NewTown: Press

In late February 2012 Lexington based bluegrass band, Newtown, traveled to Miami, FL to play the Everglades Bluegrass Festival. This is one of the many fine bluegrass events put on by the South Florida Bluegrass Music Association.

This year the association had written a grant so that Newtown could spend an afternoon at Miami’s Greynolds Park Elementary teaching young students about the roots and history of bluegrass music. The band performed for an auditorium full of students, weaving lessons into each song they played.

The children also learned about old time and Gospel music, and jumped from their chairs to dance to Bill Monroe’s, Uncle Pen. They also engaged the band in a question and answer session that mostly exhibited the kids curiosity about the “strange” instruments Newtown played for them.

After the show 12 students, chosen by their music teacher, got the opportunity to hang out with the band and learn a bluegrass song to perform at the festival that weekend. The day of the performance the kids showed excited and rarin’ to go, and performed Nine Pound Hammer with the band, singing each chorus on their own.

The crowd cheered as the kids sang, “Roll on buddy don’t you roll so slow. How can I roll, when the wheels won’t go?”

Newtown guitarist CJ Cain reports that…

“It was amazing to see how excited the kids were to sing with us even though most of them had no prior interest in bluegrass music. To see the joy on their faces after playing their first bluegrass show was priceless.”

Afterwards the kids and their families took pictures with Newtown and each child received our newest self-titled record to take home with them.

The South Florida Bluegrass Association’s first Bluegrass in the Schools event came off as a great success. It is the band’s hope that this initiative created by IBMA will be adopted at festivals all over the U.S., spreading the bluegrass gospel to children everywhere.

Newtown was a ride through traditional bluegrass chops but with twists. Tight vocals, dynamic tension in the timing and the sweet pensive way to weave a ballad into the heart of the listener Newtown drew the listener in. The strength of individuality in the featuring of each vocalists and musical style lent itself to a rich experience and left the listener wanting to hear more. Continue reading on Examiner.com 2011 Bluegrass Fan Fest - Nashville Music | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/music-in-nashville/2011-bluegrass-fan-fest

Keeping it going

 

Kati Penn and her band NewTown ride momentum from Nashville to Milton

 

By DEREK HALSEY
For The Herald-Dispatch

 

   Kati Penn and Newtown are kicking off a new year of bluegrass music with a weekend that includes a show tonight, Jan. 15, at the Mountaineer Opry House.

 

   Last night the band played at what is considered Ground Zero for bluegrass, the legendary Station
Inn in Nashville. Tonight, the band, based in Lexington, Ky., will keep the momentum going at the Tri- State's own renowned bluegrass show place.

 

   Today’s showwill start at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 5 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for seniors and $5 for children. The Opry is located off the Milton exit of I-64.

 

   When Penn first played at the Mountaineer Opry House a couple of years ago, her band was billed as The Kati Penn Band. Since then, the group has evolved into Kati Penn andNewtown, a better-rounded unit that is ready to go on to bigger and better things as "a band of equal parts." Recently the group finished recording a new album that will be released later in the year.

 

   Kati Penn and Newtown features Penn on vocals and fiddle, her husband Jr Williams on vocals, banjo and guitar, C. J. Cain on guitar, James Kee on mandolin and vocals and Canadian Terry Poirier on bass.

 

   Even though still a young woman, Penn is a bluegrass veteran. In the 1990s she was tapped to be in the Bluegrass YouthAll-stars, a bandof pre-teen kids featuring young musicians who would go on to be future stars like Chris Thile, Michael Cleveland and more.

 

   But, like many young girls looking to play music in the rootsmusic world in recent years, it was an encounter with a certain Grammy Award legend and future hall of famer that motivated Penn to push her music forward.

 

   "When I was little I was into Alison Krauss," said Penn. "It might have been at the Festival of the Bluegrass when I got to talk to her after her show. I asked her who her favorite fiddle player was and she told me Stuart Duncan. Of course, then I ran out and bought everything I could find by Stuart Duncan. I wanted to see what sparked her interest and I've been a big fan of his since then. I hadn't been playing very long when I met her. I was probably 10 or 11 years old. I went to every show she played close to (Frankfort,Ky.) for most of my teenage years.

 

   "Someone from my church gave me my first tape, it was on tape back then, of Alison's album called ‘Two Highways.’ I had never heard her before that. I hadn't been playing for very long. I liked to play, but it was kind of a fun, extra thing to do. Once I heard her on the ‘Two Highways’ tape, it was a whole new ball game then. I was like, 'Man. I want to do that.' That is when I began to get real serious about music. It completely sparked something within me. Before I heard Alison, I had no interest in singing whatsoever. "

 

   After Krauss told Penn about fiddle great Stuart Duncan, she studied Duncan's sound and technique and he soon became her favorite fiddler as well.

 

   "He is definitely my main influence," said Penn. "And, there are other people who influenced me as well. But he was always the one. And even still to this day he plays stuff and I'm like, 'Wow. How did he come up with that?' Even when it comes to music I've heard him play for years, I love his playing. His tone is incredible and I haven't heard anything like it anywhere else. And, I think the way he knows what not to play, and he knows when not to play. Because, I think so many people think that they have to play every lick that they know in every song. Stuart doesn't do that. So, when he does hit (a lick) it grabs you more."

 

   Once Penn began to hone her skills to point where she was ready for the stage, she began to get gigs with some of the best bluegrass musicians in the business as a teenager. Two band leaders that she worked with and learned from during that formative period were three-time International Bluegrass Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year Dale Ann Bradley and singer, songwriter and multi instrumentalist Pam Gadd, who was just featured in Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine.

 

   "I played with Pam Gadd and the Long Road for a year or two," said Penn. "I think I was about 16 when I played with Pam. I traveled all over and it was a lot of fun. I think she is really, really good. She is an incredible songwriter. Most of the material that we did when I was playing with her was stuff that she had written. I got to hear her writing new songs at home and it was a lot of fun. She was definitely an inspiration.

 

   "I learned a quite of bit from Dale Ann as far as singing goes. Of course, Dale Ann has one of the best voices in the business. Just being able to be onstage with her and see how she sang every night. It was a lot of fun. I definitely appreciate it more now than I did then."

 

   Penn is enthusiastic about 2011 and is looking forward to playing in the Tri-State once again.

 

   "Everybody feels real good about things to come," said Penn. "We love the Mountaineer Opry House. We definitely want to play there every year. We love that place, and it is a lot of fun. They are one of the first people we call every year. They are always really good to us there."

 

   For more information, go online at http://www.mountaineeryopry.com, http://www.katipenn.com or call 304-743-5749.