Saw Notes
A Resource for Musical Saw Enthusiasts
History
Every August, the IMSA has a saw festival in Felton and Santa Cruz . It’s wonderful fun, and it’s been going for over 40 years now. Unfortunately, due to Covid and the pandemic, the festival has been cancelled the last two years. Hopefully, they will be back next year, but […]
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Bugs Bunny is the star of this cartoon from 1958, and the musical saw plays a big part in this production. The cartoon is titled “Knighty Knight Bugs” and it’s the only Bugs Bunny cartoon to win an Academy Award. The plot revolves around the theft of a “singing sword,” […]
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The saw shows up in old country songs, and here’s a great Soundie by Tom Emerson’s Mountaineers, “I Wish I Died In My Cradle.” There’s not a lot of information about them, but they seem to have done most of their recordings in the late 1930s and early 1940s and […]
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Last spring, guest author Brad Kay wrote a marvelous biography of saw player Sam Moore for our blog. You can read it here. In the post, you can hear a recording of “The Last Rose Of Summer” played by Sam Moore. He made quite a few beautiful saw recordings, including […]
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Johnny Marvin was one of the most popular entertainers of the 1920s and 30s. He recorded many records in the 20s, under his own name and many other pseudonyms. He is a member of the Ukulele Hall of Fame, and the Harmony Company of Chicago named a ukulele after him. […]
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Since I started listening to saw players, I’ve come across a lot of surprisingly beautiful music. The saw is often considered a novelty instrument, and for that reason, sometimes the musical skill of the sawyer can be a bit underdeveloped ( I include myself in that group). Happily, […]
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