The Paper Collar Pickers @ Dalton Public Hall
Bring your instruments and voices and enjoy a musical workshop of fun and learning with these gifted musicians as they drop in for a bush session at the gorgeous heritage Dalton Hall, near Gunning and just an hour north of Canberra. A light lunch is included in your ticket price.
Join Rod Vervest and Craig Sinclair as they embark on a journey across one of the least recognised yet most prodigious and influential periods of guitar history. At the turn of the 20th century, on the flat plain of USA’s east coast known as the Piedmont, a rollicking and rambunctious guitar form emerged that took the blues into a sophisticated and rhythmic dance style that to this day continues to inspire and challenge players. It became known as ragtime blues and was led almost exclusively by blind African American men from the poor and oppressed regional towns. They played cheap guitars on street corners, house parties and jook joints, eking out a meagre existence. Some became popular, having hits and recording with prestigious labels, but in the main, their legacy was lost or overshadowed by their more southern “delta blues” counterparts, who featured the slide guitar in their sound. The Piedmont players, nevertheless, were essentially the first to fingerpick the guitar using complex techniques and more advanced chord progressions. Today, it is a widespread technique for acoustic guitarists, yet its history and the amazing characters that populated it are largely unknown. Rod and Craig unpick the fascinating history of these players, their techniques along with some of their own, original ragtime tunes that tip the hat to a seminal period in the history of guitar playing.