(11.-13.9.2015) Topic: The Phenomenon of Jerry Douglas part 2. – Prime Times
10th. Resoland workshop was held on 11th-13th August 2015 with pleasant late summer weather and continued by the topic focused on the phenomenon of Jerry Douglas. This time the topic might be quietly called “JD Golden Era” since we focused on songs from Jerry’s most productive and perhaps most adventurous period. At this time Mr. Douglas was also an extremely active recording session player and his resonator guitar have appeared on hundreds (if not thousands) of recordings.
At the workshop we missed Mirek Jilek who due to his work was unable to attend, otherwise, we met in the same lineup as last time (Jarda Kasík, Adrienn Bódy, and Stanislav Turek).
The song selection was naturally reduced to the number of 6 plus some significant lick selection of Jerry’s remarkable breaks. To cover more in such a short time would be quite impossible so the effort was rather focused to analyze Jerry’s style and approach to different musical situations, highlighting his typical phrasing, tone, dynamics, and sense for strong melody lines. The analysis continued on Saturday night when we were watching the selected videos of Jerry’s performance. (This was preceded by great barbecue :-))
Songs covered:
- More Pretty Girls Than One (from the Buck White’s album of the same name)
- Big Mon (from Jerry’s album Changing Channels)
- Is It True (That I Lost You) ( from the album Ricky Skaggs’s – Family and Friends)
- John Henry (from Carl Jackson’s album – Banjo Man)
- Sweetheart You’ve Done Me Wrong (fro album by Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver – The News Is Out)
- Tell Me Baby (both breaks from Tony Rice’s album – Native American)
- Plus some hot lick selected from tunes Monroe’s Hornpipe, Earl’s Breakdown, and If It Ain’t Love
This time we were sweating even more than at the previous workshop, but all students took it bravely and I am confident that my dear resophonics took an amount of new knowledge from the workshop to carry back home. Generally, I think that the workshop was successful and everyone returned to their homes with a great commitment.
