Our
Historical Roots
The seeds for a gourd orchestra were planted in the mid 1980's after years
of listening to African
and other world music, and discovering the varieties of instruments using
gourds. Being an avid gardener, I started growing gourds enthusiastically.
The joy of seeing 50 ft. vines taking over one side of the house and growing
up to the second floor roof line was very exciting. But the gratification
of harvesting a few large bushel basket gourds was even greater. While
the years passed and the gourds piled up I was busy doing research, investigating
forgotten books and records in our public library, then to the college
library, then to museums, private collections, and gourd festivals. With
much patience, trial and error, gourd musical instruments were finally
being constructed. Soon, friends were invited to play the instruments
and explore this "new" world of forgotten sounds. The rich history and
folklore surrounding the gourd resonated in our music.
Pictured from left to right:
Barry Bless, John Moser (top), Esther Benenson, Joan Elliot, Christopher
Hibben,
Eric
Walters, Arthur Stephens, Jodi Teitleman, John Ramsey, Keith Elliot
We
spent many hours below ground in the Power Cave [my basement] exploring
the exotic sounds of
the primitive, but playable instruments.
We finally emerged in 1993, ten members strong, with gourd
instruments in hand and gourd hats on our heads. We were well received
and inspired to continue the
musical journey we started. We went back to the power cave and worked
for two years to craft more
instruments and create new music. We surfaced again in late 1995 to play
before a standing-room-only crowd at the Richmond Public Library. We continued
playing various public and private venues including hosting mini-gourd
festivals where the orchestra not only played, but seeds and plants were
sold, gourds and crafts were displayed and slides of gourds, gardens and
festivals were shown. In late 1996 after Dave Park joined the group we
started recording our music at Cave d'Ave [Dave's basement], located at
the edge of the Chickahominy Swamp. We released our first CD
Refuge in a Gourd in the spring of '97. And in October we capped
off the year by traveling to the "World's
Largest Gourd Festival" held annually in Mt. Gilead Ohio
where we played for hundreds of friendly gourdheads.
The Gourd
Orchestra recorded a second CD entitled "Enchanted
Evenings" in 1999 which included
environmental sounds recorded outside the new location for the Gourd Orchestra
- the Southside Power Cave.
We continued our treks to Ohio every year as 'Gourd Awareness' seemed
to be taking over the country
and perhaps the world.
In 2001 the band changed to it's current lineup after Esther moved to
the northwest and Dave left to pursue non gourd music.
In 2002 we gained long time friend and musician Pippin Barnett, who also
brought his carpentry skills. We spent the winter months building new
instruments in anticipation to creating new music over the spring
and summer.
"Gourd Shack" was the
fruit of our weekly rehearsal improvisation sessions. Some tracks on the
CD are straight from the original tapes. We departed slighty by enhancing
a few tracks with computerized growth hormones.
We spent
the next two years creating new music in the same fashion as Gourd Shack
and our fourth CD "Backyard Shangri-La"
was released.