Last week I attended a workshop on leadership, courtesy of my employer. It’s always interesting spending a day soaking up knowledge from a room of over 100 library-types. Of all the things I learned that day, the thing that stuck with me the most happened in the last ten minutes.
The speaker played a youtube video called “First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ. I’d seen this video before and found it funny, but I hadn’t heard the overdubbed speech about leadership.
The video is a lone man dancing enthusiastically at the Sasquatch Music Festival. He dances alone until a single man – his first follower – bravely steps up and joins the dance. Others slowly join the movement until the entire frame of the video is filled with people running to join in. Everyone’s experience that day was improved by their willingness to play follow the leader, because he was a good leader, leading them to a good thing.
As the workshop came to a close my mind began to wander – I’d seen similar leadership behavior before, in fact, I’d seen it a number of times throughout the summer at festivals and shows, I’d just never looked at it in this context before. Suddenly, I was interested in putting words to this observation and talking to others about their experiences as well.
My first leadership example comes from this summer’s Father’s Day festival. I had the pleasure of watching Corbin Pagter round up people for an impromptu squaredance late on Saturday night. Corbin hurried into our camp with a couple friends in tow, telling my sister-in-law Sara and I that it was time to go. We had only planned on joining the dance already in progress, not traipse across the fairgrounds rallying the troops. We tried to resist, but Corbin wasn’t having it. Since we didn’t want to be the reason a dance didn’t happen, we got off our butts and followed the man with the plan.
We did our best to keep up with the fast pace that Corbin set, moving from one camp jam to another. After about fifteen minutes of this, we, as a group, began to resent the punishing pace Corbin had set, but when we tried to defect, he gently wrangled us back in and set us on our way.
We finally came to a large jam of about 15 people. Here, Corbin said nothing to us, just a couple words to the group as he took a seat and pulled his guitar out of its case. The song they had been playing ended, Corbin mentioned something in passing about a square dance, but paid more attention to his guitar as he tuned it. Pretty soon, the whole group started buzzing about a square dance; instruments were being packed up and before I realized what was happening we were back on the wander, now a group closer to 20 people.
Our larger group now approached another in the midst of a camp jam and a similar thing happened – Corbin approached the group, casually mentioned a dance and someone picked it up and ran with it. Soon our group moved on again, having absorbed another ten people.
We wandered for a little while longer while Corbin located the perfect place for the dance. Once he found it, he picked his band and his caller and at 12:04 a.m. the music began. By 12:30 a.m., there was a full blown square dance in progress and I couldn’t help but sit and watch in awe. I watched a man create something out of nothing by enthusiastically planting a seed and allowing everyone else to nurture that seed as if it were their own.
My second example is from the Monterey BaconFest, which I attended with my family in late June. The band – Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the Real. This example actually has two leaders. Lukas, the lead guitarist/singer for the band and Happy Dancing Man, a member of the crowd. Let’s start with Dancing Man’s story.
Lukas and his band are a rock band and they often perform covers of classic rock songs. One of their most popular crowd favorites is Paul Simon’s Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes. It consistently gets people on their feet and dancing, which always puts a smile on Lukas’ face when he can see people dancing from the stage. This show was outdoors and the entire seating area easily seen from stage. There was a VIP area roping off about 50 feet of space in front of the stage. There were very few people seated in this area, perhaps 15% of the available seats in that area were full. Dancing Man was happily frolicking just outside of this area, in the general admission seating. People watched and smiled at him, encouraging him as he encouraged others to dance and get up on their feet dancing with him. Once he gained his first follower, others quickly joined in as well.
Dancing Man eventually got a decent sized group dancing with him near the front of the stage, just outside of the VIP area, stage right – in front of Lukas. As the dancing group began to move and expand, they started to bleed into the VIP area, as the ropes didn’t fully block the area off. Some of the people dancing in the VIP area had VIP wristbands, some of them, including Dancing Man, did not. The promoter of the festival gestured Dancing Man over to where he was standing, stage left, and told him that he couldn’t be in the VIP area without a wristband. Dancing Guy insisted all he wanted was for people to dance and have a good time, Mr. Promoter wasn’t having it and waved him off, Dancing Man danced his way back towards his starting point near my seat. At this point, an observant VIP audience member gave Dancing Man his extra VIP ticket. Dancing Man thanked the guy and danced his way back into the VIP area. The crowd – both VIP and GA – were supportive of this, as indicated by the smiles and waves directed his way. Dancing Man danced gleefully at the front of the VIP area for a few minutes with unbridled enthusiasm and all was right with the world.
That is until the festival promoter entered the VIP area and physically removed Dancing Man from the crowd. At that point the crowd started to turn and I was concerned that our perfectly lovely day would be ruined. Members of the crowd were visibly upset when the promoter put his hands on Dancing Man and caused him to twist his ankle, several men actually got up from their VIP seats and approached the quickly escalating scene. The man that had given Dancing Man his VIP ticket argued with the promoter, told him that it was, “My ticket to give away and I’ll never spend any money on an event with your name attached to it again.” Then he and his wife left (which she didn’t seem too happy about).
By now, Diamonds had ended and the band had played through a couple more songs, with Lukas looking increasingly upset as he watched the scene unfold before him. Dancing Man was once again relegated to the GA section of the seating area and he hopped on one foot for the remainder of the performance – he never stopped dancing.
This is where Lukas’ leadership role comes into play. As the band began to play their closer – The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil”, Lukas called for everyone to come on up and dance in front of the stage, a call that was happily answered by many of the people in the GA area. They climbed over the VIP ropes and shimmied along with everyone else – in spite of the promoter calling for extra security to man the VIP entrances. The security staff looked irritated, especially after they started getting flak from people that they tried to remove from the VIP area for dancing. It was starting to have the feel of an all-out revolt; the crowd’s energy had been brought to a boil by events and by the rhythm of the song. Eventually the security guards gave up trying to remove people from the VIP area, telling the promoter there wasn’t anything they could do at that point. (I found out later that the promoter had called the Monterey Police Department to come and take care of some people that were “getting out of hand.” That’s right – the cops were called for hippy dancers “getting out of hand.”)
Lukas worked the crowd into a frenzy, dancing and bouncing along with them up on the stage. Lukas and the boys pour their hearts and souls into every performance; this one was no exception. Close to the ten minute mark the band brought the song to a close, but the crowd was still pretty pumped up and I started to think there might still be some guys looking to start a fight with the promoter about his “SS tactics”, as I heard one person put it. But of course, Lukas was one step ahead of us. Just when we thought they were finished, the first notes of Amazing Grace screamed out of his guitar, and silence settled over the crowd. We all listened intently as Lukas played through three verses of the old hymn, the whole time you could see the fight leaving the crowd. By the time the boys took their bow and thanked everyone for coming out, the crowd dispersed peacefully and I witnessed no further incidents – other than the cops showing up as we left the fairgrounds and I overheard the promoter thanking them for coming to deal with people that were “getting out of hand.”
I used these three examples because I think that most people who have experienced live music have seen something like this happen before. The brave, lone dancer, the bandleader and the enthusiastic organizer could be characters from our own stories and experiences. Of course, not every bandleader is like Lukas. My Grateful Dead experiences taught me that – Jerry never led the crowd with words, only with his guitar. But people still followed. Some lead their followers astray, encouraging them to riot, or destroy property or some other negative action, while others avoid leading altogether.
We’ve all seen the lone dancer, been jealous of their bravery or envious of their dance moves; some of us may have joined in the movement while others were content to remain on the side and watch things develop. Maybe you’ve seen the enthusiastic organizer – a respected and generally trusted person who gathers people around them and somehow leads by letting everyone think that the idea was their own. And I’m sure you can all think of a dozen band leaders you’ve seen lead the crowd in something.
As humans, we seem to be programmed to gravitate towards leaders and every social situation I’ve been in has had a leader emerge from the shadows for one reason or another – there’s a car parked illegally that’s about to get towed, so someone at the party takes it on themselves to find the person and save them from a terrible end to the night; the keg runs out and someone orchestrates a beer run to keep the party going; no one is dancing at the office Christmas party so the “office clown” gets out there and busts a move, before long the dance floor is crowded with dancers. Someone always rises to the call for a leader and others invariably fall into step behind them.
My question to you, dear readers – are you a leader – showing the way, a first follower – showing the way is safe to other followers, or a follower – keeping the movement alive?
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I wanted to make sure that I address the call in my previous column for readers to let me know if there are things I should read/watch/listen to for a “proper” bluegrass education. I received several lovely responses with a wealth of information which I have begun diving into. I spent a recent Friday night diving down the rabbit hole that is youtube, checking out people that were specifically suggested to me as well as a few that I discovered on my own along the way.
I started with Bill Monroe, because, well, I’ve been told he’s where bluegrass began. The very first thing of his I listened to was him and the Bluegrass Boys singing “I’m Working on a Building.” My first impression (I know because I took copious notes!) was “Holy sh*t! What an amazing voice!” The recording was not the greatest, but his voice… subtle yet strong. I’m not even sure how to properly describe it other than to just say, go listen to him, then you’ll understand. I was floored by his voice more than anything else.
From Mr. Monroe, I quickly ran into videos featuring a tall, quirky banjo player by the name of Stringbean. The videos I watched were old episodes of Grand Ole Opry, some of them featured him playing with Earl Scruggs and Lester Flat, who were also on my list of people to learn about. I mention Stringbean because I was really entertained by his stage act and I had to learn more about him, since I knew nothing. I discovered that he played with Bill Monroe in the early days before being replaced by Mr. Scruggs (I also finally learned the difference between Stringbean’s clawhammer picking style versus Mr. Scrugg’s three-finger picking – really fascinating stuff!) I was sad to learn of the fate he and his wife met at the hands of some robbers in 1973. I really enjoyed his comedic stage persona and liked his songs, especially “The Big ‘Un Got Away.” I really love how he dressed to make himself look like he was all torso.
I have always enjoyed musical comedians, like Weird Al Yankovich, Garfunkle & Oates and Reggie Watts, but I never considered how long the format has been around. I recall watching Hee Haw as a small child and hearing banjo plucking followed quickly by a laugh track (or maybe it was a live audience back then), but I was very young and none of those memories are very useful these days. I look forward to exploring this interesting and important part of musical history in the near future. It’s funny how connected everything is… the world really is a small place.
Well, I guess it’s time for me to bring this rambling post to a close. My next adventure is the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention, which starts the same day this column goes up. I’ll be out and about Friday evening and Saturday, hope I see some of you there!
And of course, let me know what I should be reading, seeing or listening to: bluegrassnewbie@gmail.com
