With online virtual edition
There hasn’t been an Acoustic Blends session at the George Link Jr. Gilmer Arts Playhouse in nearly four months, but that doesn’t mean musicians who usually participate in the hometown open mic night/variety musical showcase are letting their instruments collect dust during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the in-person version of the program is sidelined, the gap is being filled with Virtual Acoustic Blends, a pretaped edition that’s posted online the first and third Fridays of each month.
“We started out doing one every week, but the last couple of weeks we’ve done it the first and third Fridays. The live Acoustic Blends was always held on the third Friday of each month,” said Steve “Possum” Jones, a member of Ellijay band Downtown Roy and part of the Acoustic Blends organizational team.
“The fun part of what we’ve been doing since we were all closed in is reaching out to our friends and music family, having fun and sharing what we do. They all enjoy it, but some of the people really enjoy it,” added Don Roberts, also a member of Downtown Roy and one of the event’s organizers.
Making music at home
During a time when very few live concerts are taking place, live-streaming and virtual concerts have become do-it-yourself options that allow musicians to perform for and connect with their audiences. Besides musical equipment, all that’s needed is a good internet connection and a device capable of recording the performance.
For the most part, Virtual Acoustic Blends participants use cellphones or tablets to tape their segments on which guitars, mandolins, banjos, dobros and even an autoharp are strummed or picked.
“Most of (the performers) are guys and gals who used to come to the live Acoustic Blends, but we have picked up a few folks who submit pretty regularly and they had never come to the live event before. Some of them are professionals and they don’t have anything else to do because they’re usually playing out somewhere on a Friday night. Some folks are doing originals, but most of them are doing covers. Most are solo (performances) and sometimes we’ll get a duo or a husband and wife,” he added.
“It’s been so much fun because of all the different backdrops that people introduce. People are making their own choices where to film their segments —around a fire pit, on porches, at parks or pavilions, at home in their own studios, in their living rooms or even outdoors in their yards. We’ve had several people on there who’ve played at the playhouse before, but they don’t live here so they’ve done guest appearances. We’ve also asked a few surprise guests to come on,” added Roberts. “We’ve had (guitarist) Curtis Jones and his wife, Kim, who have been a nice duet addition. Roy Schneider and Kim Mayfield, who call themselves Reckless Saints, are out of Fort Myers, Fla., and they’ve been on there, as well.”
A special edition of the virtual show featured an Acoustic Blends tribute to revered and highly influential singer/songwriter John Prine, who passed away in April after contracting the coronavirus.
“Everybody did one of their favorite songs of his,” Roberts noted.
Other shows have featured participation from storytellers who would usually take the stage at Storytelling in Ellijay, said Jones. That program, normally held the third Thursday of each month at the playhouse, has also been on hold the last several months.
“We did one that had the storytellers mixed in along with the musicians and we did another one that was pretty much just the storytellers along with a couple of us from Acoustic Blends. We’re gong to try to do it where we mix in a storyteller or two,” said Jones.
The Acoustic Blends team sends out an email blast on Sunday and musicians who want to submit a clip for the next program are expected to do so by 10 a.m. the following Wednesday. By each first and third Friday, the packages have been assembled and posted online at the Gilmer Arts website and on YouTube.
“If they want to turn in a video, we connect them with our Dropbox site or they can put it on their own cloud where it can be (downloaded) and included in the show. It’s one song each and the shows run about 30 minutes with breaks in the middle,” said Roberts. “If someone has a smart TV, Roku or streaming device they can use to access YouTube, they can watch it on a big screen.”
Roberts and Jones thanked and credited Debbi Friend, of the Gilmer Arts management team, for editing the clips and posting the finished product. Jones, who served as emcee for the live Acoustic Blends events, introduces each virtual program.
“They send them in and Debbi collects them, Don helps with the order that they will be in to make sense and Debbi puts them all together,” said Jones.
Friend said it usually takes about 12 hours to assemble one of the programs.
“On Wednesday I develop a template and branding for that week’s show. On Thursday, the videos are edited. Once all videos are edited, a preview video is created and announced via email blast and social media. Then, the YouTube playlist is published to (the Gilmer Arts) homepage for Friday viewing,” she explained. “Since April 10, we have produced 11 shows with a total of 185 videos. The videos have been viewed 15,722 times with a total of 421 hours of view time. Each video has between 100 to 500 views.”
Recording and submitting the home performances does involve occasional technical difficulties, admitted Jones.
“We were having a heck of a time getting people’s videos where they could send them, but it’s not much of a problem anymore. At first, I was trying to help all these musicians and something I discovered was that musicians are technically challenged, especially us old ones,” he said.
Roberts said he welcomes inquiries and submissions from first-time Acoustic Blends participants. Anyone who wants to find out more about submitting a clip for the virtual program can email AcousticBlendz@gmail.com.
“We try to get new submissions every time we do it,” Roberts said.
Upcoming concerts canceled
Acoustic Blends performers were anticipating a return to holding the in-person event with a live show first scheduled to take place at Harrison Park in June, then on the rescheduled date of July 17.
The concert would have been a fundraiser for the both Friends of Harrison Park and Gilmer Arts, but word of another cancellation came last week.
“We’ve been watching the coronavirus surge in Ellijay closely and have made the decision to cancel our July 17 event,” confirmed Linda Lancaster, of Friends of Harrison Park.
“The plan was to kick off having the third Friday Acoustic Blends again at Harrison Park, but it didn’t work out. We’re going to go back to the (virtual) first and third Fridays for a while. We’re still going to try and see what the fall brings,” added Jones.
To allow for greater distance between seats, another concert presented by Gilmer Arts would have taken place this month at the outdoor Ellijay Landing property off River Street.
That show, by Atlanta folk-Americana trio Just Roxie, was scheduled for July 25, but the band canceled last week, confirmed Gilmer Arts personnel.
Cancellations and postponements have become the norm for many working musicians during the pandemic. The group Jones and Roberts play in are no exception to that.
“As a band, we were doing different venues as a regular routine, but we’ve had six shows that were canceled. We’ve got two or three in the fall, still, so we’ll see what happens,” noted Jones.
The downtown Ellijay playhouse, which would have hosted the monthly Acoustic Blends events and was the original site for the Just Roxie concert, is not presenting any type of live shows right now due to the continuing pandemic, noted Jones, also a member of the Gilmer Arts board.
“There’s no performing arts right now. They had some classes last week. They’re going to have some music lessons and looking at how they’re going to do that. Other than that, there’s nothing going on. If we did have a show there and (sat) people six feet apart, we couldn’t sell enough tickets,” he added.