Americans are a loud bunch. We talk big. We act out. We don’t truly embrace the “less is more” mentality. Our heroes are risk takers, and we value action over restraint, boldness over subtlety. I suppose it’s inevitable that a country spawned from revolution would embrace boisterous ideals, but I fear that in doing so, […]
In an 1840s mill in Maine, Dana Bourgeois and eight fellow craftsmen work in a shop cutting, sanding, and gluing spruce and rosewood. It’s loving work from which eight acoustic guitars are made each week. Their handcrafted instruments are treasured by serious guitarists around the world, including professional musicians Ricky Skaggs, Steve Earle, Marshall Crenshaw, […]
The jazz drummer rides it, the marching band member crashes it, and the concert percussionist rolls it. What is it? A cymbal. In 1623, Avedis Zildjian created a secret alloy for making cymbals. When his family immigrated to America, they set up shop in the Boston area. Today, the oldest continuous family-run company in the […]
When Skip Healy was a child, he often visited the grounds of Rhode Island’s Varnum House Museum (with its extensive military and naval history collection) to sit on a stone bench and play his fife. Today, he’s the curator and runs a fife- and flute-making shop in the carriage house. “Fifes and pipes are the […]
In 1999, a brother-and-sister team and their spouses set out to create a made-in-the-USA ukulele for a reasonable price. The result? The Fluke, a small triangular four-stringed guitar-like ukulele ($189-$435). The first 10,000 of these colorful instruments were built in Dale and Phyllis Webb’s basement; now they’re using a refurbished gas station as a production […]
You don’t expect to find Caribbean music in New England, let alone a crafter of Caribbean instruments. But that’s exactly what we’ve discovered in Eric Rollnick. Eric has been creating pans (melodic instruments made from steel drums, hammered out of 55-gallon barrels) since 1992, after extensive travel and study in Trinidad and Tobago. The pans […]
Lynne Lewandowski wasn’t thinking of the therapeutic benefits of harp music when she first started building this medieval instrument — she just wanted to try making one. That was 32 years ago. Today, Lynne’s harps, crafted to order of cherrywood and gut strings, are renowned among early-music performers. The shapes are a synthesis of replica […]
Wadsworth Atheneum, Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut Hurting economically at the outset of the Civil War, the small towns of backcountry New England swelled the Union army with new recruits. Casualties were overwhelming, with some towns losing most of their young male populations. Postwar New England experienced a deep sense of loss that transformed its […]
20 percentage of Vermont’s trees that are sugar maples — explaining in part the golden-orange and red hues of the state’s foliage season 107 number of years that Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut — oldest burger joint in America — has been cooking hamburgers 2 Babe Ruth’s favorite room at the Cranmore Mountain Lodge […]
Here in northern New England, the color comes on slowly, almost furtively. The first leaves turn — on diseased and dying trees — in late July, unbelievably, amid the suffocating lushness of high summer. By mid-August the early sumacs and swamp maples have joined in, and the slide is on despite the heat. Autumn‘s rapidly […]
One day late last fall while I was out raking, a pickup with a noisy muffler rumbled past. In its wake, a big black beast went storming by, hooves flying, tail spinning. Head down, he rollicked into the field across the way. My dog, Mayday, barked furiously from behind the protection of the front door. […]
Would you cull the deer population to reduce the threat of Lyme disease? Having suffered the ravages of Lyme for 12 years and nearly losing my son to same, my opinion is a strong yes. We need more, but it’s a start. Pamela Swift, R.N., Palm Harbor, FLGet Our FREE Yankee Best New England Vacations […]
