{"id":23264,"date":"2022-07-02T05:30:08","date_gmt":"2022-07-02T09:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23264"},"modified":"2022-06-23T10:57:52","modified_gmt":"2022-06-23T14:57:52","slug":"blue-ridge-guitar-camp-with-bryan-sutton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/02\/blue-ridge-guitar-camp-with-bryan-sutton\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Ridge Guitar Camp with Bryan Sutton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: This is the second of two features (originally written for two different publications) focusing on the June 2022 Blue Ridge Guitar Camp and Celebration. — bk<\/span><\/p>\n

Though he\u2019s closely associated with the Nashville session scene, bluegrass\/Americana musician and songwriter Bryan Sutton is a Western North Carolina native. He\u2019s also a Grammy nominee and ten-time IBMA Guitar Player of the Year. And amid his busy schedule \u2013 he\u2019s a first-call multi-instrumentalist who has played on countless sessions and released six solo albums \u2013 he has made time to return home to host the inaugural Blue Ridge Guitar Camp at the Brevard Music Center.<\/p>\n

The camp is a five-day immersion in acoustic guitar, and features a who\u2019s-who lineup of musicians. Sutton explains that the initial impetus for the camp came a few years ago. \u201cThe seeds were planted by [Steep Canyon Rangers guitarist] Woody Platt and John Felty,\u201d Sutton says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He notes that while the BMC has long been closely associated with classical music, that\u2019s changing. \u201cOne of the cool things that’s happening these days is that campuses like Brevard Music Center are opening their doors more to different kinds of music,\u201d Sutton says.<\/p>\n

Attendance at the camp is limited to 100 participants, and that\u2019s by design. \u201cI\u2019m a fan of small class sizes,\u201d Sutton says. He\u2019ll be one of five instructors, joined by Courtney Hartman, Michael Daves, David Grier and Grant Gordy.\u201d And the program will go well beyond what Sutton jokingly describes as, \u201cHere\u2019s how you play a G chord.\u201d Dana Bourgeois will educate campers on the finer points of guitar construction. \u201cGuitar players spend a lot of time thinking about their instrument,\u201d Sutton observes. \u201cAnd part of learning to play guitar is learning more about the guitar itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

After several days packed with discussion, workshops, instruction and fellowship, the camp will culminate with a musical celebration, a ticketed event that\u2019s open to the general public. \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to expanded the \u2018camp concert\u2019 into a bigger [event],\u201d Sutton says, \u201cinviting some outside people in and using the guitar concept to show people what the event is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sutton cites 1976\u2019s legendary Last Waltz<\/i> extravaganza as a kind of template for the camp\u2019s celebration concert. An all-star cast of musicians is scheduled to appear alongside campers and instructors; the lineup will include dobro player Jerry Douglas, bluegrass star Peter Rowan, Platt and Nicky Sanders of Steep Canton Rangers, Dom Flemons, Shannon Whitworth, Americana duo Rob Ickes & Terry Hensley and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve [also] got Molly Tuttle, who has a new record [Crooked Tree<\/i>],\u201d says Sutton. He\u2019s excited to see and hear her onstage with her band Golden Highway, but that\u2019s just the beginning. \u201cThe opportunity to hear her sing something with Courtney and Shannon is too good to pass up,\u201d he says. And that sort of spontaneous collaboration is very much in the spirit of the camp and its celebration concert. \u201cMy goal is to take advantage of those collaborations,\u201d Sutton says, \u201cwhether it’s a stage full of people or just two or three people on stage doing something unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Celebration will occupy what Sutton describes as the \u201csweet spot\u201d between a tightly-choreographed variety show and a free-wheeling evening of musical match-ups. \u201cIt\u2019ll be fairly mapped out,\u201d he explains, \u201cwith a continual variety of things happening. It\u2019s almost like, \u2018I\u2019ve got these great ingredients; what can I cook up that will be entertaining and meaningful to anybody who\u2019s in the audience?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to his status as an in-demand collaborator and supporting instrumentalist, Bryan Sutton has prior experience working with every single one of the musicians on the celebration program. \u201cI\u2019ve been playing with Jerry Douglas since the late \u201890s,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve been fortunate to be around Peter Rowan quite a bit over the years, working on records with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owing to pandemic-era postponements in 2020 and \u201821, this year\u2019s celebration is being billed at the first annual event in an ongoing series. And Sutton is optimistic about the future. \u201cI hope it gains momentum and becomes a destination for folks, something they look forward to like a festival,\u201d he says. The celebration is being marketed as the musical component of the popular annual White Squirrel Festival.<\/p>\n

While there aren\u2019t plans to create a video of the celebration for potential release, Sutton says that the concert will be recorded \u201cfor posterity and archival purposes. \u201cBut,\u201d he teases, \u201cyou never know what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d And not that Sutton needs it, but that prospect provides a bit of additional motivation. \u201cI think that’s part of the fun and challenge for me,\u201d he says. \u201cTo curate enough special moments on stage that it would be nice to have [a document of the concert] down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: This is the second of two features (originally written for two different publications) focusing on the June 2022 Blue Ridge Guitar Camp and Celebration. — bk Though he\u2019s closely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,41],"tags":[3902,434],"class_list":["post-23264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-americana","category-interview","tag-brevard-music-center","tag-bryan-sutton","cat-6-id","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23266,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23264\/revisions\/23266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}