It’s a year now since we’ve visited via this periodic missive. It’s been a rich and rewarding time; generously spiced with enough weirdness and human frailty to keep the songs flowing and the eyebrows arched.
The year began with a visit to Grundy, Virginia, hometown of my friend and favorite read, Lee Smith. The town, a perennial victim of flooding over the years, is relocating across the river to higher ground. It was, no doubt, my final concert at the old Grundy
Community Center. Lovely folks and a place that makes me homesick. From there is back to the Walnut Valley Festival in another place that feels like home now, Winfield, Kansas. Reunions abound at such gatherings and this year was no different. Old friends Cherish the Ladies were on hand to wow the crowd with their energetic and wonderful music. Nickel Creek…once child prodigies and now certified über-stars…joined me for the most memorable live performance of Christmas in the Trenches I can re-member, with Joanie Madden crashing the set on whistle. Tom Chapin, Michael Mark, Mike Cross and Bryan Bowers and I were up to our usual antics. New friends included guitar phenom Tommy Emmanuel. Immediately after Winfield we mounted a reprise of Common Wealth, the musical extravaganza commissioned for Charlottesville’s First Night Millennium concert. Two performances were filmed by Blue Ridge Public Television and have enjoyed extended runs throughout the state.After a ten year absence I returned to the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN where I joined Pete Seeger, Waddy Waddell, Jay O’Callahan, Judith Black, Gayle Ross and a host of others for a chilly, but heart-warming weekend.
My 21st Annual Left Coast Tour was the best ever. I did fall victim to one rolling blackout in Pleasanton, California where 800 kids heard their first bullhorn-driven folk music concert. (I wonder what all my friends out there think about de-regulation now?) I came home in time to prepare for my fifth tour of Australia, still one of my favorite places on the planet. I stopped briefly in New Zealand on the way over to make sure the rivers still had trout in them. And once again, the Port Fairy Folk Festival proved to be one of the best in the world. It was an all-too-rare treat to spend time with Eric Bogle, Ted Egan & Nerys Evans, Lunasa, the Stiff Gins, Ralph McTell and Faith Petric (a fellow Yank on her own tour of Oz). Can’t wait to return in 2003.
The Baseball Hall of Fame gala in Cooperstown, NY was a blast. We packed the joint with baseball junkies of all shapes and ages. I prepared a special all-baseball program after which we repaired to a local ball field and held a pick-up game/barbecue that I’m still getting photos of and letters about. We’re hoping to do it again and the Hall is hinting that a live recording would suit them just fine. We’ll keep you amply posted.I ceded my title as Folkmusic’s Iron Man by missing my first start in many, many years. My flights to the Hudson River Clearwater Revival were cancelled due to weather in New York and I wasn’t able to come. I’ve promised to suit up again next year and thanks to pals Tom Chapin, Michael Mark and Scott Ainslie for covering for me.
After nearly a week at the Musicians Union Convention out in Lost Wages, Nevada, I joined Utah Phillips, Arlo Guthrie, Lucy Kaplansky, Rosalie Sorrells, Nina Gerber and Stacey Earle out at the Kate Wolf Festival at Wavy Gravy’s ranch in Northern California. It was especially memorable to meet a living Ben & Jerry’s flavor…
My year wound up with my first “folk camp” in thirteen years when I was part of the Contemporary Folk Week at the Swannanoa Gathering in Asheville, North Carolina. It was a study in amazing song-writing, diligent students and sleep deprivation. But I wasn’t too tired to end up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I was part of the Men’s Championship Fivesome at the Ark’s 10th Annual Great Southern Golf Scramble. I now have a little plastic trophy in my office that looks oddly out of place among all the primitive artwork on my mantel.
In the interim we elected…sort of…a new president who is proving that Dan Quayle was truly a man ahead of his time.
The coming year holds some familiar haunts (Winfield, Denver, Ann Arbor, the Twin Cities, Knoxville and, of course, the
Left Coast in January). The Northwest looms large in the spring and I’ll be returning in plenty of time to witness youngest son, Peter’s, graduation from Charlottesville High School. He’s proven to be a prodigious lacrosse player…high scorer this last year on the CHS team (oops, there goes another button!). Will moved out on his own last January and is working fulltime at dot.com on the downtown mall. Parthy continues to grace the house with amazing artwork. Me? I’m the guy harvesting the bumper crop of honey in the backyard apiary and trying to coax even weirder hot peppers out of Virginia clay.Hope your summer has been as sweet as ours but a good bit cooler. Here’s to seeing you in your hometown.
