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Millboro musician releases new CD
BY GINA HAMILTON • CONTRIBUTING WRITER
 | | Musician Bert Carlson, a resident of Millboro, performs at the recent jazz festival held at Garth Newel in Warm Springs. (Recorder photo by Charles Garratt) |
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MILLBORO - Musician Bert Carlson is a travelin' man with a busy schedule of performances, but it's Millboro he calls home. Originally from Illinois, he later he lived in the Washington, D.C., area, but said, "I grew up in a small town and couldn't stand the traffic in northern Virginia."
Between performance gigs, he and his wife, Marian, traveled all over the state and nearby areas and "we ended up liking it around here in Millboro," he said. "It was far enough outside D.C. but close enough that you could come out for a day trip."
Carlson released a new CD recently, "Alone Together," with Staunton jazz singer Jennifer Kirkland. It features the duo without drums or bass and includes Carlson in three solo tunes.
"The CD would be labeled jazz, but the compositions are not all by jazz or standard writers," Carlson said. "There are things on there written by Johnny Mercer and Bennie Goodman, but also renditions of tunes by people like John Lennon and Neil Young. We also have guest artists on four tunes."
Mandolinist Danny Knicely plays with the duo on a Django Reihnhardt tune and a Russian folk tune. "And Bobby Read, who plays sax with Bruce Hornsby, joins us on a couple of tunes," Carlson said. "It's all kind of unorthodox, but that's what we like about it."
The CD is available on Kirkland's Web site, www.jenniferkirkland.net and iTunes.
Carlson does not write any music. "I've never been bitten by that bug," he said.
He and Kirkland played at Gypsy Hill Jazz in the Park concerts during August in Staunton. "Jazz is just one thing I dabble in. I've just always been excited by any kind of American music that has guitar in it. People ask me what kind of music I play and I just say American music," he said.
"I have a DJ friend in Richmond who is even more exact. He calls it 'purebred American mongrel music.' I spend most of my time playing electric guitar in jazz, blues, and classic rock. But sometimes I get to play some country, some R&B, some old Jelly Roll Morton-type of New Orleans music." Carlson said he also has a great time when he can play with folk singers and bluegrass musicians.
This summer, he played with Charlie Perkinson's Blue Ridge Jazz Ensemble at jazz festivals in Salem and Smith Mountain Lake, and two concerts with Danny Knicely. "And I got to bring a quintet to the Virginia Blues and Jazz Festival at Garth Newel (in Warm Springs) in June. They run a great festival there," Carlson said.
Music has been his lifelong career except once, when he worked six months at a farm implement factory, which made parts for tractors, when he was a teenager. "I decided that was enough," he recalled, noting he has always been able to support himself with the primarily instrumental performances.
Carlson started playing guitar professionally in Illinois in 1976, moving to Washington, D.C., in 1985, and for the next 14 years he averaged over 300 engagements a year. Carlson performed in venues from the Kennedy Center to the Spotsylvania Fire Hall. He played on concert billings with national artists from Wynton Marsalis to Doc Watson.
Why music? Carlson said he did not know what turned him on to music or playing music. "I didn't have a choice. I just had to do it." He came from a family that loved music, even though no one played professionally or taught music. He recalled that his older brother played horn in one of the military bands during the Vietnam era, "so I heard him tootin' a lot when I was small," Carlson said. "I'm told my Swedish grandfather played polkas on the concertina and that my mother's mother played the pump organ in country churches."
Performances ahead
While a lot of Carlson's performances are for private functions, he does have public concerts coming up the rest of this year.
He'll cap off the summer concert season at the Theater at Lime Kiln in Lexington on Sunday, Sept. 16, at 7:30 p.m. Every Tuesday, he performs with Kirkland from 6:30- 9 p.m. at a restaurant in Staunton called The Dining Room on Augusta Street.
Another gig is scheduled on Sunday, Sept. 30, in Roanoke in a place called Rockfish, and on Sunday, Oct. 21, also in Roanoke, playing with a trio at a place called 202.
This year, he will also perform on New Year's Eve at the Natural Bridge Hotel with a rock band from Lexington called Loose Change.
Carlson has performed all over the country, but these days, he said, "I rarely travel more than two hours from home."
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