Another Semester in the Books at UW-Madison

Phew! We made it to the end of the semester! 250ish UW-Madison undergrads have officially been edumacated on ways and meanings of musics around the world. I've been excited and really encouraged by so many of the incredible final projects (a two-hour audio production about Elvis impersonators in the Upper Midwest, anyone?!?) and we've got just one final exam left to see how much of the course sunk in.

My many thanks to Dr. Nadia Chana and the Mead Witter School of Music for letting me takeover and redesign this course, to Mills Music Library for letting me take on the additional course load, and to our wonderful graduate TAs who have been grading machines and leading engaging discussion sections all semester!

I also want to send an extra special thanks to all of our wonderful guest speakers this semester: My master's thesis advisor and legendary ethnomusicologist/archivist/musician (and UW alum!!) Dr. Portia Maultsby; hip-hop scholar, folklorist, baseball card collector, and all-around great human being, Dr. Langston Collin Wilkins (I'm so glad we both ended up at UW!); primary source for all things music and space-related, one of higher ed's finest comedians, and a mighty fine chef, too, Dr. Gabrielle Cornish (I'm excited for your WPR music interview to air this Sunday!); as well as my library friends and colleagues, UW's Distinguished Oral Historian, Troy Reeves, and Mills Music Library's Public Services Librarian, Tom Caw. I so appreciate all that y'all do and all that y'all brought to our class--thank you, Thank you, Thank You!

I owe a final thanks to my wife Rachel for sneaking into our last class and snapping this photo of me in course recap mode!

This was my first semester teaching a 200+ student lecture course and as a result, I declined requests from more than two dozen audit hopefuls. I just wanted to see how it would go first. But... if you were one of those denied, I have some good news. I'll be teaching the exact same course again this spring and this time around I will be accepting auditors. Come one, come all to the party that is Intro to World Music--just so long as we have enough seats!

A Hairy Country Music Spectacular on Back to the Country 12/11 9am-noon (cst)

Howdy Friends, I'll be hosting Back to the Country on WORT FM tomorrow morning from 9-12 (cst) and the theme this week is Hairy Country Music. I've picked out about 100 of my favorite classic country songs about barbershops, blondes, brunettes, redheads, curly heads, bald heads, ducktails, flattops, and assorted haircuts and with any luck, I'll get to share about half of them on the show. I hope you can tune in tomorrow (12/11) via 89.9FM in southern Wisconsin, streaming via wortfm.org or the WORT app!

Photo by Zach Zaricor minutes after he cut my hair at Blue Chip Barber Club.

Goldie Sherwood and son Mark to Guest on Back to the Country Tomorrow Morning 11/13

Howdy Friends, tomorrow I'll be back on WORT hosting Back to the Country and this time around I'll have some exciting guests joining me. Namely, Goldie Sherwood and her son Mark!

Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Goldie's husband Dick Sherwood hosted a Madison-based variety show on WISC-TV called The Dick Sherwood Show which was broadcast throughout Wisconsin. Goldie was the resident bass player, sometimes guitarist, and featured vocalist as the show featured a rotating cast of "Country, Western, Oldtime, and Modern Music!"

Lots of stars appeared on the show including Bobby G Rice and his sister Lorraine, Cuca recording artists Greg Swenson, Sharon Arnold and Jimmy Carson, and even Starday star Cowboy Copas! Dick and Goldie were also the first to hire Bruce Bollerud before he left to start up the Goose Island Ramblers.

In addition to stories and personal memories of the show (Mark was even on the show when he was just an embryo!) and tracks from their Cuca LP featuring the entire Dick Sherwood Show cast, Goldie has also shared with me a treasure trove of more than 100 live recordings from the show that have never been released! I can't wait to share them with you as I visit Goldie and Mark tomorrow morning from 9am-noon (cst) on 89.9FM in southern Wisconsin or streaming via wortfm.org!

Also, many thanks to Charlie Chaz Lemm for posting these cool Goldie Sherwood pics just a few days ago in anticipation of this very show!

Our Starday Spectacular at the Stoughton Opera House (10/10) is Also Streaming!

Howdy Friends, It has come to my attention that our great big Starday Records Tribute show next Thursday at the Stoughton Opera House will also be available for streaming. So instead of just pestering all my local Wisconsin friends to come out next week, I will now be pestering ALL my friends! :) You, yes YOU, can be a part of the magic!

I'm beyond excited about this show. The Stardazers and I, along with special guests Art Stevenson and Eddie Rivers (of Asleep at the Wheel fame), have been working overtime to prepare our new Starday extravaganza for this Thursday (10/10) at 7:30cst at my very favorite venue in the country. We've got 20+ brand new songs in the bag, lots of stories and never-before-seen photos, and if all goes well there may even be a recording project to come from this show. If you can't make it to Stoughton, I still highly recommend tuning in to the live stream. To stream the show, just click on the tickets link and look the streaming option. Tickets are $20 and streaming links are just $10. I can't tell you how much I would love to have you there with us, in person or virtually!

http://stoughtonoperahouse.showare.com/NateGibson_25

Back to the Country Goes Back to School 9/11/24 WORT 89.9FM

Howdy Friends, tomorrow morning I'll be hosting Back to the Country on WORT FM 89.9FM from 9am-noon. It's our fall pledge and the theme is a Back to School country music salute to NCAA Athletics.

Back in 1981, Bobby Harden of the Harden Trio fame, went to the Starday Sound Studios in Nashville, TN and recorded more than 40 school-specific albums for All-Pro Records. Longtime Starday engineer Tommy Hill produced the records and NAPA Auto Parts stores handled the regional distribution. Each album included songs about the school’s winning sports programs, their specific coaches, division rivals, upcoming football schedules, and usually a song about the cheerleaders, too. As you might guess, they recycled a whole bunch of the backing tracks with slightly altered lyrics, many of which I find hilarious!

I’ve got close to a dozen of these, including odes to my alma mater Indiana University and my current employer UW-Madison, and tomorrow morning, as I attempt to raise money for WORT’s fall pledge drive, I’ll play for you some of my favorites! Streaming via wortfm.org

New Semester at UW-Madison and Mead Witter School of Music

I'm both super excited and a little bit terrified, but a new semester at UW-Madison begins today and in a few minutes I'll be teaching Intro to Music Cultures of the World.

Back in grad school I took a course from Dr. Mellonee Burnim (UW alum) called Systems of Meaning, which was basically training for how to teach Intro to Ethnomusicology. I wasn't sure if I'd ever have that opportunity, but here we are roughly a decade later and I'm super grateful to have this opportunity.

Many thanks to Dr. Burnim for all the prep, to Dr. Nadia Chana for recommending I take over her class, to the Mead Witter School of Music for letting me design my own course, to the UW-Madison Libraries for letting me take on the overload, to my three fantastic TAs who will be doing all the grading, to all the amazing guest speakers who have committed to join us, and to the nearly 300 students who are already enrolled. AV passcode, check. Mic check. Let's go!

Nate Gibson & the Stardazers at the High Noon Saloon Patio 8/30/24 5:30-7:30

It's the last week of summer before classes start up again at UW-Madison, and what a week it's been! Dear friends Bill C. Malone and Bobbie Malone have been visiting from TX to celebrate Bill's 90th birthday (and host Bill's Back to the Country radio program in person at WORT FM) and I've also been exploring the bike trails of Madison with my brother who is visiting from NE. It's been awesome!  

We're going to have one last big wingding before everybody returns home and we hope you can join us: This Friday (8/30) at the High Noon Saloon Patio, Nate Gibson & the Stardazers will play from 5:30-7:30pm (patio opens at 4:30pm). I also have Bill's word that he and Bobbie could be convinced to sing at least(!) one tune for us. It's a free show. It's a fun show. It's a Happy Hour show. It's an outdoors show. It's a hope-to-see-you-there show!