I played a volunteer gig yesterday for Bread & Roses, the group Joan Baez’s late sister, Mimi Fariña started back in the 1970s. They send entertainers around to hospitals, nursing homes, pre-schools and prisons. You don’t get paid, but there is a lot of psychic payback just watching people get a rare experience of live music.
One of our band members couldn’t make it, so we made up a little pickup group — bass, banjo and guitar, and then I took the guitar for a while and the other fellow used his mandolin.
It was an old folks’ home in Oakland. Not one of the fancy ones like I have played at to many times for paid gigs. This one was obviously a low-budget operation. It was smaller and not as well lit as the ritzy ones, but it was clean and there was no bad smell around, as sometimes happens.
The crowd, as you might imagine, was pretty old. I’m no spring chicken myself, so I just play the old songs and everyone is happy.
This particular group was so very appreciative; they were a pleasure to play for. We did a few Stephen Foster songs, a gospel number, “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” which is the only bluegrass song everybody (really, everybody!) knows, and “Folsom Prison Blues,” another universal favorite.
When we got done and I had put my microphones away and zipped my banjo into its case, an old fellow rolled his wheelchair up to where we were and asked, “Do you know ‘My Texarkana Baby’?” Well, as it happens, I just learned that song about a year ago. I sang a few words of it for him and his face lit up so much that I figured I better just try the whole thing.
The banjo stayed in its case while I sang three of the four verses I could remember a capella (not my strong suit). And all the while he had a beatific smile on his face.
“I just love that song!” he exclaimed when I was done.
I think maybe I do, too — now.
