Where Music Plus Friends Equals Family.
Welcome to the official home of Dickey Betts & Great Southern! We are gearing up for the 2005 touring season when we can get back to you, our family on the road. We have a lot of exciting things planned for this year including the release of our DVD recorded live at the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame, new merchandise and of course some new tunes. Check back here often for updates and thanks for stopping by!!
Guitarist Greg Skaff's website features music, cds, bios, electronic press kit.
Twenty years of performing, both internationally and as a regular on the New York jazz scene, has earned jazz guitarist Greg Skaff a reputation as a gifted bandleader and sideman. Skaff's highly versatile playing -- from earth-scorching blues to fluid ballads and virtuosic bebop -- has merited his place alongside such legends as Stanley Turrentine, Gloria Lynne, Ruth Brown, and Freddie Hubbard. His own quartet performs regularly in New York City and around the country, enjoying staunch critical praise.
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Paul Asbell is one of America's premier acoustic guitar players. His new CD, Steel String Americana is now available.
From his early years, playing blues on Chicago's South Side, to his present multi-faceted career based out of northern Vermont, Paul has earned an underground reputation as a true "musician's musician". He has played and recorded with Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins, Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Earl Hooker, Lightnin' Slim, Paul Butterfield, Sam Lay, Pops Staples, Donny Hathaway, and numerous others while in his hometown of Chicago, Ill. (Hit the "Bio" or "Discography" buttons at left for more detail!)
Paul moved to Vermont in the heady "back-to-the-land" days of 1971, where he still lives. He soon started playing with a head-spinningly diverse array of artists, including Big Mama Thornton, singer-songwriters Paul Siebel, Jim Ringer, Mary McCaslin, and Rosalie Sorrells, jazz greats Jon Hendricks, Bobby McFerrin, Sonny Stitt, and Nick Brignola, and many others. In 1978, seeking an outlet for more personal musical visions, he formed Kilimanjaro, and recorded 2 award-winning albums for Philo Records which led to several appearances at the Kool Jazz Festival at SPAC, the Atlanta Jazz Festival, the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the Roskilde Festival in Copenhagen, and numerous national tours and concert dates. In 1981, he and other members of Kilimajaro joined forces with a legendary saxophonist/blues singer to form Big Joe Burrell and the Unknown Blues Band, which remains a Northeast regional favorite to this day. (For upcoming dates, hit "Calendar" button above).
Recent performance/recording credits include David Bromberg, Paul Butterfield, Betty Carter, Joshua Redman, James Carter, Kermit Ruffins, Michael Ray, the Sun Ra Arkestra, The Wild Magnolias, John Stowell, guitar wunderkind Julian Lage, and former student Trey Anastasio. He has also taught guitar for over 30 years, at Dartmouth College, University of Vermont, St. Michaels College, Skidmore College, and presently at Middlebury College. (For more info, hit "Guitar Instruction" button) ...
In a career that spans 25 years, Michael Card has recorded over 20 albums, authored or co-authored over 14 books, hosted two radio programs, and written for a wide range of magazines. While he has penned such favorites as "El Shaddai," "Love Crucified Arose," and "Emmanuel," he never imagined selling more than 4 million albums or writing over 19 #1 hits. The popularity of his work seemed a stark contrast to his goal in life, to simply, and quietly teach the Bible.
Although music provided him the opportunity to share insights gained through extensive research, writing songs alone limited what he felt called to share. Card would frequently agonize over having to condense the vast depth and richness of scripture into a three-minute song. And so he fell, quite naturally, into the field of book writing where he has garnered numerous awards.
As Card continued on his quest to teach the Bible, he was encouraged to follow his dream of hosting a radio program entitled Joy in the Journey. Today it continues as In the Studio with Michael Card and is broadcast on the Moody Radio Network. The structure of each show is based on Card's three passions: community, creativity and commentary. Card believes that it is out of community the gospel really comes to life.
Never one to compartmentalize his spiritual life, Card's quest for community slowly seeped into his professional life as he began to write articles and books on topics that captured his imagination through conversations with Bible teachers, friends and contemporaries in both Christian music and the academic community.
Brennan Manning, Dr. Calvin Seerveld, Dr. Larry Crabb, Kirk Whalum, Dr. George Guthrie, Don Wyrtzen, J.I. Packard and the late Dr. William Lane – from people known for their academic biblical contributions to Grammy-award winning musicians, Card is the first to note what an amazing community of friends and contemporaries he has had the opportunity to learn from and grow with both personally and professionally throughout his career ...
Clarc Colborn:
Christmas, 1966
My parents gave me an inexpensive AM radio (with a clock & loud alarm) for Christmas that year. It was not the main gift, and I really don't remember what it was I had hoped to find under the tree. I do remember that the radio had probably the most profound impact on my life of any gift I ever received. I would listen to WLS from Chicago at night as I was supposed to be going to sleep. I would hear these magnificent sounds that were totally new to me (okay, so my life was a bit sheltered in certain areas!), these awesome guitar driven songs by the Yardbirds, the Beatles, the Ventures, and the Rolling Stones. Within a week I knew that somehow, someday, I was going to play guitar. My parents, on the other hand, were quite certain that I should not become a guitarist, and this is illustrated by what happened the following Christmas.
Christmas, 1967
After nearly a solid year of talking about playing guitar, I was sure I would get some kind of guitar for a gift. My parents had alluded to "music" being part of the holiday, and would wink at one another whenever I began my daily tirade. Christmas morning came, and the musical gift turned out to be a rather bizarre little "chord organ." As an adult, I can now appreciate the gesture; I'm sure the cost of that thing put a strain on their very limited budget. But back then, I reacted in true teenager fashion: a graceless, ungrateful display of whining and moaning peppered with pouting and anger. On the "up" side, I did begin learning to play keyboards with it, as well as starting to learn to read music. It also increased my determination to be a guitarist at least tenfold. So for the next 6 months I saved what I could from my allowance, I shoveled snow from neighbors' walks, and I even took a paper route which required me to get up at (gasp!) 5:00 A.M., so that I could buy myself a guitar.
Summer, 1968
At least it looked like a guitar... I'm not really sure that the thing I bought deserved to be called a guitar. This thing was a huge, crude acoustic, and I paid about $25 for it, new. It was spray painted red, with a "simulated" pickguard that was painted on with black spray paint. The frets were the size of wooden matchsticks, and the high E string was .020 gauge. (For you non-guitarists, that is really fat, too fat for any normal human to play!) You could not play a fretted note without discomfort. Up to the 3rd fret the discomfort was minor, at the 4th fret it was significant. Only a burly masochist could actually finger a note at the 5th fret. By the 10th or 11th fret you could literally drop a pencil between the strings and the neck! (I am not exaggerating... this is true!) It was quickly dubbed The Beast. But it was mine, and I began to learn. Within a few weeks I realized that I could not go on with The Beast for long. So I scrimped, continued the paper route, scrounged for "deposit" pop bottles, did whatever I could until I accumulated another $25. This fortune was used to buy a red sparkle electric, with 3 pick-ups, 3 rocker switches, and 4 knobs! Wow. But this one was playable up to about the 15th fret, and I began formal lessons using this marvel of modern technology. By now Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer, and Jefferson Airplane were part of my musical diet, and I could actually imitate a few notes from their songs here and there, thanks to the playability of the red glitter guitar. I knew I was meant to go on …