The Boatload of Knowledge

The Boatload of Knowledge (mp3) (pdf)

It's been nearly two months since I posted anything here so I thought I should at least get one more tune in before the New Year. This will only be the 14th post of 2018, compared to 52 postings in 2017. It's been a busy couple of months.

Today's tune was mostly written on September 20 but I've tinkered with it quite a bit since then. It acquired its current title shortly before the annual Burning Bright holiday concert here in Decorah where Erik Sessions and I performed the tune as part of a medley. At the afternoon performance we followed this tune with a faster version of "Red Haired Boy" and during the evening show we followed it with a peppy version of "Mason's Apron."

"The Boatload of Knowledge" might not seem like an obvious choice for a winter holiday concert but, in fact, the title refers to a famous trip down the Ohio River that began in at Pittsburgh in December 1825 and ended in New Harmony, Indiana in January 1826. The boat and its distinguished group of passengers spent Christmas itself trapped in the ice near Safe Harbor Station, PA and so I imagine that this is the kind of tune that might have been played to pass the time on the journey.

An excellent article on the expedition and the extraordinary group of people who chose to travel to the new utopia in the Indiana wilderness can be found at this link:
https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/23335/V089N5_128.pdf

An excellent article about the Burning Bright concerts over the years (which even includes a quote from me) can be found at this link:
http://iloveinspired.com/?s=burning+bright

Happy New Year to all visitors to the blog. We'll see what 2019 brings.