Eddie's Attic presents a tuneful start to the Baseball season - two baseball troubadours, John McCutcheon & Chuck Brodsky, will meet for nine innings of ballpark songs in a sort of musical/athletic competition that has become an annual tradition in honor of opening day.
Avondale Estates' John McCutcheon, noted folkie and multi-instrumentalist, will represent the home team at Eddie's, and Philadelphia native Chuck Brodsky, relocated to Asheville, N.C., is the visitor. Both will be aided and abetted by Atlanta Braves organist Matthew Kaminski.
Brodsky and McCutcheon are friends and prolific writers of songs about baseball, enough for a full album each. Among the tunes in Brodsky's lineup are "Death Row All Stars," about a team from the Wyoming state penitentiary playing for their lives, and “Dock Ellis’s No-No," a ballad about the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher who threw a no-hitter while under the influence of psychedelics.
McCutcheon, a Wisconsin native, will dress out in an old Milwaukee Braves uniform and might deliver his "Talking Yogi Talk" or "Doing My Job," the latter a tuneful account of Cal Ripken's memorable speech after he broke Lou Gehrig's record for most consecutive games played.
McCutcheon bats last. Eddie Owen, founder of Eddie's Attic & Eddie Owen Presents, keeps score, in an inscrutable fashion, despite Brodsky's protest that music cannot be scored.
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No one remembers when the neighbors started calling the McCutcheons to complain about the loud singing from young John's bedroom. It didn't seem to do much good, though. For, after a shaky, lopsided battle between piano lessons and baseball (he was a mediocre pianist and an all-star catcher), he had "found his voice" thanks to a cheap mail-order guitar and a used book of chords.
From such inauspicious beginnings, JOHN MCCUTCHEON has emerged as one of our most respected and loved folksingers. As an instrumentalist, he is a master of a dozen different traditional instruments, most notably the rare and beautiful hammer dulcimer. His songwriting has been hailed by critics and singers around the globe. His thirty recordings have garnered every imaginable honor including seven Grammy nominations. He has produced over twenty albums of other artists, from traditional fiddlers to contemporary singer-songwriters to educational and documentary works. His books and instructional materials have introduced budding players to the joys of their own musicality. The Washington Post described John as folk music's "Rustic Renaissance Man," a moniker flawed only by its understatement. "Calling John McCutcheon a 'folksinger' is like saying Deion Sanders is just a football player..." (Dallas Morning News).
Besides his usual circuit of major concert halls and theaters, John is equally at home in an elementary school auditorium, a festival stage or at a farm rally. He is a whirlwind of energy packing five lifetimes into one. In the past few years alone he has headlined over a dozen different festivals in North America (including repeated performances at the National Storytelling Festival), recorded an original composition for Virginia Public Television involving over 500 musicians, toured Australia for the sixth time, toured Chile in support of a women's health initiative, appeared in a Woody Guthrie tribute concert in New York City, gave a featured concert at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, taught performance art skills at a North Carolina college, given symphony pops concerts across America, served as President of the fastest-growing Local in the Musicians Union and performed a special concert at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
CHUCK BRODSKY's songwriting pokes fun at political corruption, road rage, mischief he made as a kid; he sings about unsung heroes and forgotten but incredible people…odd characters from the game of baseball, migrant fruit pickers, the Goat Man, a clown, or “Radio,” a developmentally disabled man and the love showered on him for 40 years at a high school in South Carolina (this song was used in the 2003 movie “Radio”). In addition to being fixtures on the Dr. Demento show, his songs have been recorded by Kathy Mattea, David Wilcox, Sara Hickman, Chuck Pyle, and many others, and his tune “Blow ‘em Away” was selected by Christine Lavin for Shanachie's 1996 “Laugh Tracks” album. He's appeared on nationally syndicated radio programs “Mountain Stage,” “Acoustic Cafe,” and “River City Folk,” and has performed three concerts of his celebrated baseball story songs at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
This down to earth musical storyteller, with his dry, barb-witted social commentary combined with a deep underlying compassion, knows that the best stories are the little things in the lives of everyday people trying to muddle through with some grace. His great gift as a writer is to infuse these stories with humanity and humor, making them resonate profoundly with his listeners. His spoken introductions to his songs can be as spellbinding as his colorful lyrics, which he brings to life with a well-travelled voice and a delivery that's natural and conversational. His groove-oriented strumming and fingerpicking draw on influences from the mountains of western North Carolina where he now lives, and from lots of different good old traditional folk stuff of all kinds. In the summer of 2002 Chuck released “The Baseball Ballads,”which Tim Wiles, Director of Research at The National Baseball Hall of Fame calls “a new chapter in the folklore of our national pastime.”
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