Slack Key

There may not be all that many bluegrass fans out there who like Hawaiian music but I am definitely among those who do. When the weather starts to turn cold, I love to pop some Hawaiian music into the CD player, turn up the heat full blast, and imagine that I’m...

Sleepless in San Benito

Author?s note: I have been struggling not to bore everybody by writing too much about my grandson, Cassens Jameson Martin, as I attempt to gently point the lad into a love for music. You can check out his progress by dialing up YouTube and searching for CJ unplugged,...

Sloppy Notes

I hate it when I play sloppy notes. We all play them and we all hate them. The question is what should we do about them? What can we do about them? The obvious answer to the second question is practice (actually three answers: practice, practice, practice). We all...

Slow Learner

My wife tells me that I’m a slow learner. That is to say, Lynn tells me what I should do, need to do, ought to do, for my own good, our good, for the dogs’ good, for the good of the United States of America, and I’m very slow to translate the lesson into concrete...

Small Town

A lot of people would say I live in a small town, but it doesn’t seem that way to me. Healdsburg is about the same size as the town I grew up in but since it sits right in the heart of the Sonoma County wine country, it’s harder to find a place where you...

Small Town Livin’

I love living in a small town! Now, let me admit, my “small town” isn’t super small. I know several CBA pals who live in REALLY small towns. My town, Martinez, has about 45,000 people in it, so my “real” small town friends may scoff at me. My wife and I love the...