared the words of others who share the importance of Dr. King's legacy in their lives and work. Now it's time to share some of the eloquent words of the man himself.

We hope you will keep this handy. Dive in and out until you get through al the speech excerpts. We present only a snippet of Dr. King said in a few of his public addresses, and we chose these because

HIS WORDS SPEAK TO OUR TIMES: EXCERPTS FROM SPEECHES OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

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On September 1, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr., was only 38 years old. Yet he had won the Nobel Peace Prize and was already president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference before he took the podium that day at the American Psychological Association's Annual Convention in Washington, D.C. Here is an excerpt from the speech he delivered:

Creative maladjustment.

... it may well be that our world is in dire need of a new organization, The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment.

Men and women should be as maladjusted as the prophet Amos, who in the midst of the injustices of his day, could cry out in words that echo across the centuries, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream";

or as maladjusted as Abraham Lincoln, who in the midst of his vacillations finally came to see that this nation could not survive half slave and half free;

or as maladjusted as Thomas Jefferson, who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery, could scratch across the pages of history, words lifted to cosmic proportions,

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. And that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

And through such creative maladjustment, we may be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man's inhumanity to man, into the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.

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The following words are from his speech delivered at Grosse Pointe High School in Michigan, March 14, 1968 -- three weeks before he was assassinated.

... I want to use as a title for my lecture tonight, "The Other America." And I use this title because there are literally two Americas. Every city in our country has this kind of dualism, this schizophrenia, split at so many parts, and so every city ends up being two cities rather than one.

There are two Americas.

One America is beautiful for situation. In this America, millions of people have the milk of prosperity and the honey of equality flowing before them. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies, culture and education for their minds, freedom and human dignity for their spirits. In this America children grow up in the sunlight of opportunity.

But there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this other America, thousands and thousands of people, men in particular walk the streets in search for jobs that do not exist. In this other America, millions of people are forced to live in vermin-filled, distressing housing conditions where they do not have the privilege of having wall-to-wall carpeting, but all too often, they end up with wall-to-wall rats and roaches. Almost forty percent of the Negro families of America live in sub-standard housing conditions. In this other America, thousands of young people are deprived of an opportunity to get an adequate education.

Every year thousands finish high school reading at a seventh, eighth and sometimes ninth grade level. Not because they're dumb, not because they don't have the native intelligence, but because the schools are so inadequate, so over-crowded, so devoid of quality, so segregated if you will, that the best in these minds can never come out.

Probably the most critical problem in the other America is the economic problem.

There are so many other people in the other America who can never make ends meet because their incomes are far too low if they have incomes, and their jobs are so devoid of quality. And so in this other America, unemployment is a reality and under-employment is a reality.

... John Donne was right. No man is an island and the tide that fills every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. And he goes on toward the end to say, "any man's death diminishes me because I'm involved in mankind. Therefore, it's not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."

Somehow we must come to see that in this pluralistic, interrelated society we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.

And by working with determination and realizing that power must be shared, I think we can solve this problem, and may I say in conclusion that our goal is freedom and I believe that we're going to get there.

It's going to be more difficult from here on in but I believe we're going to get there because however much she strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom and Our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America.

Before the Pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth we were here. Before Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence we were here. Before the beautiful words of the Star Spangled Banner were written we were here. And for more than two centuries our forbearers labored here without wages. They made cotton King, they built the homes of their masters in the midst of the most humiliating and oppressive conditions and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to grow and develop and if the inexpressible cruelties of slavery couldn't stop us, the opposition that we now face including the white backlash will surely fail.

... however difficult it is during this period, however difficult it is to continue to live with the agony and the continued existence of racism, however difficult it is to live amidst the constant hurt, the constant insult and the constant disrespect, I can still sing we shall overcome.

We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.

We shall overcome because Carlisle is right. "No lie can live forever." We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right. 

"Truth crushed to earth will rise again."

We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right.

"Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne."

Yet that scaffold sways the future. We shall overcome because the Bible is right.

"You shall reap what you sow."

With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when all of God's children all over this nation - black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual,

"Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty, We are Free At Last."

___

Just after 6 pm on April 4, 1968, while chiding his colleagues about being late for dinner, Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot.

He was standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. It was an establishment listed in the "Green Book for Negro Travelers," and was exclusively for black customers through the just-ended years of segregated hotels and restaurants. 

Dr. King was in Memphis to rally support for the striking sanitation workers -- the mostly-black garbage men who were not allowed to ride in the cabs of the garbage trucks with the white drivers, but had ride in the back with the garbage. Two of those garbage men, taking refuge from a hard rain, had recently been crushed and killed by a garbage truck's trash compactor.

Today, no sanitation worker rides with the garbage.

Today, the original Lorraine Motel façade houses the National Civil Rights Museum.

And today, everyone knows the iconic U2 song, "One Man in the Name of Love," and its lyric description, "April fourth, shots ring out in the Memphis sky / Free at last..."

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MUCH MORE SOON, including
very full
NEWS EDITIONS from NAMM-!

Of course we'll add labeled
"LATE ADDITIONS" as we
receive them.

Otherwise, that's a wrap for this edition!

Stay Tuneful!
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We'll be back again soon with music news and more "News of the Non-Trumpcentric Universe." (c)

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LEGALESE, CONTACTING US, 'N SUCH...
Boilerplate? Where's the main pressure gauge? And the firebox?
What "boilerplate"? Who came up with that goofy term for the basic essential informational stuff...
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♪ The ACOUSTIC AMERICANA MUSIC GUIDE endeavors to bring you NEWS – and views of interest to artists everywhere – more specifically to musicians and the creative community and music makers and fans of acoustic and Folk-Americana music. That includes both traditional and innovative forms. From the deepest roots to today’s acoustic renaissance, that’s our beat. We provide a wealth of resources, including a HUGE catalog of acoustic-friendly venues (now undergoing a major update), and inside info on FESTIVALS and select performances in Southern California in venues from the monumentally large to the intimately small and cozy. We cover workshops, conferences, and other events for artists and folks in the music industry, and all kinds o’ things in the world of acoustic and Americana and accessible classical music. From washtub bass to musical spoons to oboe to viola to banjo to squeezebox, from Djangostyle to new-fangled-old-time string band music, from sweet Cajun fiddle to bluegrass and pre-bluegrass Appalachian mountain music to all the swamp water roots of the blues and the bright lights of where the music is headed now.
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The Acoustic Americana Music Guide. Thanks for sittin' a spell. The cyber porch'll be here anytime you tire of playin' checkers on the cracker barrel.
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