You may or may not know that I always publish a new blog on the first day of every month.  This time, April 1st, happens to be known as “April Fools Day.”  I don’t know where that came from, but for me it calls to mind one of my favorite Rob Carlson songs, “April Fools.”

Rob brought this song to me while we had the Hilonesome Band quintet up and running, around 2012 I believe, and we were all smitten by it immediately.  It’s a sweet love song that begins brightly but turns toward a poignant and bittersweet ending.  The music brings to mind soft and lyrical bosa nova along lines of “Girl From Ipanima” and that sweet vibe.

Lyrics and an audio are below for your April Fools Day listening pleasure!  For those of you who have our albums, this song appears on our 2015 release “White Swan.”  Our players are Carlson on lead guitar, Fred Sanders on bass, Steve Rankin on mandolin and Mark Indictor on fiddle.

April Fools
by Rob Carlson, 2015

I saw you in the spring parade
flowers in your hair
folks though you were foolish
but I fell right then and there
So I put flowers in my hair too
and then I danced with you
that’s how I remember spring time and
two crazy April fools

Summer and a family came
A pretty little girl
We danced the dance all families do
Three April fools
Autumn and we’re two again,
we danced just as before
Only a little slower, but we
know a few steps more…

Now winter has arrived
just me in this town
and all that’s left of Springtime is
the dust upon the ground
When I think of you and I
I laugh and dance a step or two
That’s how I remember Springtime and
Two crazy April Fools

“The Last Repair Shop”

I want to draw your attention to a truly marvelous new Oscar-winning film this year, “The Last Repair Shop.”  “The Last Repair Shop” is a 2023 Canadian-American short documentary film directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers. Produced by Breakwater Studios, the film had its premiere on September 1, 2023 at the 50th Telluride Film Festival, and it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film at the 96th Academy Awards in March 2024.

Plot Summary:

Since 1959, Los Angeles has been one of the few United States cities to offer and fix musical instruments for its public school students at no cost. Those instruments, numbering around 80,000, are maintained at a Los Angeles downtown warehouse by a handful of craftspeople employed by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The film profiles four of them, each specializing in an orchestra section, as well as students whose lives have been enriched by the repair shop’s work. The film concludes with a performance by district alumni.

To anyone who makes music this film is an absolute must-see.  The work by these film-makers jumps immediately into the transcendent with the very first frames, a seemingly-miraculous camera shot from inside a violin as the technician is working on it and peering in from the outside.  In addition to this photography, the stories of the music students, juxtaposed with the stories from the repair people themselves paints a vivid picture of a full-circle of love and grace wrapped up inside one of the most important endeavors in the world:  promoting music and education.

Additional cool background:  The LAUSD workshop, much smaller than Bowers had imagined when he was an LAUSD student himself, became the subject of the film, including profiles of four of the workshop’s craftspeople. Among the staff interviewed was Steve Bagmanyan, a piano technician and an Armenian refugee from Azerbaijan, who had tuned the pianos Bowers had used in elementary and middle school.  Bowers, whose first instrument was a school-provided saxophone, felt they should also profile students as well as the craftspeople.  A number of the students interviewed in the film are from the Colburn School, a music and arts school in Los Angeles which Bowers also attended.  One of those featured students, violinist Porché Brinker, shared the stage with Proudfoot and Bowers when they were awarded the Oscar. 

Impact of the film

The LAUSD Education Foundation is now embarking on a $15 million campaign to benefit the musical instrument repair operation documented in “The Last Repair Shop.”  The fund will support the workshop and its talented staff, and also sponsor a training program for students who will become future instrument technicians.  This documentary has prompted a flow of donations to the program.

I urge you to first watch this gorgeous movie trailer and THEN find the film and watch it all!  It’s currently streaming on Hulu and Disney +.  Here’s the trailer:

As always, thanks for reading! 
Love and Blessings,

Susie

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Award-winning recording artist, Broadway singer, journalist, educator and critically-acclaimed powerhouse vocalist, Susie Glaze has been called “one of the most beautiful voices in bluegrass and folk music today” by Roz Larman of KPFK’s Folk Scene.  LA Weekly voted her ensemble Best New Folk in their Best of LA Weekly for 2019, calling Susie “an incomparable vocalist.”  “A flat out superb vocalist… Glaze delivers warm, amber-toned vocals that explore the psychic depth of a lyric with deft acuity and technical perfection.”  As an educator, Susie has lectured at USC Thornton School of Music and Cal State Northridge on “Balladry to Bluegrass,” illuminating the historical path of ancient folk forms in the United Kingdom to the United States via immigration into the mountains of Appalachia.  Susie has taught workshops since 2018 at California music camps RiverTunes and Vocáli Voice Camp.  She is a current specialist in performance and historian on the work of American folk music icon, Jean Ritchie.  Susie now offers private voice coaching online via the Zoom platform.   www.susieglaze.com