We are excited to be playing a new venue this week.  After a week of vacation in the hot Carribean sun, the Pea Pickin’ Hearts are back to play 3 shows from 6 to 9pm at the Ober Gatlinburg Ski Resort this week:  December 27th, and January 2nd & 3rd.  As of this post, we don’t have any snow on the mountain or enough cold air to get the snow machines working.  So get your karma all warmed up and come on out to the Ober Gatlinburg lounge tonight and help us sing…

“Let it Snow. Let it Snow. Let it Snow.”

The Pea Pickin’ Hearts were very flattered to have been invited to participate and are contemplating entering a song into the Del Rio Song Contest.  How ’bout you?

Del Rio, TN is a historic Southern Appalachian community spread along the French Broad River and into the surrounding mountains, ruled by native woodlands, long ridges and deep, winding hollows.

The old homesteads in Del Rio may be vanishing, but the traditional ways of life remain. The virtuous, the sinful, the independent and all the shades of humankind share a sense of belonging in this special location.

ELIGIBILITY:  Open to ALL songwriters and musicians. Send your songs that express in some way the meaning that a place can have to its people.

JUDGING:  Songs judged for quality, originality & relevance.

AWARDS:  Ten finalists to be chosen for performance at Del Rio Days on Sunday, October 23, 2011.  $500 awarded to the Judges’ Choice and  $500 awarded to the Audience Favorite.

DEADLINE:  October 1, 2011

NOTIFICATION:  October 7, 2011 (on or around)

ENTRY FEE:  Each entry must also include a non-refundable check or M.O. for $10 payable to DRCA;  additional entries by the same writer must include an additional $5 per song, plus entry form and lyric sheet

For entry form and contest rules, visit www.DelRioSongContest.com!

The Pea Pickin’ Hearts are proud to have been invited to be one of four local Smoky Mountain songwriters or duos to be showcased at the Preview Event on Thursday, August 25th, 2011 at Ober Gatlinburg for the Smoky Mountain Songwriters Festival coming to Gatlinburg in August of 2012:

“We have tentatively set August 21 – August 25, 2012 as the dates for the First Annual Smoky Mountains Songwriters Festival.  BMI, ASCAP, SESAC and The Nashville Songwriters Association immediately got on board this year to guide us and help make The Smoky Mountains Songwriters Festival Preview a great event.    

“Singer/Songwriters all have fans and comrades who want to be where they are performing.  Music lovers everywhere love great performances, especially when they get the opportunity to meet the artists and hear the stories behind their hit songs. 

“There is actually a song writer’s festival following that goes from festival to festival all across this country; thus opening up a brand new market for [sic] Gatlinburg. 

“We will be having a series of planning sessions for the August 2012 Smoky Mountains Songwriters Festival within the next six weeks… We welcome your thoughts and suggestions and are looking forward to your support and help to put on the First Annual Smoky Mountains Songwriters Festival in August of 2012.”  – Cyndy Montgomery Reeves, George Hawkins, Betsy Cate

If you are a local, regional or national artist, restaurant or bar owner, please click on one of the organizers’ names above to email someone your interest in being involved as a showcased artist, venue or sponsor.

PREVIEW EVENT:

5-6pm Get Acquainted featuring Local Songwriters: Martha Christian, Heather Maples, New Rain and the Pea Pickin’ Hearts.

6-8pm VIP Concert featuring Nationally Known Songwriters: Chris Wallin, Marty Dodson, Clay Mills and Bobby Tomberlin.

Seating is limited to the first 200 who RSVP to (865)436-7613 or betsngburg@aol.com. See you there!

See you at Ober Gatlinburg Thursday at 5pm!

Come on down
to the Hollar!

On June 4th, the Pea Pickin’ Hearts will once again have the privilege of performing at the Hoot in the Hollar in Bulls Gap, TN. 

The Hoot in the Hollar is a FREE full-day outdoor concert in a horse pasture that raises both money and awareness for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.  Don’t forget to bring your lawn chair!  Pop up tents are allowed too!

Our lives have not been directly effected by CF, but they have been by concert promoter Glenn Spayth.

Spayth is a gentle soul, wonderful musician and great story teller.  His kindness and support of the Pea Pickin’ Hearts has been touching, and we are honored to be able to support a cause so dear to his heart in memory of Andrea Kersting, his daughter, who passed in August of 2009 due to Cystic Fibrosis.

Come out and have a great time
listening to great music for a great cause!

Visit the Hoot in the Hollar website
for full details!

It is Christmas in April… The Pea Pickin’ Hearts headed out tonight (Saturday, April 16th) to sing a last minute gig for a packed house at The Inn at Christmas Place for the Hot Rod crowd…including the Yellow Mustang Registry.

TOO MUCH FUN.

I’m packing my red velvet stilettos and headed out with Jon to sing at 8. See you in front of the Christmas Tree!

PEAS in a POD…or a can

One of The Peas, Jon (whom we’ll call a Split Pea) is headed to the Hard Rock Cafe with Oscar, our very young early pea (you can call him LeSueur) to hear Vicki Genfan play during the Hard Rock Whispers Series.

Vicki Genfan labels her music “Folk meets Funk”.   It’s a blend of jazz, funk, pop and world music in a contemporary folk context.  She uses various uncommon open tunings, complex harmonies and intricate rhythms, combining them with percussive grooves. 

Genfan’s playing is characterized by “two handed tappings”, explosive “tapped” and “slapped harmonics” with one or more fingers of the right hand and slapped basslines.

She calls her technique “slap-tap”.  Did you see the movie Autumn Rush?  That isn’t Vicki Genfan playing, but that technique will give you an idea of what any amazing experience it is.  Instead, just watch the video below to see Genfan playing “Atomic Reshuffle” on a Luna Guitar.

If you’re reading this post on your phone,
Click Here to go directly to the video.

Coming soon…
Pictures and VIDEO of “LeSueur” singing Dominick the Donkey
in the Gatlinburg Boys & Girls Club Holiday play…
Dressed in a donkey costume. Hehehe.

…is that you never know when someone in the crowd will take a great photograph.  Here’s a great shot of Jon, bless his little pea pickin’ heart.  He is playing his fairly new EJ-200CE Super Jumbo Acoustic Guitar.  (continues below)

This shot was taken by listener Armando Amet at the Covered Bridge Business During Hours event hosted by the Gatlinburg Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, September 28th.  Thanks Armando!

But, the day has come, and I now await my little 1953 Oscar Schmidt 12-Chord Autoharp (pictured below)…

She needs a little cleaning and, no doubt, a lot of tuning, but I have my fingers crossed that she will sing in time for our August 19th & 21st showcases at the IndieGrrl Music Conference in Knoxville.

And for those of you that can keep a secret, I’ve located an 1890 Zimmerman Chorded Zither called, of all things, The Favorite too…

Do you think I can sneak it in when Jon isn’t looking?

For those of you unfamiliar with the autoharp, here’s a little lesson from wikipedia.org:

The autoharp is a musical stringed instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers which, when depressed, mute all the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither.

There is debate over the origin of the autoharp. A German immigrant in Philadelphia by the name of Charles F. Zimmermann was awarded US patent 257808  in 1882 for a design for a musical instrument that included mechanisms for muting certain strings during play.

He named his invention the “autoharp.”

Unlike later autoharps, the shape of the instrument was symmetrical, and the felt-bearing bars moved horizontally against the strings instead of vertically.

It is not known if Zimmermann ever commercially produced any instruments of this early design. Karl August Gütter of Markneukirchen, Germany, had built a model that he called a “Volkszither” which most resembles the autoharp played today.

Gütter obtained a British patent for his instrument circa 1883-1884.  Zimmermann, after returning from a visit to Germany, began production of the Gütter design in 1885…but with his own design patent number and catchy name.

Gütter’s instrument design became very popular and Zimmermann has often been mistaken as the inventor.

Autoharps have been used in the United States as bluegrass and folk instruments, perhaps most famously by Maybelle Carter and Sara Carter of The Carter Family (Click on the picture at left to learn more about The Carter Family).

They are relatively easy to learn to play as a rhythm instrument, but offer great rewards to the more committed player as a melody instrument.

Grand Ole Opry star Cecil Null was the first to develop the upright style for playing the autoharp that was in turn used by the Carter Family.

I still envision Dolly Parton playing that white bedazzled autoharp (pictured right) that you can see for yourself at the Dolly Parton museum inside Dollywood.

Outside of bluegrass and country music, both acoustic and electric autoharp were occasionally used in the folk-influenced parts of late 1960s/1970s progressive rock, psychedelia and related genres by e.g. Genesis, Renaissance and Led Zeppelin.  Janis Joplin also played the autoharp, which can be heard in her early, unreleased recording “So Sad to Be Alone”.

I’ll post better pictures when she arrives!

After much fretting, no pun intended, over not settling just because he had a limited budget, Jon came home with an Epiphone EJ-200CE Super Jumbo Acoustic.

He’s in love. 

What is the word on the street about the EJ-200CE Super Jumbo Acoustic?

“The essential cutaway electric version of the ‘King of the Flattop Guitars,’ the Epiphone EJ-200CE is unrivaled in, big, acoustic sound and is treasured for its classic appointments such as “crown” fretboard inlay and “mustache” bridge.

“It also has a Select Spruce top and Maple body and neck as well as the famous flower motif pickguard that completes the authentic design. This beauty is voiced by the Shadow eSonic2 preamp system, featuring the revolutionary Shadow NanoFex and NanoMag pick-up’s.”

Subscribe to the Pea Pickin’ Hearts’ blog for upcoming video of Jon’s new baby as well as a preview of the new autoharp I decided to adopt that should arrive any day now.