Garden Variety Gratification…

It couldn’t have been a more perfect breezy pre-summer night at Lewis Ginter’s rose belvedere stage as the final concert at the Garden this month, before moving to Maymont, featured the timeless charm of Nanci Griffith.  I first remember being enchanted by this gifted Texas gal at our first Telluride in ‘88 on a drizzly afternoon with hummingbirds hovering around the flowers on stage as she cast her spell with tunes like “Roseville Fair” and “Love at the Five and Dime.”  Nanci has aged well and despite her surprisingly lengthy admission to the guilty pleasure of “All My Children” and how empty her life will be now that it’s been canceled, she still brings her knowing sense of life and love and the world condition to her deep well of covers and originals including “It's A Hard Life Wherever You Go” which she was happy to note has seen some of its issues resolved since the potent protest was written in 1989.  Her bandmates were concert openers and Pete and Maura Kennedy and British acoustic rhythm legend Pat McInerny, (below)who’s been with Nanci for what seems like forever.  The karma was running high Thursday as I’d been outside doing yard work earlier with my mp3 player on ‘random’ and up came Nanci’s unforgettable duet with Arlo Guthrie on Townes Van Zandt’s “Tecumseh Valley” from her album Other Voices/Other Rooms.  Of course she performed it beautifully as her encore tune last night.  I love when that stuff happens.

An added bonus to an already perfect evening was walking past the merch table and seeing a stack of Road Mangler Deluxe paperbacks, a book I’d read years ago by the wild man who’d been been road manager for everyone from Mick Jagger, to Gram Parsons, to Emmylou Harris, to Nanci Griffith.  No way he was actually here to smell the roses in Richmond.  But indeed he was and here’s a chance to share my Phil Kaufman story from way back in the early 80’s when I was working country radio and had the chance to do the stage intro for Emmylou at Busch Gardens.  This is the very same Phil Kaufman who kept a promise made at Clarence White’s funeral and basically stole Gram’s body from the airport in L.A. and drove it to Joshua Tree National Monument to see to the ceremonial cremation.  A top-five moment in Americana music history.  It was for me a long awaited reunion and he’s admittedly mellowed over the years.  Anyway, Phil was Emmy’s road manager at the Busch Gardens show and I was instructed backstage to keep it brief and that my saying her name “Emmylou Harris” would be her cue to come on stage…the band was already in place.  So in an effort to adequately express our affection and love of her music, I said something (I forget what) that got a pretty decent round of applause from the crowd which Phil mistook for her cue, and unbeknownst to me, he sent her onstage. I was still finishing her intro and when I finally said “please welcome Emmylou Harris,” to my surprise she was already standing right behind me.  I awkwardly shook her hand and headed backstage only to be greeted by a beet-red Phil Kaufman who, in true in-my-face drill sergeant fashion, proceeded to angrily ream me out for my insidious inability to follow instructions.  In my defense, I followed his direction to the letter but was victimized by an adoring crowd’s reaction to a sincere comment. I went from sky-high to an in-shock cower.  We made up last night, thirty years later at Groovin’.  Which appropriately continues with a special add-on concert starring…Emmylou Harris on July 20th.  Tickets on sale here.

Don’t forget to keep up with the rich musical offerings over the next few months thanks to Groovin’, Friday Cheers and Fridays at Sunset, covered in previous posts…and of course our perennial pilgrimage to Graves Mountain comes around next week.  I know I’ll see a lot of you there.  Thanks for the memories, both past and new ones to be made.

TT

(Photo of Phil & me by Tom Beals…I have no idea who took the fuzzy Emmylou shot)