Marcy Marxer is investigated by a police officer who is not sure it is legal to play an electric cigar box guitar on the steps of the Library of Congress. She avoided arrest and rocked out with the Guitar Boogie.

Come hear the cigar box electric guitar, sing and play along with us this Saturday, celebrating Arbor Day. We are planning a BIG band at the end with whatever the audience brings to play-washboards, spoons, shakers, you name it. It’s a FREE FAMILY CONCERT  at  2pm.
Agricultural History Farm Park 18400 Muncaster Rd. Derwood, MD 20855

Next week:

CATHY & MARCY TEACH BANJO, UKE & GUITAR, CONCERT IN SEATTLE
4th Annual Dusty Strings Clawhammer Banjo Weekend, May 2-4, 2008

Instructors: Bob Carlin, Cathy Fink, Jeanie Murphy
Concert  guest: Marcy Marxer
Weekend & concert registration 206-634-1662 (toll free 866-634-1662)?or by visiting web site at www.dustystrings.com.
Marcy will also teach private guitar or ukulele lessons on Saturday and Sunday. To schedule a private lesson, email info@cathymarcy.com

LA Scratch Academy

We’re just back from wonderful trip to Southern California. 2 highlights were unlikely musical adventures. On Monday afternoon we spent 4 hours jamming with HAPA, a master DJ who started the LA Scratch Academy. We saw/heard him do an amazing piece at a pre-GRAMMY event and contacted him to see if he’d be in to collaborating. His first time hearing live banjo, mandolin and uke, our first time working with "beats" and the DJ collage tapestry. More will come of this., The Academy also runs a 6 week summer camp for kids & we’re hoping to participate in that adventure this summer.

Then, a studio session with our friend Mike Stein, who is a Cantor in LA (after 20 years fiddling and yodeling with the Navy’s country band, Country Current). Mike spent much of the summer in Uganda, recording music from the Jewish Community there. He brought home some amazing community music and is adding tracks to it in LA for future release. Two of his sons joined on bass & mandolin, both fine musicians. Kids, who came to our kids concerts years ago, grown up now and following in Dad’s musical footsteps. Another great day and musical adventure.

If ANY Award makes us proud, it is being appreciated by our fans-Jesse Silverberg, 5 years old, presented us with this award after the GRAMMY's. THE JESSE AWARD is the BEST!!!! Thanks.

We had an amazing week of music, friends & education from Feb. 5-10 as part of the full week of GRAMMY celabrations. We even got to announce 15 awards at the pre-televised ceremony. That includes "And the GRAMMY goes to.....Barack Obama." Been quoted from NY Times to Washington Post for saying,  "He's going to have to personally meet us to get it!

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Click here to view the GRAMMY WEEK 2008 website. It's got nearly 75 photos and a run down on the whole week.

On the way home, we made a quick youtube video at the Long Beach Airport of a banjo tune: Click HERE to see "Peruvian Flat-Police, Don't Block That Door" played on a Gold Tone CC mini banjo.  Ukulele Fans may want to check out Marcy's youtube lesson on playing the 12th St. Rag, HERE and a great performance of it HERE. Played on a prototype Kevin Enoch Tradesman banjo uke. One youtube viewer commented, "Deposit made in smile bank!" Get that ukulele out now! 

Coming Up: March 2nd- Arlington, VA
Encore concert of Cathy & Marcy with Army Blues Jazz Ensemble, 18 piece Big Band  
FREE - all ages - 3pm -no advance tickets needed, doors open at 2:30
Location: Kenmore Middle School, 200 S. Carlin Springs Rd.,
Arlington, VA 22204
 

 We've been in LA for a few days enjoying the GRAMMY Week activities. Tuesday-Grammy Salute to Jazz. It included a fabulously talented group of high school musicians in a big band. Bill Cosby MC'd much of the event honoring Sonny Rollins and McCoy Tyner. Wednesday there was a concert and event centered on how music and social change are connected. We were especially impressed with a young DJ named Hapa who seemed to be playing an instruent as he carefully mixed voice, scratches, music and messages.

Wednesday & Thursday during the day we were at Berkeley Studios with our friend Mike Stein. Mike recorded some vocals for one of our upcoming projects. Friday we attended a GRAMMY TV show rehearsal at the Staple Center and hung out with students from GRAMMY U, talking about their future careers in music. And then, to the largest fundraiser we've ever been to, the MusiCares Person of the Year Celebration. MusiCares raises funds to help musicians in need. They honored Aretha Franklin and raised 4.5 million dollars. Great music, great tribute, great cause.

    WATCH THE FIRST 100 AWARDS IN THE GRAMMY PRE-TELEVISED CEREMONY AT WWW.GRAMMY.COM, Sunday, February 10 @ 1pm pacific time (4pm eastern time). We are presenting about 10 awards early in the show.

CHECK OUR GRAMMY WEEK WEBSITE FOR UPDATED PHOTOS. WE'RE UP TO 33 and new photos added daily! gallery.mac.om/cfink2/100032 

 We're having a great week. New songs for families in the studio took up most of the week. This morning we launched our first "American Folksongs for Children" class at The Music Center at Strathmore with Betty Scott team teaching. Snuck in a banjo lesson with a 5 year old student. Now we're gettin ready for a dinner show/family concert of Woody Guthrie songs. Packing in the musical fun.

 HAPPY NEW YEAR! Hope everyone's had great holidays. Before we forget some of them, check out the little website we made of photos from our 16th annual Gingerbread House making by
CLICKING HERE.

We are VERY excited to receive a GRAMMY nomination for the CD, BANJO TALKIN' in the BEST TRADITIONAL FOLK ALBUM category. It is our 13th nomination, and the support and good will from within the music community has been overwhelming.

IN 2006, we ended our summer of festival performances and jam sessions by recording 2 CD's of music on old time banjo: BANJO TALKIN' and THE OLD TIME BANJO FESTIVAL with 20 of our favorite banjo players. While recording those projects, Marcy got hooked on banjos-ALL of them. She started collecting and playing cello banjo, tenor banjo, banjo ukulele, melody banjo and plectrum banjo. She already plays everything else-guitar, mandoli, uke, hammered dulcimer, steel drum, flutes, percussion......

The combe of cello banjo and old time five-string banjo has become a favorite in our musical circles.

Both banjo CD's are available at  www.cathymarcy.com

And, there are some wonderful, young banjo players coming up. More on them later!