I was taking a nap on the couch the other day with iTunes playing on the T.V. through the computer, and I’m off in dream land when I hear Bean Creek playing Dixie Darlin’, and one eye half opens and it watches the T.V. as though it’s really watching Pete Hicks playin’ that fiddle when in actuality there’s not anything on the screen except four hundred song titles, and I go back to half sleep, and I’m thinking about brown barn, that festival in Gilroy where a good chunk of the people I know and love will be this weekend, and I’m smiling’ in my sleep, because Bean Creek is gonna be playing there and I never get tired of that gritty music that smells like Ohio, ands feels like the antidote to a hard days work.
And I’ve never been there before. Always meant to go. Never did. Shame on me. Everytime I go to some bluegrass function over in that neck of the woods I manufacture some memory that enriches me keeps me breathing pixie dust for a couple of months.
And we are blessed, people. I tell you true. To have all these places to go, to be with like minded people who have the residue of Bill Monroe’s creation flowing through their bloodstream. To awake to the sound of fiddles scratching and go to sleep to the sound of a thumping bass and four part gospel harmonies. To have friends that you pick with from one end of the state to the other. And so many opportunities. A new Festival in Lodi. A new Festival in Tracy. Plymouth, and Hollister, Blythe, and Boonville, Susanville, and Monmouth, Strawberry, Isleton, Bakersfield, Kings River, winter grass, scott valley, maybe Yreka next year, and the Big daddy of them all, Grass Valley, fathers day, Though the hardly strictly folks might dispute that. And I’m missing half a dozen more, not counting campouts, and friend gatherings and whatever. And how lucky are we anyway!
And Snap Jackson is gonna be playing,. And the Alhambra valley band, and Windy Creek, and Pinecrest, and the Central Valley boys, and a host of others, and all for the less than the price of a months worth of cracker jacks. And I’m gonna be there with my band Playing on Sunday morning, hanging out with my good friends Jim and Carol Johnson and hopefully, with you! And my Daddy always used to say, when I’d behave as all chimpanzees do, “What’s the matter with you? Were you born in a barn?”, and no I wasn’t, but I’m gonna be going to one today. A Brown Barn. Over in Gilroy, the hometown of Dave Nielson and Garlic. That there is a powerful combination.
See you there!
