One last chance to make it real

On the other hand, Ruby just wanted
her face painted. I think she looks
rather fetching, don't you?

Spent parts of Friday afternoon and Saturday evening at the Bluegrass Festival downtown.

While walking from the car, with music coming from every direction, I asked Jack how he would describe bluegrass.

He thought for a few seconds and then answered, "porch music."

What a kid.

Nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone

Thoughts after spending most of Saturday soaking up the final chords of the International Bluegrass Festival:

• There’s something about a young fiery bunch of 20-something kids tearing up the Johnny and June Carter Cash nugget “Jackson” that was almost enough to restore my faith in the future of music. Thanks to Flatt Lonesome for that.
• For me, the real pleasure was seeing and hearing the lesser-known “no-name” bands, who seemed to be playing just for the joy of it.
• There sure were a lot of great pickers around, and every one of them made me never want to pick up a guitar again.
• I heard hours and hours of great music, and did not have to spend one cent. What a bargain.
• Alternative-country boy Jim Lauderdale’s 45-minute set was a bit sloppy, yet still heartfelt and far too short.
• Where were Dr. Ralph Stanley, Larry Sparks and the Nashville Bluegrass Band?
• There is no more communal music than bluegrass. Which made me it feel all the more detached and lonesome wandering around listening by myself.
• Bluegrass remains the sound of warm Sunday afternoons on my grandparent’s farm. Ironic because I never exactly heard the music there, but the central bluegrass themes of God, death and rebirth, in concert with it traditionally being the sound and language of plainspoken folks, take me there every single time.

Into this black river of doubt

The International Bluegrass Festival is happening this week, and many events are happening right outside my office building.

In other words, that high lonesome sound is echoing throughout the canyons of lower Fayetteville St.

Sir Walter himself about to start pickin'

I didn’t exactly grow up listening to a lot of bluegrass; as I have mentioned before, my Dad dearly loved country music. But it was more the pedal-steel weepers of Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb than the banjo and fiddle tunes of Flatt and Scruggs and Bill Monroe.

My hardcore introduction to the music was The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s magnum opus, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” Much of the music was a revelation to me, but I especially took to Jimmy Martin and Earl Scruggs. I eventually dug deeper and deeper, and while I am in no way an expert on this music as I feel I am on the British invasion, a great deal of bluegrass resonates with me greatly.

Yesterday during lunchtime I walked over the Convention Center, and an impromptu group was jamming spiritedly on this piece of perfection:

And damn if it didn’t sound like the distant, and unfulfilled, promise of a dream.