Adie Grey presents dulcimer workshop, concert at Renaissance Center Oct. 2

Release Date: 9/14/2004. Expired: 10/2/2004

Adie Grey’s music has been called “brand new old time music” - the title of her first CD -- while her voice has been described as “somewhere between Dolly Parton and Pam Tillis in character” and “similar to Alison Krauss but stronger.”

The singer/songwriter/dulcimer player brings her unique style to the stage of The Renaissance Center in Dickson Oct. 2. Tickets for the 7 p.m. concert are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $6 for children under 13.

She also will present a Non-Traditional Mountain Dulcimer Workshop 2-4 p.m. that same day. Tuition for the workshop is $40.

Writing songs and singing is an old family tradition for Grey.

“I’ve been around songwriters my whole life,” she said. “My cousins, the Tobias Brothers, are in the Songwriters Hall of Fame and my grandpa, Bill Lava, wrote music for movies and TV shows. I sang my first demo for him at the age of five, a tune he wrote for the Bugs Bunny Show.”

Critics say that Grey’s songs fit right in with many of music’s standards.

“She has a knack for writing contemporary songs that sound as though they are country/folk standards,” Kerry Dexter wrote in Dirty Linen magazine in 1997. “She’s an intelligent, literate songwriter who, though their styles differ, reminds me somewhat of Matraca Berg - and, like Berg, Grey isn’t afraid to let her sense of humor show occasionally.”

Her first two albums contained a mix of country, folk, blues, bluegrass, swing and even a Cajun dance tune. Grey wrote or co-wrote with partner Dave MacKenzie most of the songs and guest musicians included John Hartford, Albert Lee, Jo-el Sonnier and Grammy-winner dulcimer player David Schnaufer.

Grey’s diversity of sound is also noted in her voice.

“This honey-voiced songwriter traverses styles, from bluesy country to olde time, as if she were doing scales on a piano,” wrote L.A. Weekly.

“From a pleasing warble to a bluesy exhortation, Adie has the pipes to deliver in every style,” says Seth Bate in the 1999 Walnut Valley Music Showcase program.

“I’ve always been interested in a real variety of musical styles and, being born and raised in Los Angeles, I had the chance to try my hand at most of them,” said Grey, now a Middle Tennessee resident. “I sang in a country band with Albert Lee, with blues and R&B acts like Albert King and Hank Ballard, in Reverend James Cleveland’s Choir and I even got to work with the great jazz singer Diane Shur.”

Grey moved to Nashville in 1989 to pursue a full-time songwriting career.

“A lot of the music that inspires me, like blues and gospel, bluegrass and folk, even jazz, comes from the south originally, so it only made sense to move here,” she said.

She has worked in the studio with people like Bonnie Raitt, Vonda Shepard, Jo-el Sonnier, John Hartford, Al Kooper, Pam Tillis and Martina McBride, among others. She regularly plays festivals and tours internationally and has been the coordinator of the Blues in the Schools program in Nashville.

Her workshop at The Renaissance Center, designed for beginner and intermediate dulcimer players, will examine some basic chord forms, progressions and positions in DADD tuning. Musical examples will include pop songs from the 1950s and ’60s forward. Students should bring their own dulcimer and a dulcimer capo or a few dulcimers built by local craftsmen are available for sale the day of the workshop.

For more information on Grey’s concert or dulcimer workshop, contact Elaine Sherrill, senior director of music at The Renaissance Center, at (615)740-5545 or . To register for the workshop call (615)740-5533. To purchase tickets for the concert call (615)740-5570.

The Renaissance Center is an arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the Events - Concerts and Recitals page for more about musical performances.

News

Date Released	Expiration	Headline
No Press Releases to show...