Thanks to Rick Cornish and to the California Bluegrass Association for giving me this opportunity via the Welcome Column to thank everyone who has shown support to my family with this week’s Freight and Salvage concert on Friday, September 2nd. As we get older (and, let’s face it friends, this is happening to all of us!), we come to realize that none of us can go through life alone and we’ve been overwhelmed and humbled by the support that has come our way.
Our family wants to thank our bluegrass musician friends in Los Altos and Menlo Park for letting us stay in your homes for three months each during the first months of treatment. We also want to thank the staff of the Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse in Berkeley and especially Executive Director Sharon Dolan for unrelentingly pushing for the benefit concert and to Suzy Thompson for organizing the event.
Thanks also to the more than thirty local and national musicians who will be participating, to Mike Armistead for contributing the beautiful poster, and to Tanya Pinkerton for donating her marketing expertise and to the California Bluegrass Association and Bluegrass Breakdown editor Mark Varner for the wonderful advertisement in the August issue. Thanks also to the San Francisco Bay Area radio announcers who have helped spread the word about the concert, including Kevin Vance, Derk Richardson, Peter Thompson, Ray Edlund and Tom Diamant and to Andrew Gilbert of the Bay Area News Group for helping spread the word via print media.
Our family continues to be thankful for many things – now more than ever. We’re looking forward to seeing many of you at the Freight on September 2. If you’re planning on being there, remember that the show starts early at 7 p.m. with three full sets of music. However, the festivities actually begin at 6 p.m. with Snap Jackson and the Knock On Wood Players playing an acoustic set in the lobby beginning at 6 p.m. I don’t want you to miss this set.
Don’t forget to allow plenty of time for parking, as the nearby Addison Street garage was recently torn down. The Center Street garage is luckily still standing and that’s one block south of the Freight.
Once again, thank you.
The Evans Family
Bill, Kathy, Corey & Jesse
(A postscript from the Editor—What do Hot Buttered Rum with special guest James Nash from the Waybacks along with Bill’s new trio featuring flatpick guitar master Dan Crary and songwriter Steve Spurgin, Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin, Steep Ravine, Alan Munde, New Mexico’s Hard Road Trio with Steve Smith, Tom Rozum, Eric Thompson, Keith Little, Sharon Gilchrist, Scott Nygaard, Alan Senauke, Steve Pottier, Max Schwartz, Avram Siegel, Larry Cohea and surprise special guests have in common? Simple, they’ll all be performing at the Freight this coming Friday night in support of the Evans Family. Not a whole of tickets left so head over to the main benefit web page, http://thefreight.org/bill-and-kathy-evans-family-benefit, and grab yours before they’re all gobbled up.)
