Coldplay Unveil North American, European Tour Dates

Coldplay are set to launch their first North American tour in nearly three years. The trek begins April 17 in Edmonton, AB, Canada. In addition, today (December 9), the band unveiled the dates and locales for their 2012 European stadium summer, which kicks off May 18, in Porto, Portugal. Fans of Coldplay can also ring in the New Year with the band, in the form of a New Year’s Eve TV special the group is staging for PBS’s Austin City Limits. The 90-minute episode will air nationwide on Sunday, Dec. 31, at 11 p.m. EST. A new Coldplay single, titled “Charlie Brown,” goes to radio later this month.

North American Dates:
4/17   Edmonton, AB
4/18   Calgary, AB
4/20   Vancouver, BC
4/24   Portland, OR
4/25   Seattle, WA
4/27   San Jose, CA
5/1     Los Angeles, CA
5/2     Los Angeles, CA
6/22   Dallas, TX 
6/25   Houston, TX
6/28   Tampa, FL
6/29   Miami, FL
7/2     Atlanta, GA
7/5     Philadelphia, PA
7/8     Washington, DC
7/23   Toronto, ON 
7/26   Montreal, QC
7/29   Boston, MA 
8/3     East Rutherford, NJ
8/7     Chicago, IL   
8/11   St. Paul, MN 

European Stadium Dates:
5/18    Porto, Portugal
5/22    Nice, France
5/24    Turin, Italy
5/26    Zurich, Switzerland
8/28    Copenhagen, Denmark
8/30    Stockholm, Sweden
9/2      Paris, France
9/4     Cologne, Germany
9/6     The Hague, Netherlands
9/12   Munich, Germany
9/14   Leipzig, Germany

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Anthology Of American Folk Music (Edited By Harry Smith)

This deluxe 6-CD collector's boxed set contains a 96-page book featuring Harry Smith's original songbook framed by essays by Greil Marcus and other noted writers, musicians, and scholars. Play the enhanced sixth disc on your CD-ROM drive and access historic video footage, rare photos, artist interviews, and additional background information. Edited by Harry Smith. Reissue compiled by the staff of Smithsonian Folkways. Reissue liner notes by Greil Marcus, Neil Rosenberg, Jeff Place, Jon Pankake, Luis Kemnitzer and others. "...the missing link in rock's official history." -Newsweek ***** (five stars) -Rolling Stone

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Canyon Trilogy: Native American Flute Music

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The Civil War - Traditional American Songs And Instrumental Music Featured In The Film By Ken Burns: Original Soundtrack Recording

Groundhog Day 207 "Hip hip hooray, it’s Ground Hog Day!" Jack is so excited for his favorite holiday and can’t wait to find out if the ground hog will see her shadow or not! But he might not find out because a scared Gertrude the Ground Hog runs into the clubhouse and nervously peeks out the window, "Are they out there yet? Are they?" Jack and the gang learn that today is Gertrude’s first Ground Hog Day as the ground hog (the one who everyone gathers around to find out if it sees its own shadow). But Gertrude can’t do it, she doesn’t want to be the center of attention, she’s too shy to face all the people and cameras! Gertrude is not going out there! What will happen to Ground Hog Day?! Jack and the Bean Stalk 208 Jack finds some magic beans, which promptly grow into a huge beanstalk, breaking through the clubhouse ceiling, straight up into the clouds. Jack and the gang climb up to investigate and find themselves at the enormous door of a beautiful kingdom high above the clouds. It is here Jack, Mary and Mel meet the Giant, who is very sad. The Giant explains that he just doesn’t know what to get his wife for her birthday. All he has given her in the past are golden eggs, and she’s had enough of them. After trying out some gift ideas, the gang decides that the Giant should give his wife the gift of song. But what song will he sing? How Mel Got His Groove Back 102 Today, the clubhouse is rocking big-time! Mel gets a little carried away with his drum solo and accidentally sends a drum flipping through the air. The drum lands right on Mel and bonks him on the head. We soon discover Mel the dog thinks he’s a cat! Jack tries to bring back Mel’s "dog-gone" memory with his favorite dog toys and treats. Luckily, our good friend Cathy stops by and teaches us a song that gets Mel’s doggie groove back! What a day! Little Bad Wolf 101 Hold on to your musical instruments. Jack, Mary and Mel get a visit from The Little Bad Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf’s brother. He huffs and puffs and blows the instruments all over the place making piles of musical messes. How can we get The Little Bad Wolf to stop blowing down the clubhouse? We can teach him how to play the perfect instrument for a wolf full of hot air. He learns how to blow a tuba! The Little Bad Wolf helps us rock the clubhouse and we all make marvelous music together. What a day!

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American Civil War Maps, Photographs & Lesson Plans

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This Day in Music Spotlight: The Home of American Music

On this date in 1985, The Nashville Network began broadcasting Grand Ole Opry Live, a weekly program of live music from “country’s most famous stage.” While the program featured some of the biggest names in country music, including Dolly Parton, Roy Acuff, Hank Snow and others, it was hardly something new. In fact, when Grand Ole Opry Live premiered, the weekly performance showcase was already 60 years old.

The Grand Ole Opry began as a radio show on Nashville’s WSM-AM on November 28, 1925. At that point, radio was a relatively new phenomenon and stations were still trying to figure out just how to gain audiences. The station, owned by the National Life & Accident Insurance Company, hired big-time on-air personality and program director George D. “Judge” Hay from Chicago’s WLS-AM. Hay had launched the successful National Barn Dance program on WLS and was looking to recapture that magic in Nashville.

WSM had begun to find success in the genre a couple of weeks before Hay came onboard, featuring spots with “Dr. Humphrey Bate and his string quartet of old-time musicians” (whom Hay would later dub Bate’s “Possum Hunters”). When Hay came to the station on November 2, it was just a matter of booking the right artists to create the ultimate showcase of “old-time music.” He got his first bit of local talent at the suggestion of a station piano accompanist, who recommended her uncle, Jimmy Thompson, a local fiddler who learned to play songs as a boy from soldiers returning home from the Civil War. And so, with “Uncle Jimmy” Thompson booked, Hay launched the first WSM Barn Dance.

The performance began at 8 p.m. and was scheduled to run for an hour. Hay threw open the phone lines to take requests, which flooded in almost instantly. The hour flew by with several requests still to be played. Hay asked the 77-year-old Thompson if he’d had enough, to which Uncle Jimmy replied, “A man don’t get warmed up in an hour” and flashed a blue ribbon to Hay commemorating his victory at an eight-day fiddle contest in Dallas.

The show was an immediate hit with listeners and soon Hay was bringing in all the great players in the area, including Bate’s Possum Hunters, the Fruit Jar Drinkers, the Crook Brothers, Uncle Dave Macon and others. Very quickly, the Saturday night program became a national sensation.

Two years later, the WSM Barn Dance got its more famous name. At that time, WSM would broadcast programs from NBC, including the Music Appreciation Hour, hosted by the German-born conductor, Dr. Walter Damrosch. The program was an attempt to bring “serious” music to the masses (even providing textbooks and worksheets to school teachers who used it in their classes). This “serious” music included pieces in the Grand Opera genre of 19th-century opera. On December 10, 1927, as Damrosch’s show concluded, Hay came on the air and proclaimed, “Friends, the program which just came to a close was devoted to the classics. Doctor Damrosch told us that there is no place in the classics for realism. However, from here on out for the next three hours, we will present nothing but realism. It will be down to earth for the ‘earthy.’”

He then handed off the show to the “Harmonica Wizard,” DeFord Bailey, who played a foot-stomping version of “The Pan American Blues.” After Bailey was finished, Hay quipped, “For the past hour, we have been listening to music taken largely from Grand Opera. From now on, we will present the ‘Grand Ole Opry.’”

From that point on, the weekly concert was simply called The Grand Ole Opry. Within a few years, the Opry would move out of the studio to various venues housing live audiences, eventually finding a home at a former church built by a riverboat captain named Thomas Ryman. The Ryman Auditorium would house The Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974, overseeing an explosion of country music that would include such legends as Hank Williams, the Carter family, Bill Monroe, Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash, Hank Snow and others.

The Opry now resides at the Grand Ole Opry House, just a few miles east of Nashville, though it still visits the Ryman Auditorium on occasion. The Ryman itself continues to serve Music City as both a museum housing precious relics of days past and as a live venue, where artists to this day look up at the balcony that oversaw Elvis Presley, Hank Williams and so many others. The Grand Ole Opry is still broadcast live on Saturday nights on WSM-AM, 86 years after Judge Hay launched it. Tune in at 7 p.m. and you may just hear the legends of tomorrow play their first notes on “country’s most famous stage.”

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