Czech picker(s)

[Mandojulie]

A nice mando break.enDAJLmVkaw

[mdlorenz]

man...great singers too, the main singer seems to lose his accent on the verses.. coms back a bit on the chorus tho...kind of funny.

Great pickin tho!

[Spencer]

Not sure I recognize the player from Sunny Size, they play every year at the European World of bluegrass Festival in Holland.

Since you bring up Czech pickers, here's a couple more on YouTube. The videos aren't that great, but you can get the idea.

Zdenek Jahoda from Monogram has been generally considered one of the better pickers in the Czech Republic for some time. That's his brother Jarda on the banjo.

Monogram (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJkrK8fshM4)

Another young Czech player who does a fine job is Lukas Rytir of the band Kreni, they were voted 2nd best Bluegrass band at this year's EWOB festival. I seem to recall someone said he is 17. He played some really exciting things on stage there.

Kreni (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ENsOk-0lCg)

I don't mean to slight the others, there are a lot of good mandolin pickers in the Czech Republic. Maybe there are some more links to them.

Spencer

[Ivan Kelsall]

That's the band that were at the North Wales Bluegrass Festival in 2007. The Mandolin is a Bruce Weber signed Gibson F-5. I traded instruments with the Mandolin player & he just fell in love with my Weber 'Fern'. I strongly suspect,that the Bruce was building to the 'Gibson' construction design,& not his own. There's a great Bluegrass following in the Czech.Republic & as we know,many fine instrument builders,
Ivan;)

PS - Spencer,thanks for the links to the 'Monogram' & 'Kreni' clips.There's some great playing
there,i especially like the Playing of 'Kreni's' Banjo picker - he's good.

[Mandojulie]

Wow!

The musicianship in those clips blows me away. It's very cool that a cultural style that's taken for granted in the U.S. has so many people in other countries dedicated enough to become sooo good.

Question: Pardon my ignorance, do most/all Bluegrass acts that are from non-English speaking countries perform in English?

I hope that they're are songs that they do in Bluegrass style that are sung in their native language. I suppose this is like the tussle in Opera - sing it in the native language so it's more accessible or sing in in the language it was originally in.

Thanks,

Julie

[Ivan Kelsall]

I looked at a few YouTube clips yesterday & it seems as though,when perfoming to their own people,they do sing in Czech.,but outside Czechoslovakia,& maybe if there are non-Czech.folk in an audience,they sing in English. Most people that i've met from the Czech.Republic do speak quite good English. Far better than my Czech.,which is limited to the words of the Operatic Aria "O Silver Moon" From Dvorak's Opera 'Rusalka' - i can sing them,but i haven't a clue what they mean.
I get on ok with folk from the central European countries. Once that know my name's Ivan
(the Russian equivalent of John) they sort of 'bond'. A german guy i met once,almost refused to believe that anybody from England could be called Ivan - good for a chuckle anyway,:))
Ivan

[Mandojulie]

Thanks, Ivan for the info. I'm glad they sing in Czech to Czech audiences, otherwise it might as well be an instrumental!

Even though most Czechs speak English, (aren't we lucky to be native speakers?) I think that it's hard enough to catch the lyrics in your own language let alone another language.

Very eye opening.

Julie