Evan Carawan

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Evan Carawan
Genres
Instruments Hammered dulcimer, mandolin

Evan Carawan is an American hammered dulcimer player from Knoxville, Tennessee. He is the son of folk musicians Candie and Guy Carawan. Evan Carawan learned to play hammered dulcimer from his father, who was a pioneer in reviving American interest in the instrument. [1] Carawan typically plays in old-time music, Irish, and new-age styles.

Hammered dulcimer string instrument played with hammers

The hammered dulcimer is a percussion-stringed instrument which consists of strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal resonant sound board. The hammered dulcimer is set before the musician, who in more traditional styles may sit cross-legged on the floor, or in a more modern style may stand or sit at a wooden support with legs. The player holds a small spoon-shaped mallet hammer in each hand to strike the strings. The Graeco-Roman dulcimer derives from the Latin dulcis (sweet) and the Greek melos (song). The dulcimer, in which the strings are beaten with small hammers, originated from the psaltery, in which the strings are plucked.

Knoxville, Tennessee City in Tennessee, United States

Knoxville is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Knox County. The city had an estimated population of 186,239 in 2016 and a population of 178,874 as of the 2010 census, making it the state's third largest city after Nashville and Memphis. Knoxville is the principal city of the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area, which, in 2016, was 868,546, up 0.9 percent, or 7,377 people, from to 2015. The KMSA is, in turn, the central component of the Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette Combined Statistical Area, which, in 2013, had a population of 1,096,961.

Guy Carawan American musician and musicologist

Guy Hughes Carawan, Jr. was an American folk musician and musicologist. He served as music director and song leader for the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee.

Contents

Carawan has been a member of several musical groups, including The Carawan Family (with his parents and other associates, often Will Byers and Don Cassell), and the Atomic City Rhythm Rascals (with David Lovett, Chris McMahon, and Tim Worman).

As a youth in 1972, Carawan taught hammered dulcimer player Malcolm Dalglish his first hammered dulcimer tune, the traditional Drunken Sailor.

Malcolm Dalglish is an American hammered dulcimer player and builder, composer, and choral director.

"Drunken Sailor" is a sea shanty, also known as "What Shall We Do with a/the Drunken Sailor?"

Although best known for his hammered dulcimer playing, Carawan also plays the mandolin.

Mandolin musical instrument in the lute family (plucked, or strummed)

A mandolin is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is usually plucked with a plectrum or "pick". It commonly has four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison, although five and six course versions also exist. The courses are normally tuned in a succession of perfect fifths. It is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass.

Carawan is also employed at McKay Books in Knoxville, TN.

Discography

Flying Fish Records was a record label founded in Chicago in 1974 that specialized in folk, blues, and country music. In the 1990s the label was sold to Rounder Records.

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Yangqin Chinese musical instrument, a kind of hammered zither

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References

  1. ↑ Harris, Craig. "Evan Carawan: Biography". Allmusic. Retrieved 12 May 2011.

Metro Pulse was a weekly newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1991 by Ashley Capps, Rand Pearson, Ian Blackburn, and Margaret Weston, and was a member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.


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