CURATION
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from this page:
by Title Holder
Network Node
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Name:
Mike Compton
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City/Place:
Nashville, Tennessee
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Country:
United States
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Hometown:
Meridian, Mississippi
Life & Work
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Bio:
Befriended and mentored by Bill Monroe, the acknowledged Father of Bluegrass Music, Mike Compton is one of today’s foremost interpreters of Monroe’s genre-creating mandolin style. Mandolin students from around the world make the pilgrimage to his annual Monroe Mandolin Camp in Nashville, TN, where Compton and a select handful of other experts teach everything from the basics of bluegrass mandolin to the most intimate details of Monroe’s endlessly inspiring mandolin style.
Mike Compton’s decades of touring and recording with musical luminaries ranging from rockstars Sting, Gregg Allman and Elvis Costello, to straight-from-the-still acoustic legends like John Hartford, Doc Watson, Peter Rowan, Ralph Stanley, and David Grisman, have established Compton as a true master of the modern American mandolin and a premier interpreter of roots and Americana musical styles.
Compton’s mastery of mandolin is at once effortless and exceptional. A compelling entertainer either alone or with a group, his skills as a singer, arranger, instrumentalist, composer and accompanist also make him in-demand as a band member and ensemble player at festivals, clubs and concert halls, recording sessions, music workshops and as a private instructor. With more than 140 albums in his discography, including work with Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Patty Loveless, Compton has helped keep mandolin a cool, relevant sound as the modern musical styles ebb and evolve to reach an ever broadening audience.
A native of Mississippi, Compton picked up the mandolin in his teens and absorbed the area’s native blues, old-time country and bluegrass sounds. He soon gravitated to Nashville, where he helped found one of the 20th Century’s most admired and influential bluegrass groups, the iconic Nashville Bluegrass Band. He’s also been a part of the John Hartford Stringband, Helen Highwater Stringband, 1942, Compton & Newberry, and other seminal groups.
When A-list Americana producer T-Bone Burnett needed experts in authentic rural musical styles to anchor the landmark O Brother, Where Art Thou? movie project and subsequent tour, he called upon Compton’s unique knowledge and signature mandolin style to authenticate the Soggy Bottom Boys’ rootsy sound. That Grammy Award Album of the Year -winning album went on to sell seven million copies and sparked a global revival in old-time and bluegrass musical styles.
Connoisseur of hand-painted vintage silk ties, popularizer of the denim overall urban fashion statement, lover of iconic men’s hats and curator of oddball official days (ask him about National Lost Sock Memorial Day or National Root Canal Appreciation Day), Mike Compton thrives at the intersection of traditional funk and modern authenticity.
Equally skilled in bluegrass, old-time string band music, country blues, rootsy Americana styles, and much more, Compton soars beyond easy categorization as an acoustic mandolin player and singer.
Gifted at tastefully incorporating rural, roots-based lead and rhythm mandolin styles into modern Americana music, Compton’s unique musical skillset allows him to entertain audiences ranging from rockers and urban hipsters to die-hard country, folk and bluegrass fans.
Mike proudly plays Gilchrist, Duff, and Randy Wood instruments and is endorsed by BlueChip picks and D’Addario strings.
My Instruction
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Lessons/Workshops:
I specialize in Monroe style bluegrass, old-time fiddle tunes and country blues. If you are looking for a lesson on how to play “Ode to a Butterfly” you made a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
Lessons are $50 per 30 minute slot, $100 per hour. Invoices are sent the first of each month via PayPal.
I use Skype mostly but have used Google Chat, Zoom and Messages to initiate video chat, so you need to have a high speed connection. I used to have a student who got in her van and rode around town until she found a strong wifi signal she could jump on, but it seems most everybody has adequate internet these days so you probably won’t have to be that industrious. Satellite is not advisable and dial-up is out of the question. Lessons in person can be arranged if you are in the Nashville region, or if I have time when on tour.
Your schedule is your own call. Some take every week, some every other, some once a month. I have a number of people on the list and everybody seems to learn differently. I make an effort to accommodate each person’s learning style. To do this I use audio, video, tablature, standard notation and whatever else is necessary to get the info across.
I do not have an agenda that I try to force on people. I prefer that you have some idea where you want to go with your playing and I will help guide you. I see my job as more of a coach. I'm here to help you get ahead faster, not to tell you what to play. If you’re interested in one of the genres I’m familiar with all the better.
Usually, I try and keep Friday, Saturday and Sunday open because of road work. When I have to be on the road I send out a notice saying as much. You will get an opportunity to reschedule in the event that I have to be gone. If you miss a scheduled lesson due to your own schedule you will be given one opportunity to reschedule.
Please show up on time. I will wait 10 minutes beginning at our scheduled time. After that you will be charged regardless of if you show up or not.
So if this all suits you I'll be happy to send along my calendar link and you can find a slot that works for you. Then we can decide how often you'd like to get together and we'll go from there. I am happy to help you as much as I can.
Life is good. MC
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Instruction:
http://www.mikecompton.net/lessons
Clips (more may be added)
Uncoiling from a vast Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian, cultural matrix...
EX TERRA BRASILIS
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
Creators worldwide closely united by the graph-theoretical mathematics of...
The Small World Phenomenon
The creative universe becomes a creative village wherein all are within steps of all.
Inspired in the sensorial immanence of Borges' transfinites-inspired Alephs.
The Aleph / O Aleph
O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space...
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; recorded "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): World's premier klezmer violinist
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
Tap the grey crosses next to the categories on somebody's Matrix Page to recommend that person for that category.
(These crosses are only visible when you are logged in)
The crosses will turn green.
That person/category will appear in your My Curation & Recommendations.
You will appear in that person's Incoming Curation and Recommendations.
By the small world phenomenon (6 degrees of separation in the general population), you will not only be one step from the recommended person, you will tend to some small number of steps from everybody inside the Matrix.
All is closer than we imagine.
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.com
Conceived under a Spiritus Mundi ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to Havana and the provinces of Cuba to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago to the sidewalks of Harlem to the townships of South Africa to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe...*
Sodré
*...in conversation with Raymundo Sodré, who summed up the irony in this sequence by opining for the ages: "Where there's misery, there's music!" Thus A Massa, anthem for the trod-upon folk of Brazil, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until Sodré was silenced, threatened with death and forced into exile...
And thus a platform whereupon all creators tend to accessible proximity to all other creators, irrespective of degree of fame, location, or the censor.
Matrix Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, bewitching and bewitched, contouring the resplendent Bay of All Saints (end of clip below, before credits), absolute center of terrestrial gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's ineffable Black Rome (seat of the Integrated Global Creative Economy* and where Bule Bule is seated below, around the corner from where we built this matrix as an extension of our record shop).
Assis Valente's (of Santo Amaro, Bahia) "Brasil Pandeiro" filmed by Betão Aguiar
Betão Aguiar
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
*Darius Mans holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT, and lives between Washington D.C. and Salvador da Bahia.
Between 2000 and 2004 he served as the World Bank’s Country Director for Mozambique and Angola. In that capacity, Darius led a team which generated $150 million in annual lending to Mozambique, including support for public private partnerships in infrastructure which catalyzed over $1 billion in private investment.
Darius was an economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he worked closely with the U.S. Treasury and the IMF to establish a framework to avoid debt repudiation and to restructure private commercial debt in Brazil and Chile.
He taught Economics at the University of Maryland and was a consultant to KPMG on infrastructure projects in Latin America.
Replete with Brazilian greatness, but we listened to Miles Davis and Jimmy Cliff in there too; visitors are David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR/WXPN
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
Susan Rogers
Alicia Svigals
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Bule Bule
Caetano Veloso
Darius Mans
Sparrow/Pardal Roberts
RÁDIO MATRIX