revies of a CD i'm on

From Victory Music Review

You’ve got to get this new record by folk godfather (and Victory contributor) Dick Weissman. It’s a double album: Disc one is all lively and inventive banjo instrumentals that muscle up right alongside Pete Wernick’s and Tony Trischka’s similar releases this year. Weissman’s a little different, playing open-backed from deep within the folk roots, growing up and into jazz and classical branches, where the others are climbing in off the bluegrass limb. Weissman also plays a mean guitar, and with it in hand reveals a Southwestern trope. The middle tracks of the instrumental CD are a marvelous suite of blues. A fascinating feature on both discs is the inclusion of a concluding track of Dick discussing the songs. Well, he is a professor, you know! The second disc is the “folk song” album, and good gracious, he leaves his contemporaries, and those who’ve come since, in the dust with his wicked wit, his perfect song construction, and his always-surprising arrangements. He goes from the bedrock (“One Big Union”) to the breathtaking (on “So Much Dylan” he both yanks Zimmy’s chain and spoofs how far Muzak – and we – can go) in a single bound. Weissman’s in fine voice, but he cheerfully cedes the mic to Tom May, Mary Flower, and Anne Weiss on selected tunes. Through the magic of overdubbing, he plays most of the instruments (and he uses a delightful variety) but is otherwise backed by the similarly multifaceted Chico Schwall and Noah Peterson. This is certainly one of the Don’t Miss albums of ‘08; you can catch Dick live in Seattle after the new year, too.

From "The Oregonian"

After seeing Dick Weissman
perform at the Portland Songwriters Association Best Songwriter Finals in 2007, I wrote "folk icon and banjoist Dick Weissman, looking like he stepped off the set of 'A Mighty Wind,' performed one of the most entertaining songs of the evening, a North African slide banjo tune." Little did I know how right-on I was. Turns out, the mythical trio in the spoof film "A Mighty Wind," known as the Folksmen, bear resemblance to the Journeymen, a band Weissman was in along with John (the Mamas and the Papas) Phillips and Scott McKenzie. The Journeymen are best known for "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)."

Over coffee last week, Weissman laughed at my line. "I loved the movie," he said. "I don't have a lot of nostalgia for the '60s. What I did then is what I did then and what I do now is what I do now." Fair enough. What Weissman does now includes writing a new book, his 16th. Weissman was born in Philadelphia, migrated to New York City, then Denver, and ended up in Portland in 2005.

On Saturday, he's introducing a new double-CD set, "Four Directions," at Artichoke Music in Portland. There's an instrumental CD, mostly Weissman playing his signature banjo, the banjeaurine (smaller and tuned higher than the standard banjo), and guitar -- solo, overdubbed
and aided by sidemen Chico Schwall and Noah Peterson. The companion CD is all songs.

He admits, "I can't sing ballads." He brought in Mary Flower, Anne Weiss and Tom May for those. Weissman brings his perspective as a participant and observer in the entire life of the "folk revival" from the late 1950s on to his song "So Much Dylan," a send-up of Dylan's early rock band and a comment on the current Dylan proliferation. "I was in New York when Dylan came there. I tried to produce it like his early folk-rock. The band isn't quite together. I had more fun doing that than I've had in the studio maybe ever." And that's quite an "ever." Weissman has played on hundreds of studio sessions, written film scores, even produced an Archie Shepp album.

Weissman's banjo playing is melodic, more like Bela Fleck than Earl Scruggs, although Weissman was playing that way before Fleck was born. "I like playing slowly and quietly, which most banjo players just don't do," Weiss said.