The Savannah Folk Music Society, with the support of the Southern Arts Federation and the Georgia Council for the Arts, presents master bluesman and historian Scott Ainslie on March 8 for a blues workshop and concert. These events will be at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the Georgia Coastal Center (305 Fahm St., behind the Visitors Center) in Savannah.
The workshop will be free to the public. Tickets for the concert will be $10 general public, $8 for SFMS members, and $5 children/students. Tickets will go on sale one hour before the performance at the Georgia Coastal Center.
Scott Ainslie heard Virginia Bluesman and grave digger, John Jackson (1924-2002) play a couple of songs in the middle of a Mike Seeger concert just outside of Washington, DC, at Groveton High School back in 1967. Things haven’t been the same since.
Ainslie started playing guitar a month later and has now spent nearly 40 years studying and playing traditional music, visiting and documenting senior musicians in America’s old-time banjo and fiddle music, blues and gospel traditions.
From community concert series and local schools to the Kennedy Center and the renowned Empire Music Hall in Belfast, Northern Ireland; Ainslie plays and speaks of the music he loves with passion and authority. Combining 30 years of scholarship with almost 40 playing guitar, Ainslie presents a beguiling mix of the African and American roots of the blues, in story and song.
A Phi Beta Kappa and honors graduate of Washington and Lee University, Ainslie was a leader in the North Carolina Visiting Artist Program and served on its state board from 1988-1990. He was a University of North Carolina Public Fellow in 2000, and was awarded the 20th Annual Sam Ragan Fine Arts Award by St. Andrew’s Presbyterian College.
Ainslie has received numerous other awards and grants for his artistic and scholarly contributions through blues performance, documentation, scholarship,and education.
Ainslie has three solo compact discs of traditional and contemporary blues, and is the author of “Robert Johnson/At The Crossroads” (1992), a book of transcriptions of the recordings of this Mississippi Blues legend with complete annotated lyrics, a brief Johnson biography and historical notes. He is also the video teacher for “Robert Johnson’s Guitar Techniques” (1997) on that Starlicks Master Sessions video lesson, recently released as a DVD. Ainslie maintains an active schedule teaching, leading workshops, writing, recording, and performing.
In late 2004, he produced a challenging CD of original songs, “The Feral Crow,” with producer and bassist Scott Petito at NRS Studios in Catskill, N.Y. The album features the talents of Ainslie, Petito, vocalist Leslie Ritter, electric guitarist Marc Shulman, drummer Jerry Marotta, and keyboardist Peter Vitalone. “The Feral Crow” has garnered critical praise and spent a two months at No. 22 and No. 78 of the top 100 albums on the folkradio.org playlists and is currently seeing airplay in the U.S., The Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Serbia, Montenegro, Hong Kong, Israel and Australia.
Having come of age during the Civil Rights Era just outside of Washington, DC; Ainslie now makes his home in Brattleboro, Vt. When he is not touring, he teaches locally and is actively involved with local arts groups and progressive politics.
The workshop with blues guitarist Scott Ainslie
If you happen to have an interest in playing acoustic blues guitar (the musical roots of rock) including Delta blues, slide guitar, open tunings, and piedmont/ragtime Blues —then you should plan on turning up for Ainslie’s workshop.
An accomplished teacher, Ainslie will spend his workshop time marching guitarists through a portion of blues guitar technique.
Content of the workshop is always influenced by who is being taught, but sections on the ins and outs of slide playing, right hand/fingerpicking technique, open tunings and the special open bass chord transpositions that pepper any solo acoustic blues guitar performance will be covered in addition to requested material.
Participants should bring a slide that fits securely on your (little) finger, an audio recording device, paper and pencil are recommended.
For more information, call Hank Weisman at (912) 786-6953 or go to www.savannahfolk.org.
