Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin

Turtle Dove

I learned the song from the singing of Bessie Jones. See the liner notes of the LP for one of her explanations of “sasala do on sala saree” – a long one —and the liner notes of…

My second album was “Going Up On The Mountain”.  It differed from the previous one “Snake Baked A Hoecake” in several ways. It centered around singing; there was only one instrumental. Stylistically it was more of a bluegrass album than…

Old Man Old Woman

At the time of the LP’s release in 1974 this was one of my favorite tracks. In 2026 it isn’t. It seems to me to be oddly mixed. It’s like a rhythm guitar solo with melodic…

The Battle Of Aughrim

The actual 1691 battle was both political and religious. The tune has been variously played as a march, reel, and polka. Here in California it was normally played in A minor. People were surprised at my…

By the early 1970s I had played as a support musician on more than a few recordings but had never made a record as the featured “artist”, as they say in the Music Biz. And then I met Mike Cogan…

I am going to discontinue the talk about microtones and modes until such time as I can arrive at a clearer way of conveying what I mean to say. 

For the next few blog entries I'd like to talk about…

I first became consciously aware of neutral pitches in 1965 when I was playing guitar with Fred McDowell. (See my blog entry of June 6, 2026 ,“Where’s Your Gui-Tar, Man?” for details).  Fred lived in Northwest Mississippi in a spot…

The previous blog was a slog. A slog blog.  Maybe I should  delete it. I don’t want to post boring words.

I hope today’s blog post will be more engaging.

I remember looking through the LPs in a huge Paris…

When, in my first blog post,  I announced the topics I intended to write about, I received the most positive response about the topic of modal music and microtonal intonation. People want to read what I have to say about…

Spaghetti and meatballs, peaches and cream
Jody on a soapbox letting off steam

-from “Talking Cell Phone Blues” 

I’ve been thinking about how things change. Red and blue did not used to indicate the political right and left. Not so…