GuitarWitt and Lorraine Klein to Perform at the Santa Barbara Jewish Festival!

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GuitarWitt at the Santa Barbara Jewish Festival - Images Courtesy Kelsey Crews Photo

Join us for a special Yiddish Folk Music Performance at the Santa Barbara Jewish Festival this Sunday, May 3rd at Oak Park!  This is the largest Jewish cultural event of California's Central Coast.  Our set is at 3:30pm at the Shalom Stage in the grassy area of the park. Zingt Zhe Kinder! A Yiddish Folk Music Legacy will be available for purchase at the Festival, or on line. Lorraine is an amazing person all around, and a very special musician and folk artist, in the Yiddish tradition. It has been an incredible journey, and an honor to be her friend. 

The Impact of supporting Zingt Zhe Kinder! A Yiddish Folk Music Legacy:
Help preserve Yiddish culture and language.
Be a part of a very special folk art tradition and learn/teach Yiddish in the process.
Transliterations and Translations are provided for all of the songs in the album jacket booklet.
Enjoy amazing folk music, professionally produced in studio by incredibly talented musicians, and album sound engineering by legendary Robert (Bobby) Martin, MultiMartin Music! Instrumentation includes:  Lorraine Klein, guitar and vocals;  Mike Witt, guitar; Nancy Friedland, mandolin; Alan Moses, accordian.
Support a good cause that in turn will benefit an organization that provides social services and programs, open to everyone, no matter one’s age, ethnicity, religion, or gender.

Images by Santa Barbara Photographer Kelsey Crews Photo

Santa Barbara Wedding and Event Guitarist by Kelsey Crews Photo

My incredible wife,  Kelsey Crews Photo, is an accomplished Santa Barbara Wedding and Portrait Photographer. She has been amazing to work with as a husband-wife photography team, and when we are lucky enough, we are booked per our unique specialties - Kelsey as photographer and I as guitarist at weddings and events. For many years, as Kelsey built her photographic endeavors, I've been lucky enough to model for her. In this case, we serendipitously fell into an opportunity for a photo shoot, the day after my birthday (what a gift!). With a location permit already in place for an engagement photo shoot, the couple ended up postponing to another date. We were heading back from a birthday visit to Los Angeles, anyway, and decided to still stop at Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills. This place is amazing!  All decked out as an old Western town, set amongst rolling hills and live oak trees, the lighting is incredible all around. Not to mention, it was Spring time and flowers were blooming. I have many awesome images from Kelsey, but I believe these really take the cake!  I'm one lucky guy. Thanks honey!

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Photo by Santa Barbara Wedding Photographer Kelsey Crews Photo

Photo by Santa Barbara Wedding Photographer Kelsey Crews Photo

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Photo by Santa Barbara Wedding Photographer Kelsey Crews Photo

Santa Barbara Guitar Trio Performs Chan Chan at Montecito Party

We are happy to be playing more and more performances this year. At a private party in Montecito, we display our fun, energetic - instrumental guitar trio rendition based on the Buena Vista Club's exotic, trance induced signature track Chan Chan.  "Chan Chan" is a 1987 son composition by Cuban trovador Compay Segundo. In the late 1990s, it became the signature track of the Buena Vista Social Club project.[1] The lyrics of the song revolve around two central characters called Juanica and Chan Chan. 

On the composition of the song, Company Segundo said:

I didn't compose Chan Chan, I dreamt it. I dream of music. I sometimes wake up with a melody in my head, I hear the instruments, all very clear. I look over the balcony and I see nobody, but I hear it as if it was played on the street. I don't know what it can be. One day I woke up hearing those four sensitive notes, I gave them a lyric inspired by a children's tale from my childhood, Juanica y Chan Chan, and you see, now it's sung everywhere.

The most complete explanation[4] says: 'The song relates the story of a man and a woman (Chan Chan and Juanica) who are building a house, and go to the beach to get some sand. Chan Chan collects the sand and puts it on the jibe (a sieve for sand). Juanica shakes it, and to do so she shakes herself, making Chan Chan aroused. [...] The origin of this tale is a farmer song learnt by Compay Segundo when he was twelve years old.' (Wikipedia References included in this blog post)

Santa Barbara Guitar Trio Preview

Santa Barbara Guitar Trio will be playing at the Santa Barbara Public Market's 1st Anniversary Celebration this Saturday, April 4th, 3:30-6:30pm

SBGT is a newly formed, local guitar trio playing Spanish-Latin-Gypsy guitar music. They have been fine tuning their repertoire for just over a year now and look forward to showing the community their special niche, that is very relevant to the Santa Barbara vibe!  The trio consists of 3 local performers and music teachers - (GuitarWitt) Michael Witt, Robert Seeley and Shaun Sanders.