Well, it’s Saturday morning and I think I’m in line for some higher culture this morning. A little music, maybe operatic. A little “O Sole Mio” perhaps? I could easily listen to some Pavarotti or Placido Domingo singing out their guts.
Sure. But to get the real feel for the song it should be played on a saw.
Here’s Austin Blackburn on saw. I don’t know if the saw is a Stradavarius or a Craftsman but it’s a bit of highbrow fun on a nice Saturday morning. Have a great day…
Redtree Times 
What’ll they think of next. Musical chairs?
Just how do you play a musical chair?
The annual Musical Saw Festival in New York City was earlier this month. It was in the news on TV:
http://www.reuters.com/news/video/story?videoId=134547953&rpc=60
If you want to attend the festival next summer, this is where you will find the info: http://www.musicalsawfestival.org
Their website has a ‘videos’ page with lots of great videos from previous festivals.
I meant to comment last weekend, but was too lazy.
Jenny’s great uncle Sam played the saw (and dozens of other instruments) in vaudeville. He was quite a performer from what I understand. Even played the Palace.
A few years ago I met a guy at a party who cleaned up and reissued old recordings. He was partly the inspiration for the Steve Buscemi character in Ghost World.
When he found out that Jenny was related to Sam Moore, he asked if we had any recordings by him. We said we didn’t, and he sent us what he had. It was very generous of him.
The family story is that Sam introduced the saw as a musical instrument, but I think that’s bullshit.
I just did a search (don’t know why I haven’t done this before) and found this:
http://www.mainspringpress.com/moore.html
Very cool article. So Jenny has real musical pedigree! I see that he died in 1959. Not knowing how old Jenny is (and certainly not wanting to ask) I was wondering if she ever had the chance to meet Sam , as a child?
No, I don’t believe she did.
Jenny’s whole family was musical. My guitar, the one I pick up at least once a week, is her grandmother’s old Martin. It’s a sweet little 00-18 with a beautiful voice.
Jenny’s grandmother and grandfather sang and played folk music up and down the east coast at festivals after her grandfather retired. He was The Colonel, a West Point grad an an aide to Omar Bradley during the war. I never got a chance to meet him but I did know her grandmother, an amazing woman gifted in the social graces of an officer’s wife. In her last days, I would read PG Wodehouse aloud to her. Bertie and Jeeves always picked up her spirits, as they do mine.
We have a poster or two from Sam’s performing days but his real legacy to us is his spaghetti sauce recipe. The family story (again, I hold little faith in the veracity of many of these family histories) was that Sam would put the sauce on a hotplate to simmer in his hotel room, go do his show, and when he returned the sauce would be ready to eat. And it is really good sauce.