“Master Minstrel” Harvey Reid, a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has been hailed as a “giant of the steel strings” and “one of the true treasures of American music,” comes to Harrisburg on Friday, October 26 for a Susquehanna Folk Music Society concert at the Fort Hunter Barn, 5300 N. Front Street, Harrisburg. The 7:30 p.m. concert will be preceded by a free 6 p.m. potluck dinner.
Reid started playing guitar in his early teens in Maryland, falling in love with the legendary DC-area bluegrass scene. After street-fiddling and playing old-time and bluegrass music for some eight years, he moved into his van in the late 1970s and began pursuing solo acoustic songs and instrumental music, primarily fingerstyle acoustic guitar and autoharp. He won the 1981 National Fingerpicking Guitar competition and the 1982 International Autoharp contest and has performed more than 6,000 concerts in most of the 50 states and a number of European countries.
Although he is best known for his solo acoustic fingerstyle guitar work, Reid is also a skilled flatpicker and autoharp player who performs and records with dobro, mandolin, mandocello, bouzouki, and six-string banjo. He’s a master of many styles of acoustic music, from hip folk to slashing slide guitar blues to bluegrass, old-time, Celtic, ragtime, and even classical. And he plays the 6-string banjo and the autoharp like you’ve never heard.
Always an innovator, Reid was among the very earliest to embrace the digital revolution in independent music and self-publishing. He was one of the first artists to start his own record label, and his early recordings were some of the first to be done direct-to-digital master without any edits or overdubs. His 22 recordings on Woodpecker Records label include nearly 500 tracks of original, traditional, and contemporary music.
Reid is also the first modern artist to compose, arrange, record, and publish guitar music played with a partial capo — several different types and nearly two dozen different configurations. His self-published 1980 book about the partial capo may be the first desktop-published book ever made.
Join us for an intimate concert with this colorful, engaging and multi-talented entertainer.
The concert will be preceded by a free 6 p.m. potluck dinner. Bring a dish to share; place settings and beverages will be provided. Concert tickets are $18 General Admission, $14 for SFMS members, and $10 for students ages 3-22. Advance tickets are available through Brown Paper Tickets at (800) 838-3006 or online at http://www.BrownPaperTickets.com. This concert is supported, in part, through grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Cultural Enrichment Fund. For more information, visit the Susquehanna Folk Music Society web site at http://www.sfmsfolk.org.
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