Fall Fall Fall

 To everything, Fall, Fall, Fall, there is a season, Fall, Fall, Fall...

And so here we are, October 6, a full 15 days into Fall. There's a lot going on, there's nothing going on, and everything in between. I'm up before dawn, after a lovely night's sleep beside my honey, with our dog at my feet and Google still laboring away to "play the sound of the ocean." I got up to use the bathroom and when I returned to bed my place was taken by pooch Lemon, who had relocated to locate her whole 85 pound furry self sideways across my pillow. No room for the old man, eh?

From Forbes Magazine: "Comet A3 will now dip from dawn into the sun’s glare, getting closer to our sun until it passes through to the other side — sunset. It will re-emerge in twilight around Oct. 12 for those in the northern hemisphere and should be easily visible — and possibly super-bright — for around two weeks."

That's one thing going on, for sure. 

I hope to get out for a night or two camping in order to view this thing. It's rare, I gather, and I also intuit, since I've never really viewed a comet in the sky and I'm approaching my 75th trip around the sun. 

I've got a couple musical adventures this week. My brother-from-two-other-mothers, Rocky, has been invited by his friend Don Henry, songwriter extraordinaire, to attend his party at Vinyl Tap Records, to which one must wear some attempt at Halloween appearance, and he has in turn invited me to come along. I saw Henry at an event just a couple weeks ago, one which was not officially connected to Americana Fest here in Nashville but coincided with it. The event took place at the Roof Top lounge downtown, and its purpose was to honor Rocky for his songwriting accomplishments, including creating the music for the Grammy nominated "The Mighty Sky" science-themed record. On the little stage in the corner Beth Nielsen Chapman, Don, and Matraca Berg, took turns singing songs, some from Mighty Sky but also others of their choice. It was an endearing performance, each singer singing maybe 4 or 5 songs, and Matraca Berg's husband, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Jeff Hanna, got up from his hors d'oeuvres to sing "Mr. Bojangles,"  the Jerry Jeff Walker folk classic his band helped make a standard.

Honor event for my dear pal Rocky Alvey (orange cap)

The Wonder Women of Country at WMOT Americana Fest Day Stage, Eastside Bowl

Nielsen Chapman presented Rocky with a bangin' glass trophy to mark the occasion, and the proud brother Scott exited to the street to head out on his second night of Americana Fest 2024.

Ah, Americana Fest. I had hoarded my Festival Pass ticket for months, purchasing it like back in March, very soon after they became available. I was most excited about two performers, Madi Diaz and Chris Smither, the first of whom I did not see for reasons I will reveal, and the second of whom I saw perform two substantial sets and two venues over the September 17-21 time spread. I saw but a fraction of the performances at only a handful of the venues where they were taking place, but friends, this was the best ~100 dollars I spent last year. 

See the full schedule here.

When I look back at that, it's pretty amazing that I only saw a few shows, but then I'm old and I was just the other side of a pretty nasty bout with Covid. 

In order, though, I saw:

• City Winery main room: A Tribute to Mary Gauthier, Mary Gauthier, Jaimee Harris, Rodney Crowell, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Creekbed Carter Hogan, Emmylou Harris, Gretchen Peters w/ Barry Walsh, and more...

  Silver and Festival Passes Only

• City Winery main room: "25 Years of "Drag Queens and Limousines", Jaimee Harris, Mary Gauthier

  Silver and Festival Passes Only

• Vinyl Tap: Oh Boy! Records "Independents' Day" afternoon hangout 

• At home, the fantastic 2024 Americana Music Awards live from The Ryman Auditorium. I was just a bit beat from earlier activities, so I jacked up the stereo Google Hubs in the living room, poured me a bourbon, snuggled with my fluffy Grand Pyrenees mix, Lemon, and listened to the show from top to bottom without any Mother Church columns in my viewing path (I had no viewing path, though I later learned it was livestreamed). I enjoyed simply immersing myself in the audio in my living room, but I highly recommend you view the entire night's events at WMOT.org -- it includes performances "from award-winning legends, buzzworthy new artists and longtime fan favorites, including Blind Boys of Alabama, Brandy Clark with SistaStrings, Charles Wesley Godwin, Dave Alvin, Dwight Yoakam, Fantastic Negrito, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Jobi Riccio, Kaitlin Butts, Larkin Poe, The Milk Carton Kids, Noah Kahan, Sarah Jarosz, Shelby Lynne, Sierra Ferrell, Turnpike Troubadours, The War And Treaty, Waxahatchee with MJ Lenderman, and Wyatt Flores."

• Eastside Bowl: WMOT Day Stage 12 to 5 pm, featuring Chris Smither, Leyla McCalla, Melissa Carper, Sam Morrow, Uncle Lucius

• City Winery Lounge: Betty Soo, then Chris Smither.

• Basement East: I really wanted to see Madi Diaz so after Chris Smither finished, above, I took a Lyft over and managed to get inside the venue, only to judge it a veritable Covid cesspool. I swear it was body to body packed with sweating 20-30 year-olds and also older folks like myself, and the stage fog hung unmoving in the stage lights and in the room--a clear clue the air circulation was dysfunctional. Spotlights played on the performer onstage (not sure who it was, a young dark haired male rocker) and after finding myself just inside the door and, daunted by the huge clump of sweat-dripping humans between me and the bar, I reluctantly turned tail and took the next Lyft home. 

• Alisa Amador, Amy Helm, Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore with The Guilty Ones, The Cactus Blossoms, and Wonder Women of Country again at the Basement East WMOT Day Stage. 

There were shows Saturday, but I, ya'll, was done. I really only wanted to attend the Americana Music Association meeting that morning, but I had an epiphany based on an old (not original) axiom from my teaching days: "The best way to make your next meeting productive is to cancel it." I stayed home, caught up on some rest, and embraced the next stage of my future. 

You can see nearly all my photos, with some short video snippets, at my Google Album, "Scott's Americana Fest 2024" anytime you want to. 

Heck, let's embed that Honors Award show at the Ryman, to save you a click or two (via YouTube):

Chris Smither at Finally Friday!

I had a great experience yesterday at WMOT Roots Radio's weekly Finally Friday. Here's a snippet of video from the legendary Chris Smither that demonstrates why. The Youtube description describes a lovely happy accident of weather, setting, and talent :)

The entire set should be available for viewing/listening in a day or two at WMOT's "On Demand" website. Kudos also to FF stagemates Mustangs of the West and Pi Jacobs!Pi Jacobs

Chris performed Finally Friday solo acoustic, and his new record, All About the Bones, which released the same day, is a remarkable pleasure to listen to. Nuance of phrase, tidy and seemingly effortless fingerpicking, and fatherly voice makes me smile and cry at the same time. Give it a listen. If you want the record or CD, hit up his website. I'm running out to Great Escape as soon as they have it in stock. It's already on Spotify if'n that's the way you roll. 

Read about the recording and personnel and such at Grateful Web.

Goodbye, Huey

 It's approaching seven o'clock in the morning on New York Avenue here in Nashville, Tennessee. Good morning. 

In around two hours, a tow truck will pull up to my house and a dear companion of 12 years and I will part ways. Goodbye, Huey. I hope you can bring some income to my favorite NPR radio station, 89.5 WMOT Roots Radio! You have aged well, though mechanical and cosmetic issues abound, and you have been a reliable friend. Bon Voyage.

Later:

...and a Google Photos album with pretty much every photo I have of Huey, may he RIP.

Later Later:

Watson and I took a very short walk before the truck arrived--it's right at 82 degrees and I wanted to get out there before the sun rose high enough to steam us edible in the near 100 percent humidity. Watson clearly agreed, since the duration of the walk was 12 minutes and we literally travelled one block. Back at home, I took a leap into the past.

I popped onto my laptop and visited Google Photos online, looking for pics of Huey. I found a bunch. I will now spend a bit of time curating some of these to celebrate a long relationship and its passing into memory. So.

In August 2010, we needed a new car. The old Mercury Villager van had outlived its usefulness and we could look down the road to a time when both grown kids would be out of the house. As we'd done before, we started at Carmax. I'm a fan, even if my last two cars were bought from dealerships. After assessing the condition of the Villager, they offered us $500 in trade. I thought I could do better than that selling it and began doing some research. That led me to the CARS Program, an Obama administration effort to stimulate economic growth by pulling new light car sales "...forward from a far more distant future, and thus represented an important increment to aggregate demand at just the time when such demand was sorely needed." Read more about CARS, commonly referred to as "Cash for Clunkers."

sI

I was zeroing in on a Smart Car. Why? I really don't remember, though its unique appearance and fuel economy were attractive. We drove out to Cool Springs to the Mercedes dealership and I test drove a red Smart ForTwo Passion Coupe. I LOVED it immediately. After discovering the CARS program would provide us a subsidy payment of 4500 dollars for the Villager, I signed all the dotted lines and drove away with Huey, whom, I recall, received his name on the way home. 

Why Huey? Easy. 

image from https://paramountcartoons.fandom.com/wiki/Baby_Huey 

Baby Huey

My Huey looked nothing like the 50s era cartoon giant baby duckling, but I remembered Baby Huey fondly and cheerfully, and I knew that I had chosen to name him appropriately the first time I drove him around Nashville. Seriously, people on the street would smile, often laugh, and sometimes point at us as we cruised through traffic. I thought of him as my "smile making machine." I quickly fell further in love with that aspect of my new buddy. Later on, as my son would ride with me, Colin would see pedestrians or bus stop folks and reach into the glove compartment were I stored two foam red clown noses, and ask, "Dad, should we nose 'em?" We often did. 

I never took Huey on a road trip, though he never put me in a position to use roadside service. He had no spare tire, you see; and because the tires were two unusual sizes and not readily available on the road, I never roamed past, say, Ashland City or Marrowbone Lake, or to my former job down off Nolensville Road. In the just under 12 years we were together, he and I racked up only 106,773 miles. Okay, that's still a lot of miles together. 

I used to talk to him, sometimes petting the little hump over the radio/CD player console as I did. It's okay. I talk to my dead brother and to both parents, though both of them are in the ground (on opposite sides of Thompson Lane in Woodmont Cemetery). With these last, it's a good way to work stuff out without paying a therapist. With Huey, it was just companionship, aided and abetted by a stiff dose of anthropomorphism. 

I want to thank Chet and Mike at EurWerks garage, and the lovely Melis, for being my go-to Huey maintenance team for nearly a decade. I want to thank Huey, with the hope that he will bring supporting income to WMOT either by resale or sale for parts. I want to thank you for reading this foolishness.

Now to take a ride in Casper, my 2022 Kia Soul. I think we have a long ride in front of us!