Summer Love

I’ll confess to a level of frustration at Lake Wobegon, Minnesota’s historian and chief gossip Garrison Keillor’s apparent need to become a singer too.  The past few years of his three-decades-old Prairie Home Companion radio show have found him soloing and sharing vocals with nearly all his guests…and not always successfully, IMHO.  But from his grand entrance from the rear of the sold-out audience at Lewis Ginter last Friday with Summer Love tour co-star Sara Watkins, through the rest of the three-hour enchanted evening, I’ve had a change of heart.  Garrison loves the American songbook and takes sincere joy from participation in it.  A simple melody becomes a wondrous new thing with the right harmony line, and my frustration has now become envy when considering all the luminaries with whom he gets to collaborate.  His earnestness gives him great license.  Accompanied by the Guy’s All Star Shoe Band led by keyboardist Rich Dworsky and guitarist Pat Donohue, Garrison and Sara cast a spell with a range of tunes that included romantic old standards and new, including Dylan’s “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” and the Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There.”  Sometimes  cheesy but ultimately charming.  And of course Keillor’s unrivaled gifts as an observer and storyteller were made all the more impressive when seeing him spin all those engaging yarns without script or note. Human Foley wizard Fred Newman provided a dazzling array of his signature vocal sound effects, astounding in their accuracy.  It was a comfortably cloudy and breezy evening on the lawn above Ginter’s Rose Garden complete with a well-timed twilight flyover by a wedge of Canada geese during a moving sing-along of “Amazing Grace” that was already producing goose bumps.  I was disappointed that the delightfully versatile Sue Scott wasn’t on the tour, nor did Garrison make even one reference to the fact he was at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.  But it was a fitting exclamation point on a challenging Groovin’ In The Garden season that we hope will encourage the promoters at Haymaker to do it all again in the spring of 2011. 

Rewind to a previous Wednesday night at Ashland Coffee and Tea where we witnessed FloydFest discoveries Morwenna Lasko and Jay Pun cast a spell with their inspired interplay.  Charlottesville-based and Berklee trained, don’t miss any opportunity to hear them with or without their band.  Take a look at the road ahead for them here.

On the way home from a weekend with family near Sparta, NC, I stopped by Felt’s Park in Galax for a walkaround of the hallowed grounds of the Old Time Fiddler’s Convention just getting underway for its 75th year.  It’s almost with a sense of shame that I admit to never having been to this event that so many of my musician friends hold so dear…Randy Cook showed me around and told of amazing jams he’d already been part of with the likes of Adam Steffey, Sierra Hull, Clay Hess and others…and this was only Tuesday!  The new stage seen above made its debut this past week and this year’s winners can be seen here.  (Only the youth winners were listed at the time of this posting)

Tonight affords a rare opportunity to hear two of our town’s jazz greats performing together…John Winn along with his dad Jack’s quartet will do a few sets from 7-10p at Bogart’s in the Fan to benefit the new Patrick Henry Charter School.

This coming Friday poses a dilemma that I’ll leave you to deal with…John sits in with Jesse Harper and pals Daniel Clarke, Darrell Muller and Trey Pollard at AC&T while up in Charlottesville at the Southern, four of the six former members of King Wilkie (Ted Pitney, Nick Reeb, Abe Spear and Jake Hopping) will perform as the Low Country Suits.  Ted and friends will surely do some stuff from his terrific new EP Genesee.  Decisions, decisions.

 

JAMinc’s In Your Ear Studio Concert Series gets rolling again for the fall season on September 10 as former Richmonder and Good Humor Band alum Mike McAdam joins Eric Holt and most likely our own Robbin Thompson (playing AC&T solo 8/21) sitting in for what should be a memorable musical evening.  That’s Mike (right)with GHB back in 1976.  He’s since been on tour with players like Steve Earle and Mary Chapin Carpenter…reservations soon at JAMinc.org.  Down the road:  Duck Baker on November 12 and Jonathan Byrd on December 2.  And don’t forget about our great compilation CD available at Plan 9 and soon on our website.  And it’s hard to believe that we’re less than two months away from the third edition of the Richmond Folk Festival, down by the river side the weekend of October 8-10.  I’m about to bust wanting to share the incredible lineup of artists set to join us this year…I know the bar’s set pretty high but this might be the best ever…you’ll just have to trust me until the official announcement which will likely come this week.  Fall can’t come soon enough for me.   TT

(Mike McAdam and John Winn photos from their websites)