3 February 2014

At a ceremony last week held at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., Bob Taylor, President of Taylor Guitars, was presented with the Award for Corporate Excellence (ACE) to honour the company’s transformative work in the ebony trade and in the lives of its many employees at its ebony mill, Crelicam, in Cameroon. This annual award recognises U.S.-owned businesses that play vital roles around the world as good corporate citizens in supporting sustainable development, respect for human and labour rights, environmental protection, open markets, transparency, and other democratic values. At a formal presentation ceremony held in the Benjamin Franklin Room, Secretary of State John Kerry presented the award to Bob Taylor, noting that through Crelicam, “Bob and Taylor Guitars have fundamentally changed the entire ebony trade.” Secretary Kerry underscored the company’s commitment to both the environment and its employees, and as an advocate for improved economic policies and responsible forestry management. “Taylor Guitars has become an effective advocate for legal and policy reforms to improve the permitting process around the ebony trade to better protect both the environment and the rights and needs of other forest users,” he observed. “Taylor ensures that its works are protected, and they ensure that their workers likewise benefit as a result of this.” To close, he noted that “this is absolutely the example of how people ought to do business. We’re so proud to be able to tell this story, as each of these stories, because they’re a wonderful example of the best of corporate citizenship globally. It’s an honour for me to present the 2013 Award for Corporate Excellence to Taylor Guitars.” Upon receipt of the award, Bob Taylor acknowledged the company’s commitment to a vision which would transform the ebony trade, and the lives of its employees, by applying business solutions to an environmental problem. Equally important, Taylor underscored the company’s commitment to act in the spirit of compassionate capitalism, with an emphasis on enriching the lives of employees through training and social events, and to retain the value of ebony wood in Cameroon. “Our vision was to transform the way that ebony is harvested, processed, and sold into a new model of responsible social forestry while enriching the lives of our 75 employees through meaningful work,” Taylor shared in his formal remarks. “To accomplish this, we assumed the role of guardian of the forest, and we operate with the philosophy to use what the forest gives us. To us, this means using ebony of all colours and all variegations, including wood that features spotted or streaked colouring, wood which prior to our involvement would have been left to deteriorate on the forest floor.”

Darius Rucker has just received a Grammy Award for Best Country Solo Performance for his number one hit Wagon Wheel, featuring Lady Antebellum. This is Rucker’s third career Grammy, but first time winning this award. The good times continue as tickets for the second leg of his 2014 True Believers Tour go on sale. He will he joined by Eli Young Band, Corey Smith and Joel Crouse on a tour around America. Rucker recently received three Academy of Country Music Award nominations including Single Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Vocal Event of the Year for Wagon Wheel. The 49th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards will take place in MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Sunday, April 6th 2014. The first leg of the tour, featuring Eli Young Band and David Nail, began January 29, 2014 and will continue until March 9. The second leg will begin March 27 and run until August.

Pete Seeger, champion of folk music as a catalyst for change, has died in New York age 94. According to his grandson he passed away at a New York hospital after a short illness. Seeger rose to fame as member of The Weavers, formed in 1948. He continued to perform in his own right for many years, in a career spanning six decades. Seeger’s hits include If I Had a Hammer, Turn, Turn, Turn, Where Have All the Flowers Gone and Kisses Sweeter Than Wine. Pete Seeger will be remembered for his courageous protest songs which saw him blacklisted by the US Government in the 1950s for his left wing stance – even quizzed by the Un-American Activities Committee in 1955, which he greatly resented. During these years he was denied broadcast exposure and charged with contempt of Congress. The sentence was overturned and Seeger was able to return to television in the late 1960s. He had never given up on his ethos though, and spent this time touring US college campuses spreading his music and his ideas, a job that Seeger himself described as the most important of his career. This skinny framed, bearded, banjo-playing musician became an iconic bearer for political causes ranging from nuclear disarmament to the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. He was closely identified with the sixties civil rights movement and was an enduring champion of the folk community and its social activism. Seeger performed with Woody Guthrie in his early years, and went on to have an effect on the protest music of later artists including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Joan Baez. His influence continued through the decades and was inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2006, Springsteen recorded an album of songs originally sung by Seeger. On his 90th birthday, Seeger was feted by artists including Springsteen, Eddie Vedder and Dave Matthews in New York’s Madison Square Garden. Springsteen called him “a living archive of America’s music and conscience, a testament of the power of song and culture to nudge history along.