Tracy:  Hi, Mr. Amatneek – Welcome to Roundtable Reviews.  Your book, ACOUSTIC STORIES, recounts times in your life as a musician.  Now I can relate to Peter, Paul and Mary.  My mom played them a lot when I was a kid.  What a thrill it must have been to be asked to play for them! 

Bill:  Yes. Playing with PP&M was a big thrill. Although I was only with them for two days, I felt I had touched the Peter, Paul & Mary experience. They are very hard-working, well-rehearsed, and consistently excellent performers. It was a challenge to play with them AND a thrill -- when we were on stage, my heart was somewhere near my Adam's apple.

Tracy:  Leaving On A Jet Plane remains one of my favorite songs to sing along to, and I was delighted when Chantal Kreviazuk remade it a few years ago.

Bill:  Yes, John Denver's song travels very well, and appears on over seventeen albums, including Chantal's. John was a terrific tenor singer and great songwriter.

Tracy:  While the majority of the names found in ACOUSTIC STORIES were new to me.  You managed to incorporate big names with lesser-knowns that I found myself more curious about.  Bread and Roses, the organization founded by the late Mimi Farina, has me wanting more information.  Is Bread and Roses still active?  Do they have a site to refer people to?

Bill:  Yes, Bread and Roses is much alive, well and growing. They provide free, live, quality entertainment to people in convalescent homes, AIDS facilities, drug and alcohol facilities, special needs schools, centers for the developmentally disabled, detention facilities, and homeless shelters. During the past year they produced 530 shows for 23,000 audience members, at 105 facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area.
They are on the web at http://www.breadandroses.org

Tracy:   You have some incredible tales, are there more that could comprise a second volume of ACOUSTIC STORIES?

Bill:  Not yet. I have another book in mind before an "Acoustic Stories ~ Volume Two," as you'll see below.

Tracy:  I read that you were working on a CD to go along with ACOUSTIC STORIES?

Bill:  Yes, I hope to have it out by the next Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanza.

Tracy:  I have to ask this because it is something I have always pondered; yet I’ve never had the opportunity to ask.  We all hear stories about groupies, and you bring them up in “New Rider On The Purple Sage.”  AIDS was unheard of until the 1980’s but that wasn’t the only sexually transmitted disease out there.  I look at all those bands out there that have admittedly had sex numerous times with strangers and wonder just how thankful they are that they are alive!  From your experience, do artists now ever look back and regret some of the choices they made sexually?

Bill:  I think I look back with regret on actions that harmed me or others. If these sexual choices had caused unwanted pregnancies, or hurt one of the participants, or caused someone to catch a sexually transmitted disease, then I would have regrets. I don't believe they did. I did try to subtly point out in the book that these one-night encounters were not tremendously fulfilling -- fun, but not fulfilling.

Women seem more interested in this story, "New Rider on the Purple Sage," than men. After reading the story, one woman said to me, "I didn't know how the groupie thing worked. Now I get it."

It is difficult and potentially embarrassing to write about one's sex life. It can sound, in a male, like bragging, and I didn't want that. So I found it tricky to write that story. I wanted it to be funny and sexy but not sexual, to subtly imply what went on but not show it. I wanted to make sure that a kid of any age could read it, and that a parent would not hesitate to let a child read it.

For the benefit of Roundtable Review readers, the book's publisher, Vineyards Press, has put this story in its entirety on its web site. Go to http://www.VineyardsPress.com and click on "New Riders of the Purple Sage" to read the story in full.

Tracy:  Bands like Nickel Creek and Alison Krauss have really brought the bluegrass sound to the younger crowd.   Are there other names out there that you would recommend to the newer generation of listeners?

Bill:  To new, young listeners, I would suggest hearing the old bluegrass masters live, while they are still around. Fortunately, Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys are still with us, and Ralph's new fans include people of all ages. Earl Scruggs, the 5-string banjo master, is still here, and if you can catch him live, try to do so. He is very shy of playing (incredibly) so you may have to settle for his filmed concert with Ricky Skaggs and Doc Watson, called "The Three Pickers," probably available at your local video store. Doc still tours and he is not to be missed, though he usually only plays out as a duo, and is not strictly bluegrass in that setting.

Younger pickers and their bands include
The Cherryholmes Family (mom, dad, and their four kids, with a promising future),
Rhonda Vincent and the Rage,  and
Chris Thile, the 22-year-old mandolin wunderkind of Nickel Creek, who has at least one album of his own, "All Who Wander Are Not Lost," and tours the country.

Tracy:  What are you planning next?

Bill:  A few years back I was the Guest Editor of an issue of "Storytelling Magazine," the publication of the National Storytelling Network (NSN), our country's largest storytelling organization. I called it "The Men's Issue." It had eleven true stories by men, that could only have happened to men, and that showed who men are. The issue went on to be by far the best-selling issue in the NSN's history. The main purchaser of "The Men's Issue" was ... women.

So, I am about to issue a "Call for Men's Stories," in preparation for a book length anthology of such tales. This is my next project, and I am looking forward to it very much.

Thanks very much for your review, Tracy, and for this interview. You asked some very good questions.

Best regards,
Bill Amatneek