Howlin' Dog Moon 
Mark Weeg - fiddle * Rebecca Hoggan - mandolin * Chris
Goodspeed - bass * Gary Dark - banjo * Craig Corona - guitar
Profile by Bill Donaldson, from Pow'r
Pickin', July, 2001
It's already too hot and sultry for an early June morning in Louisville,
Colorado. Dark clouds off to the west offer no relief any time soon.
A guitar player with cutoffs and Birkenstocks, accompanied by bongos
and a flute, is strumming New Age chords in apparently random progression
under a canvas in front of the Town Hall. Most people wandering the
street-side booths and sampling treats at the Taste of Louisville pay
little attention.
One thinks it will be a challenge for any band to liven up this party
and draw people's attention away from the burgers, nachos, and root
beer floats on the street today.
But then comes time for Craig, Chris, Gary, Mark, and Rebecca, known
collectively as Howlin' Dog Moon. They take a few minutes to set up,
and then launch into some serious down-home picking, and the mood changes
entirely. As if on cue, the clouds drift over and block the sun just
enough to make the heat less oppressive. People begin to gravitate toward
the plaza. Some find seats on the concrete walls or on the sidewalk.
Others stand. Some hoot and whistle in response to the music. There
is life here after all.
Craig Corona is the driving force behind Howlin' Dog Moon. Craig picks
the guitar and sings baritone in a "country/folk style." He's
a native of Long Island, New York, where he learned country music as
a kid and was influenced by a wide range of talents from Hank Williams
to John Denver CO. Craig has been in Colorado since 1989. He created
his first CD, called Sawmill Town, featuring a number of other local
artists, in 1997. Craig runs his own digital recording studio called
Sawmill Sound.
"I play banjo and I self medicate," says Gary Dark. Gary
started in music playing guitar at the age of eleven and studied classic
guitar at Denver CO University. He picked up the banjo four years ago.
Gary also sings with a high lonesome voice that is absolutely pure bluegrass.
He explains he comes by it naturally: "I was born in Campbell,
Kentucky and my uncles played bluegrass."
Fiddler Mark Weeg is another New York native, from Rochester. Mark
adds the low-down bass vocals. "I started playing fiddle at 21,"
Mark says. " I did a lot of concerts in upstate New York. I always
played a little bluegrass, but I never played bluegrass with a band
until I met Craig."
Chris Goodspeed is the "silent" bass player. That is to say,
Chris doesn't sing, but makes a pretty impressive sound with the bass.
"I only sing in the car and in the shower," he says. He is
yet another New Yorker, coming from Vestal, NY to Colorado to seek his
fortune as a graphic artist. Chris, as you may have read in last month's
Pow'r Pickin', was
the artist who created the graphics for the CBMS T-shirts this year.
Chris says, "Bluegrass is very popular in upstate New York. I've
been playing bass guitar in pop bands for 15 years and actually didn't
start playing bluegrass until I joined Howlin' Dog Moon." The newest
member of the band is mandolin player, Rebecca Bryan Hoggan, formerly
of Richmond, Virginia. Rebecca has been deeply involved in various styles
of music from the age of five and was primarily a guitarist. She adds
a unique jazz flavor to the group harmonies.
"I was in Bowling Green, Kentucky," she says, "and there
was this mandolin on the wall in Kentucky and I just bought it and started
playing it on the drive from Kentucky to Virginia." She was gigging
with the mandolin a month later. "I played mandolin in a band called
Lowcountry Boil Bluegrass Band in the southeast. And then I played mandolin
in my own solo gigs."
Rebecca has a degree in music from the University of Michigan and studied
guitar and voice at the Berklee College of Music. She released a solo
recording called A Subtle Move in 1998. She arrived in Colorado in September
of last year.
The core of Howlin' Dog Moon came together two years ago. Gary explains,
"I met Craig two years ago at a jam in Louisville and we became
Howlin' Dog Moon. Then we drug Mark into it."
Craig adds, "Then I met Chris when he did the art for my CD cover.
At that time I didn't know he played bass."
Craig tells how the band got the name. "Howlin' Dog Moon is a
combination of two different names from when a former mandolin player
and I formed the band. She had one name with 'Howlin' or 'Moon' in it
and I had a name with 'Dog' in it, and somehow it all combined into
Howlin' Dog Moon."
Craig interjects that with Gary's Kentucky roots, he has become "the
bluegrass police in the band." He keeps everybody honest and true
to the music.
"Yeah," Rebecca adds. "If anyone tries to go too far
he makes a grumpy frown."
Gary defends himself, "But I have to take all the banjo jokes."
"We were pretty much local last summer," Craig says, "but
we're getting more out of town gigs. A lot of that is off the web site.
We're pretty much focused on staying local right now because we're shaping
up the repertoire, getting real solid playing together. Then we'll branch
out. We're working on a CD."
Howlin' Dog Moon sticks mostly to traditional bluegrass, with a few
newgrass and a few originals, but occasionally "Officer" Gary
will allow them to stretch the envelope with something like "Eastbound
and Down," the Jerry Reed redneck classic from the movie Smokey
and the Bandit. The new CD will have three or four original tunes.
Craig explains they are a little behind schedule on the CD with release
now scheduled for July. "It's all Chris' fault. The artwork's not
done," Craig adds with tongue firmly in cheek. "It's an on-going
process. During the winter months you have more time to work on it,
but you don't get done and you get to summer time and now we're playing
more."
In their brief tenure they've already enjoyed adventures of the road.
All five musicians laugh and begin to tell the story together of the
first time they played at the Brush Creek Saloon in Eagle, Colorado.
There was a blizzard. Only Chris and Craig were able to get through
the pass, and they opened the show with a guitar and bass duet. It gave
new meaning to high and lonesome. Fortunately, Rebecca eventually made
it through with her friend, Todd, who with his Dobro was shanghaied
as an official band member for the night.
Craig says, "But in spite of all that they liked us enough to
ask us back several times."
"They liked us even after the banjo player showed up," Chris
adds.
Gary explains what bluegrass is and how he is able to "police"
it. "I know it when I hear it."
"Basically," Gary continues, "if the song is in a minor
key, somebody should be dying," he says with a broad grin. "It's
the overall sound of the band that gives it the bluegrass flavor, good
vocals and harmony."
Mark adds, "I think the vocals are the key. Three part, four part
harmony. Fiddle tunes are nice and they're fun, but the instrumentation
is best to give the voices a break."
Mark points out Howlin' Dog Moon likes to have fun on stage and not
just stand and play. Watching the band perform it becomes apparent Mark
is in his element on stage. His fiddle is hooked up with a wireless
pickup allowing him to move about like a rock star, and he takes advantage
of every foot of floor space as he hops, rocks and dances with the music.
The Cape Breton influence is apparent as Mark saws the fiddle, and the
infectious rhythm has all the listeners tapping their feet in time.
"Around New York it was all Cape Breton and the Scottish stuff
I was doing," Mark says. "I spent five years sitting in an
Irish bar borrowing sheets from people and listening to them and learning
from the old guys. Then I found Scottish music and pretty much stayed
there."
Mark has a day job writing medical transcriptions, or as Mark puts
it, "I type for doctors." He also keeps busy teaching music,
giving fiddle lessons "in all styles but jazz." And in his
spare time he plays with "two little old ladies with autoharps
doing warbley folk songs for retirement homes," calling themselves,
"Seventy Seven Strings."
Rebecca is soon to release a second solo CD on classic guitar called
Born in East Virginia. It features an arrangement of "Sweet Georgia
Brown" done in Ella Fitzgerald style. She also moonlights with
the All Night Honky Tonk All-Stars, where she features her Loretta Lynn
singing style.
The band swings into the strains of Louisa Branscomb's "Steel
Rails" with some awesome harmonies. As if on cue, a lonesome diesel
whistle blows south of town announcing the arrival of a local freight.
Craig just smiles and nods as if he knew the train was part of the act.
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