Prairie Como is, from left, Marianne Danehy, Dick Carlson, and Black Rose co-founder Charlie Hall.
Dick Carlson, Marianne Danehy and Charlie Hall are Prairie Como.
Dick played with Black Rose (the band) for all ten years of its existence, with Palmer Divide for five years. Between the two bands, he played a hundreds of gigs and released five albums. His rock-steady bass playing has been compared to “the heartbeat of a blue whale”; we’re not sure whether that’s good or bad. His ankles are still recovering from his days as an all-Nebraska basketball star; his coach was quoted as saying “Dick almost never shoots when he doesn’t have the ball.”
Marianne teaches Suzuki violin and fiddle in Colorado Springs. In a prior life, she worked as an engineer for Hewlett-Packard. She grew up playing classical violin and more recently “found her people,” namely those who stay up late playing folk, Celtic, country and bluegrass music. Prior to playing with Charlie and Dick, she performed with the trio Blue Sage. Charlie and Marianne founded the Colorado Roots Music Camp, and she teaches fiddle there every year.
Charlie is a co-founder and past president of the Black Rose Acoustic Society, and co-
founder and director of the Colorado Roots Music Camp. He was a finalist in the 2000 National Finger Style Guitar championship, and was a nominee for Bluegrass Guitarist of the Year in 1996 by the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society. He played with Black Rose for 10 years and has performed with Joe Uveges, Phil Volan and the nearly-famed Trio Reynoso.
They will be joined by some of their longtime friends for a wonderful night of great memories and song.
Prairie Como celebrates good country songs served without artificial ingredients. They play a swing tune or two, fiddle tunes, some bluegrass, some folk. They sing songs that review the salient characteristics of Iowa, orphanhood, old-fashioned love, lost love, found love, misplaced love, love that crushes you like a monochromatic Kansas farmhouse dropped by a tornado, loneliness, bandits, the South, the South again, birthdays and their concomitant rehashing of the prior 12 months’ personal failures, small towns, big towns, ginormous towns and the Wrong Side of the Tracks. And the South.