206 East “F” St., Tehachapi, Calif.
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Fiddlers Crossing News:
Here’s a cool clip of Rita Hosking and some friends at last year’s Fall Strawberry Music Festival (where we are going in less than a week, by the way). Yes, that’s our good friend Joe Craven playing the mandolin in the background. What this video clip may lack in sound quality, it more than makes up in feeling, fun and “vibe”. This is what music festivals are all about. It’s why we go to so many of them every Summer. We make contact with performers that we end up booking at Fiddlers Crossing, just like Rita Hosking, who, you must know by now, will be playing Fiddlers Crossing this Friday, May 18 at 7:00pm with her husband, Sean Feder on banjo and dobro. You may also remember that she played Mama Hillybean’s with her band, “Cousin Jack” about 3 years ago. Enjoy this clip and if at all possible, come out on Friday night and support a great artist like Rita Hosking!
Fiddlers Crossing’s open mic from Wednesday, May 9 is now available to view on Bright House Cable channel 300, Bakersfield on Demand! Go to “Around Town” first, then you’ll see “Open mic” in the list. Just choose who you want to watch from the list. Have fun!!
Fiddlers Crossing is now listed in the Tehachapi Visitor Guide for 2012-13, including a beautiful photo of our current featured artist, Dakota Kelly Hokanson!
Tehachapi gets some well-deserved press!
This short piece appeared in the Bakersfield Californian December 29th, 2011 in the “Eye Street” section:
“Who needs Bakersfield…when you have Tehachapi, which seems to be serving notice on its neighbor that there’s a new cultural capital of Kern. Theater, music, festivals and museums are thriving in the mountain community, which seems determined to become a haven for the arts. Tehachapi: It’s not just apples anymore.”
Indeed!! Thanks for noticing, Bakersfield Californian!
Coming in June… Our featured artist, Allyson Gray 
Fiddlers Crossing is primarily a concert venue, but the venue mounts a new art exhibit every few months in conjunction with Tehachapi’s First Friday art nights. This summer, beginning with June’s First Friday, the works of local artist Allyson Gray will be featured.
Gray is a self-taught artist who works mainly with acrylic paints, pastels, and colored pencils. She has lived in the Tehachapi area for 23 years, and has taken part in Chalk on the Walk, winning first place in the adult division in 2007, 2009 and 2011. Gray assisted muralist Art Mortimer with the Monolith mural on F Street in Tehachapi, on the side of St. Vincent de Paul.
Gray is currently working toward a Bachelor’s Degree in the Biological Sciences with the intention of being a field biologist, helping to conserve and protect wild places. An avid runner, hiker, and nature lover, she finds her inspiration in the outdoors. Many of her paintings depict actual places.
Fiddlers Crossing is at 206 East F Street at Robinson Street, in Downtown Tehachapi. An artist’s reception will be held June 1 starting at 5:30 p.m. As usual on First Friday, live acoustic music will start around 7 p.m. Admission is free.
Our Current Featured Artist….Dakota Kelly Hokanson
The arts works of Dakota Kelly Hokanson will be on display at Fiddlers Crossing starting with First Friday in March. Dakota will turn 18 during the month, and is already an accomplished artist, specializing in drawings, paintings and sculptures of horses. An avid horsewoman from early childhood, she began to draw them at the age of 14, using some broken pastels her grandfather had given her.
Dakota’s family moved to Tehachapi from Utah in 2007. Since then, she has displayed her artworks in the Bear Valley Cultural Art Association show, in Cross Roads Gallery, and the Souza Family Vineyard’s Visitors Center.
Dakota works with water colors, pastels and acrylics for her paintings of horses. She works with premo clay to create horse sculptures. She also draws portraits in pencil, charcoal and pen.
Concert Schedule:
Friday, May 18, 7:00pm–Rita Hosking, singer-songwriter with Sean Feder, Banjo
Country/Folk $20.00
One thing that often differentiates folk music from pop music is the subject matter. Pop music, whether Cole Porter or Taylor Swift, is usually about love and relationships. While much of folk music also speaks of love, it is more often grounded in a sense of place than is pop.
Rita Hosking is a “country-folk” singer-songwriter who evokes her Northern California roots in her music. She sings of forest fires, demolition derbies and the hopes and dreams of the working class small town of her youth. As a descendant of Cornish miners who had a tradition of singing while they worked in the mines, Hosking grew up with a deep regard for folk music and the power of the human voice. In her songs, she draws on her own childhood growing up outside of Mount Shasta, as well as her family’s roots in the gold mines of Grass Valley. While rooted in Northern California, Hosking’s music moves through her sense of place to touch the universal themes of our lives.
She and her CDs have won awards and honors in Country, Folk and Songwriting categories. She has been compared to Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris and Nancy Griffith. Her powerful voice has been called, “gritty” and “earthy” as well as “sweet and sinewy.”
In her concert at Fiddlers Crossing, Hosking will be joined by her husband, Sean Feder, playing dobro and banjo. Feder has an eclectic musical experience that includes guitar, piano, vocals and percussion. He taught group hand drumming classes at UC Davis for 10 years. Among many others, he has performed with Joe Craven, Arthur Hull, and the Bay Area Celtic band, Driving with Fergus. He has studied banjo with Bill Evans and dobro with Rob Ickes. Feder sees as his mission, “to serve the groove and melody in order to reveal, kindle and lift the spirit of the music.”
Fiddlers Crossing is at 206 East F Street at Robinson Street, in Downtown Tehachapi. Tickets may be purchased next door at Mountain Music, at The Apple Shed, or with a credit card by calling 661-823-9994. Tickets to the concert are $20, and as always, coffee and goodies are included. The concert begins at 7 p.m. Doors open at 6:30p.m.
Saturday, June 2, 7:00pm–The Roustabouts, Bluegrass band, with special guest fiddler, Jack Kinney $20.00
Pure, straight-ahead Bluegrass comes back to Fiddlers Crossing June 2 in the form of
“The Roustabouts.” This new band is made up of old friends who have been part of the Bakersfield (and points nearby) Bluegrass scene. They began playing together in the summer of 2011 just for the pure fun of it. In fact, they were having so much fun picking and singing together that they decided to start sharing their music with live audiences.
The Roustabouts music is hard-driving bluegrass that features tight vocals and great picking. The members include Craig Wilson on guitar, Shawn Criswell on banjo, Kelvin Gregory on mandolin, and Brian Hacker on bass. Gregory and Hacker had been members of Highway 65, a bluegrass band that has played Fiddlers Crossing in the past.
Craig Wilson has been a fixture in the California Bluegrass scene for decades, and is known as one of the best traditional-style mandolin players in California. He has toured the West with several bands including Stony Point, The Born Again Bluegrass Band and Pacific Crest. Wilson is also an accomplished luthier and builds mandolins.
With The Roustabouts, Wilson is enjoying the opportunity to play guitar, although he occasionally switches instruments with Kelvin Gregory. “The band as a whole has very good pickers that are equally good at different instruments,” Gregory says.
Gregory started in Bluegrass more than 30 years ago and played bass in the Bakersfield band, Two Weeks Notice, until family and business needs caused him to put his music on the shelf for more than 20 years. He got the bug to play again and took up the mandolin and hasn’t looked back. He has jumped back into Bluegrass with a vengeance and his enthusiasm is infectious.
Shawn Criswell is thought by many to have one of the best right hands of any banjo picker in the region. Criswell hails from Visalia and cut his teeth on the playing styles of Scott Vestal and Terry Baucom. Shawn was a member of Pacific Crest as well as Groundspeed.
Brian Hacker, from Exeter, is a long-time friend of Criswell and played bass several years ago with the Criswell family bands. Like Kelvin Gregory, he put music aside for a period of time before dusting off his bass and playing with Highway 65.
These four friends will be certain to bring a good time to Tehachapi when they play Fiddlers Crossing.
Fiddlers Crossing is at 206 East F Street at Robinson Street, in Downtown Tehachapi. Tickets may be purchased next door at Mountain Music, at The Apple Shed, or with a credit card by calling 661-823-9994. Tickets to the concert are $20, and as always, coffee and goodies are included. The concert begins at 7 p.m. Doors open at 6:30p.m.
Saturday, June 30, 7:00pm–Lisa Nemzo, singer- songwriter $20.00
Friday, July 13, 7:00pm–Sligo Rags Celtic Folk with a decidedly Bluegrass attitude $20.00
http://www.sligorags.com/home.cfm
Saturday, July 21, 7:00pm–Gary Mazzola and Planet, Acoustic Folk/Rock $15.00
Saturday, October 6, 7:00pm–Stacey Earle & Mark Stuart, Folk/Americana $20.00
Tuesday, October 16, 7:00pm– Sarah McQuaid, Celtic singer-songwriter-guitarist $20.00
Sunday, November 18, Matinee (time TBA) Alan Reid & Rob van Sante, traditional Scottish songs and tunes $20.00
2013
Saturday, January 5, 7:00pm & Sunday, January 6, 2013, 3:00pm–“Fiddlers Crossing Presents,” Patrick Ball, “O’Carolan’s Farewell to Music” (a solo musical theater piece, written by Patrick Ball & Peter Glazer) at the BeeKay Theatre, 108 S. Green St. , Tehachapi $25.00
Sunday, February 10, 2013, 3:00pm– Acoustic Eidolon, “New Acoustic Music” $20.00
http://www.acousticeidolon.com/
Friday, March 29, 2013, 7:00pm– Claude Bourbon, “Medieval & Spanish blues, Finger-picking guitar & Song” $20.00
Saturday, June 29, 7:00pm–Susie Glaze and the HiLonesome Band $20.00 
http://susieglaze.com/
Please note: We will be adding more events to this schedule soon!
Fiddlers Crossing is…
Many of the concerts at Fiddlers Crossing are recorded for broadcast on the “Folkscene” radio program over KPFK-fm, Los Angeles and other stations around the country. Here are a few highlights!
Dorian Michael & Kenny Blackwell, who performed at Fiddlers Crossing on July 22, 2011
http://soundcloud.com/fiddlers-crossing/cavachino-mx#
Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart, who performed at Fiddlers Crossing on August 18, 2011.
http://soundcloud.com/fiddlers-crossing/if-you-change-your-mind-mx
Freebo, who performed at Fiddlers Crossing on November 18, 2011.
Open Mic
Fiddlers Crossing hosts an open mic every Wednesday starting at 7:00 p.m. Everyone is welcome to come and share their talents, from musicians and singers, to poets and comedians. Don’t want to perform? Be our audience!! $5.00 cover includes all refreshments. Try our great freshly ground coffee!
First Fridays
On First Fridays, Fiddlers Crossing will showcase local artists or bring in our favorite artists from around the state. Live music will always be part of the occasion. We will have new art on our wall every two to three months. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. No cover charge.
Fiddlers Crossing at 206 East F Street Tehachapi, CA 661.823.9994
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