Ruth Wyand
House concerts are a growing movement across this country and I am lucky to have good friends here in South Florida who host a series of concerts during the cooler months in their beautifully restored 1916 house. Great acoustics, great performers, and great food! The kickoff concert tonight was a return appearance by Ruth Wyand. This video from YouTube doesn’t do justice to her wonderful voice. Ruth sings a mean blues song and I just love the blues. The guitar she is playing in this video was made by a craftsman in Montana – the top of the guitar is a hubcap from an undetermined vintage car. If there are any car aficionados who read this post and know what kind of car the hubcap came from, please let me know! You can listen to three more samples of Ruth’s music at CD Baby.
Ruth sang songs from her new CD, including Angel With No Wings, Runaway Woman, and Millionaire Blues.
Ruth closed her concert with a cover of Jesse Colin Young’s Get Together Now, which is particularly relevant in the aftermath of a tumultuous presidential campaign marred by vicious hate speech and divisive tactics. If we actually followed Jesse Colin Young’s advice, wouldn’t this be a much better country?
I wasn’t able to watch the video, but was able to hear the samples at CD Baby. She is a fantastic guitar player! Great fingerstyle technique.
I love the idea of house concerts and the intimacy they afford, plus the fact that the musician gets more money. Thanks for sharing this, Jeff.
Never heard of her, but thanks to you, now I do. Will definitely take a peek at her CDs. Is she a local artist? How nice that you have friends who can do this sort of entertaining…and want to. As for “Get Together Now”…always was one of my favorites.
Ruth is out of eastern North Carolina – more details are on her website, http://www.ruthwyand.com. She has performed all over the world, most recently in New Zealand. I am, indeed, fortunate to have friends who open their house to folk music aficionados to enjoy music that they otherwise wouldn’t hear. The way it works is that attendees bring a dish and/or drinks to share and also pay a fee for the folk singer. All of the money goes to the performer. There have been house concerts in Floyd County, too. Mac and Jenny Traynham have been the featured artists at several of them. Check out their blog: http://macandjenny.blogspot.com/