Ben Chavez Resigns - February 21, 2009
Ben Chavez
It is with great sadness that we announce the resignation of our banjo player, guitar player, and vocalist Ben Chavez from the band. Ben says he needs some time off from rehearsing and performing to further develop his instrumental skills and to focus more on bluegrass and traditional music. Since Muddy River String Band often strays (usually intentionally) from traditional music as we search for different and sometimes strange ways of arranging and performing obscure songs, we can appreciate his position and understand that his goals may not be the same as ours. We wish him well in his search for the meaning and understanding of life, musically speaking, but we will definitely miss his presence, particularly during practices where his insights were extremely valuable to us all.
You will be able to watch Ben perform with his other group, Placitas Mountain Band, in and around the Albuquerque area.
Meanwhile, we will bravely forge on into the unknown, without a replacement for the time being, using this event as our incentive to hunker down, batten the hatches, suit up, and mesh together even better than before, emerging once again as a finely-honed, uniquely-gifted combination of musical skills, entertaining audiences with our high-energy performances and our charisma, wit, and charm! All modesty aside, we hope you enjoy our performances and will continue to support us through 2009 and beyond!
The Heritage FarmWe would like to thank everyone who came out to see us at the Heritage Farm on February 21. We had a great time out there on the porch, and it was a very beautiful day. Our thanks go out to the people of the Albuquerque Botanic Gardens and the Heritage Farm for continuing to invite us back. We love to play in the old farmhouse, and the farm itself inspires our playing. Special thanks go to Allyson Zahm of the Botanic Garden. She always makes us feel like we are at home. We hope that you all come see us at our next performances there this summer.
Please join us at the City of Albuquerque's Founder's Day Fiesta on Saturday, April 18. We will be playing at the Statehood Placita on North Romero Street in Old Town, from 1:00 to 2:00 pm. The event is free and promises to be extremely fun!
2009 Upcoming Season Highlights - February 2, 2009
After a nice holiday break we are now back to practicing and ready to pick up where we left off as we begin our 2009 season on February 21 at Heritage Farm at 11:00 am. We have new, original material plus our usual twisted versions of old favorites. It all adds up to a fun, entertaining musical event that you won’t want to miss!
In 2008 we nearly sold out our first run of Cactus Jam. We’re ordering more so you all will still be able to purchase one for yourself or as a gift! We’re also starting to make plans for recording our second CD, which will include mostly original material and a few traditional tunes!
Some of the places we will be performing in 2009 include the Albuquerque Folk Festival, Solid Grounds, Heritage Farm, Manzano Mesa Community Center (part of an Earth Day celebration!), and the Santa Fe Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival in August. We will be one of the main stage bands since we won FIRST PLACE in the bluegrass band contest at the 2008 Festival! Thank you all for helping us to make 2008 so successful. We hope to see you again in 2009!
2008 Season Wrap-up - November 10, 2008
2008 was a great year for us! We released Cactus Jam, our first CD (we still have a few left!), learned and performed a bunch of new material, played numerous venues, and met a lot of great people. We’ve just completed a very successful string of shows including winning FIRST PLACE!!! in the bluegrass band contest at the 34th Santa Fe Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival! We really enjoyed all of our recent performances especially our latest events at Solid Grounds and the Rio Grande Arts and Crafts Festival. Now we’re looking forward to taking a few months off to rest, practice, learn new songs, and come back even better next year! We’re also starting to make plans for recording our second CD! Our next show, unless something comes up, will be at Heritage Farm for the Wool Festival on February 21st. Thank you all for helping us to make 2008 so successful. We hope to see you again in 2009!
Wildlife West 2008 - August 5, 2008
The festival season is upon us and we have already finished performances at two of them with great success. The bluegrass festival at Wildlife West last weekend was a great time for all! In addition to the crafts, food, workshops, contests, jams, and the animals there was, of course, great musical entertainment. The variety this year was outstanding, from traditional to jazzed-up bluegrass and old-time to a local marimba band playing tunes inspired by the music of Zimbabwe. Our bass player says she wants to be in that band! Muddy River String Band was proud to be a part of it all. A big thanks to Richard Eager for inviting us again. We hope to be back soon! Next up is the 34th Santa Fe Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival followed by the Corrales Harvest Festival and the GoArts! Festival in downtown Albuquerque – both first-time events for us!
2008 Albuquerque Folk Festival - June 21, 2008
Our performance at the 2008 Albuquerque Folk Festival was awesome – or so we were told! We were really clicking and having a great time on stage, and it must have spilled over onto our audience because they had a great time, too! They were tapping their feet, clapping their hands, and laughing right along with us -- at all the right times, too, which is sort of important if you think about it. Our new song selection was a big hit. The audience especially enjoyed No More Tortillas and our version of the Russian classic Katyusha. Ben Chavez did a great job singing Annabelle and Wagon Wheel and, of course, Diane Prior rocked on Little Sadie and Come into my Kitchen which was great, as usual. Here’s one of our secrets: we almost never practice this song anymore because it just never sounds as good as when we’re performing it!
Congratulations to 10-year old Gwen Prior for wining the fiddle contest (0-12 year old category). She performed Red-Haired Boy and Soldier’s Joy with her proud daddy Ben Prior accompanying her on ‘cello. Her prize was a ton of money (for her, that is) and the chance to perform one of the songs on the main stage. You rock, Gwen!
We are looking forward to the upcoming festivals including Wildlife West, the 34th Santa Fe Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival, and the Corrales Harvest Festival in August. See you there!