Michale August is a much-loved musician from the Wisconsin, northern Illinois region of the Unties States. When not performing, Known by many through his YouTube Channel Michael August has a long list of instruments in his musical arsenal, including Harmonica, Ukulele, Guitar, Tenor banjo, Mandolin Drobro and Tenor guitar.
Mike ( as his friends call him) has a passion for Slide guitar and can often be found playing Slide ukulele. His connection to harmonica and his mastering of playing it in many different styles has been another of his passions for 35 years.
Michael has always favored Delta blues, country, blues, Southern rock, Piedmont style or americana music. He’s influenced by Keb’ Mo, Taj Mahal, Doc Watson and Eric Bibb just to name a few, there really isn’t a genre that Michael doesn’t embrace with passion.
Michael is sought after for workshops and has performed and taught at the Tampa Bay Ukulele Festival, Gaithersburg Ukulele Festival in Maryland, Funky Frets Uke Fest in Boyerstown PA just to name a few venues. Michael performs solo, and with a variety of musicians in the Upper Midwest. While he makes his home in Roscoe, Illinois, Michael is available for personal music lessons on a variety of instruments both in persona and though Zoom.
For details on personalized tutorials please email Michael at harpo29@icloud.com
ASHOKEN FAREWELL TUTORIAL
Ashoken Farewell is a haunting melody played in CGDA
“Ashokan Farewell” /əˈʃoʊˌkæn/ is a piece of music composed by the American folk musician Jay Ungar in 1982. For many years it served as a goodnight or farewell waltz at the annual Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camps run by Ungar and his wife Molly Mason, who gave the tune its name
In 1984, filmmaker Ken Burns heard “Ashokan Farewell” and was moved by it. He used it in two of his documentary films: Huey Long (1985), and The Civil War (1990), which features the original recording by Fiddle Fever in the beginning of the film. The Civil War drew the greatest attention to the piece. It is played 25 times throughout the eleven-hour series.
Michael August presents this tutorial sharing the fingerpicking and cording in CGDA Tuning.
Click to download or print Mike’s Notation
“Midnight Special” is a traditional folk song thought to have originated among prisoners in the American South.[1] The song refers to the passenger train Midnight Special and its “ever-loving light” (sometimes “ever-living light”).
The song is historically performed in the country-blues style from the viewpoint of the prisoner and has been performed by many artists.
Lyrics appearing in the song were first recorded in print by Howard Odum in 1905:[2]
Get up in the mornin’ when ding dong rings,
Look at table — see the same damn thing
However, these lyrics are known to be floater lines, appearing in various African-American songs of that period, notably in the “Grade-Songs”, which are about prison captains and have nothing to do with a train or a light.[3]
The first printed reference to the song itself was in a 1923 issue of Adventure magazine, a three-times-a-month pulp magazine published by the Ridgway Company.[4] In 1927 Carl Sandburg published two different versions of “Midnight Special” in his The American Songbag, the first published versions.[5]
The song was first commercially recorded on the OKeh label in 1926 as “Pistol Pete’s Midnight Special” by Dave “Pistol Pete” Cutrell (a member of McGinty’s Oklahoma Cow Boy Band).[6] Cutrell follows the traditional song except for semi-comedic stanzas about McGinty and Gray and “a cowboy band”:[7] Read more here
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