Sunday, August 19, 2007

The Sweet Sunny South

8:30 am, Thursday: Jesse, Joe and I left our friend Jill's (of the Grit Pixies) West Asheville (NC) house to drive Joe to the Johnson City (TN) airport. The car thermometer read 85 degrees...at eight in the morning! Suffice it to say that it didn't get any cooler that afternoon. Whew! I think we'll plan the next summer tour for Canada or Alaska (or somewhere else with snow-capped mountains year-round).

We've been having a great time in North Carolina despite the heat, though. The highlight so far was our show in Winston-Salem on Friday night. It was sponsored by the Fiddle and Bow Society (really nice folks...they run folk music concerts and other events year-round) and held at a neat performance /tai chi / workshop studio place called Blessings:


blessing.jpg


Every surface of the room was painted with interesting murals and there were beautiful plants and antique furniture in every corner. The ceiling was painted dark blue and there were Christmas lights strung up so it felt like playing underneath the stars. To top it all off, the audience was made up of serious early country music lovers who clapped loudly when we sang songs from Hank Williams, Ray Price and Roger Miller. Just my kind of folks.

dsc02618.jpgdsc02629.jpg

The other exciting part about the show was that we played with yet another bass player (I think that makes 5 in total). As I mentioned, we had to put Joebass on a plane back to New York for some weekend gigs with the WIYOS so we were searching around desperately for a replacement. After calling just about everyone we knew in western North Carolina, we connected with a fine fellow named Calvin Johnson. He plays in his own honky-tonk band, the Mystery Hillbillies, and was just the best sport about learning an entire concert repertoire in one afternoon. And how! He really nailed it. Thanks, Calvin!

dsc02641.jpg

0 comments:

Post a Comment