Caleb Stine has spent the last couple years working as Producer on ellen cherry’s latest album, ‘Please Don’t Sell The Piano’. At long last, the album will be performed and released at An Die Musik in Baltimore (409 N. Charles St.) on Saturday, March 31 and Sunday, April 1. For more information visit ellencherry.com. And for some nice reviews of the album check out The City Paper, The Baltimore Sun, and The Urbanite.

WYPR The Signal producer Aaron Henkin and Maryland Traditions folklorist Cliff Murphy set up a meeting between a few musicians ranging in age and influence but connected by a love for traditional instrumentation and original songwriting. It was a great afternoon with plenty of folly and wisdom, a lot of laughs, and the kind of music that’s been made since the dawn of Man.

To stream the show click the link here:
STREAM PODCAST OF THE SIGNAL: BURTON DEBUSK, HUGH CAMPBELL, AND CALEB STINE

Check out the radio show blog here:
Signal Radio: Burton DeBusk, Hugh Campbell and Caleb Stine

Also, additional music tracks are posted on the Maryland Traditions Facebook Page here:
Maryland Traditions Facebook

And, thanks to Travis Kitchens, several YouTube links capture some of the music:

Caleb Stine’s newest album ‘I Wasn’t Built For A Life Like This’ has received great reviews and has been featured on several 2010 Best Of Lists. Twangville put’s Caleb’s song ‘The Eternal Present’ on a mix right next to Justin Townes Earle and calls ‘I Wasn’t Built For A Life Like This’ “one of the best records released this year (and almost certainly the best self-released record)”; Honest Tune writer Tim Newby slides ‘Built’ into his Top Ten of 2010 list; and, hey!, Alt Country Netherlands gives the album 4 stars saying “In de recensie van Maxim Ludwig is al gewezen op 2010 als het jaar van mannen met baarden” (which Google Translator interprets as ‘The review of Maxim Ludwig has been highlighted as the year of 2010 men with beards’). Beard or no beard, its been a great year and 2011 is stacking up with plenty of shows, challenging collaborations, and exciting projects. Hot dog!

‘I Wasn’t Built For A Life Like This’ is available here in the Store section of calebstine.com, at CD Baby, and on iTunes.

Hard Hittin’ Songs For Hard Hit People
Saturday, October 9th, 6:30pm
St. John’s Church
2640 St. Paul St., Baltimore MD 21218

Caleb Stine hosts Hard Hittin’ Songs for Hard Hit People, a night of roots and folk music straight from the heart. For the sixth year, local and national musicians will band together to raise money for Heart’s Place, an overnight emergency shelter located in St. John’s (2640) that provides a counseling, meals, and a warm, compassionate haven for homeless men, women and children- the only shelter in Baltimore that serves families. The lineup this year includes Michael Patrick Flanagan Smith (Brooklyn), The Baltimore Shape Note Singers, The Mumbles (New Orleans), Channing and Quinn (Nashville), and Caleb. $10 suggested donation to Heart’s Place, all ages welcome. Hope to see you there!

Heart’s Place is a strong force in Baltimore’s fight against homelessness. For more than 20 years it has offered a place for those in need during the Winter months.

In light of the benefit, I’d also like to share a site I came across a few months back. Invisible People TV is a blog site run by a formerly homeless man who documents the face of Homelessness across America. With a compassionate and curious spirit he is able to elicit honest and moving accounts from the people he meets. The result is a collection of unfiltered, raw human stories. It’s a site well worth exploring if you have a few moments.

Here’s one of the profiles of a young working mother, trying to keep her family of 5 off the street:

So you’re a couple dudes who just finished college, you want an adventure. You want to head out on the road. You want to see America. But you want to do it your way. Something new. Something . . . musical.

Meet Dan Elliott and Maj O’Grady. They are biking across the country on a quest to understand American music up close and personal. It’s a journey through local music scenes in the American Heartland as heard from a bicycle. Their couple month quest is being documented on a blog called Bandcycle.

Several weeks ago, my friend Kat Hudson contacted me about some guys who were interviewing local bands from their bicycles, they were in Baltimore, could I help? I thought they needed a couch to crash on so I offered to have them at my place. Turns out they were curious, adventurous dudes (with a couch already pre-lined up further down the road) and they wanted to hear about Baltimore and what this city is offering up musically. You can read their take on our visit here.

They’re still pedaling, and it’s cool to see the adventure unfold. Check them out and write them a little encouragement. (Looks like they’re taking a deserved couple days off right now).

My good friends, The Barnes, showed me how it’s done on their Zip Line.

About 8 months ago I was approached to score the music for a documentary. At the time, I knew very little about the film, and accepted mainly because the editor who contacted me, Thom Stromer, is such a high quality dude, I knew any project he was behind had to be worth while. Little did I know how amazing the experience was going to be.

The film, ‘Healing Neen’ documents the assent of Tonier ‘Neen’ Cain from a childhood of abuse, neglect, and violence, through a journey of drugs, prostitution, and prison, into a life-changing trauma-treatment program where she turned her past around. She is now a world-traveling mental health advocate, working to better the lives of the people she used to sleep with, under bridges. It’s a tale too dramatic to be made up, and Tonier herself is a character too full of life to be dreamed.

There were nights as I sat and recorded music for certain scenes when I was brought to tears, just realizing the power of this woman. She exudes a love and passion that can be felt through the screen. And the wisdom she has gained from traveling through the depths is the pearl of great price. There is no ‘after-school special’ moral to the film, instead it breaths and moves in a very human way. The scenes with her mother are some of the most heartbreaking I’ve seen. And the moments captured with her own daughter, now 6, make you nearly melt.

Probably one of the most meaningful compliments I’ve ever gotten came to me in an email late one night, returning from a gig. I sat down and opened up a message from Laura, the beautiful, insightful director of ‘Healing Neen’. She said that Tonier had just heard the end credit song I wrote for the film, and that Tonier was crying to her on the phone relaying how perfect the song was. She said she couldn’t believe she’d come to a point in her life where she now had a theme song! How amazing! It was wonderful that she liked it, ’cause it was sort of a big leap for me stylistically, but I just had this gut feeling that it was what the story was calling for. And it worked.

I know that the story is still unfolding for Tonier, and once you meet her, I’m sure you will agree with me when I say that she can go anywhere from here.

If you’re interested in seeing the film, please come out to the premier Thursday, April 29th at 7:00pm at The Creative Alliance. The website, Healingneen.com has info and will keep you up to date on future screenings. Also, The Signal just ran a feature on Tonier, and you can listen to it here.

Had a great weekend of small house concerts, and was it ever lovely. Sunday found me in Upperville Virginia on the most gorgeous day of the year. Fiddles, guitars, accordion, camp fire, chocolate cake, a dog named ‘Townes’. . . does it get any better?