Bluegrass Music and WoodSongs

Last night, we had a celebration of Bluegrass music on WoodSongs.

And today, I am very, VERY tired :)

Bluegrass of course, is a passion of mine. Although I make no claims to be a "bluegrass" musician, but I've enjoyed playing with and recording with many bluegrass artists. And I love the gentle, family, and community nature of the music. Folk music used to be that way. Good, down home music brings the very best out in people. Like Bill Monroe said, it draws folks together and makes them friendly.

I often thought that if Sadam played the banjo he would have been a much nicer man ... might even still be alive today.

But last night was pretty amazing. First of all, the WoodSongs crew, all volunteers, did an AMAZING job of putting that show together. They come in at 1 in the afternoon, assembled the stage, set up cameras, ran cables, set mics, did sound check, brought in dinner, took care of the artists, sold their CDs ... let me go on stage and stumble around for an hour ... then rip it all down and packed it away in about 40 minutes.

It is like watching a ballet without the tutus.

JD Crowe, Ronnie Reno, Cherryholmes, Scott Napier and a band of teenagers called Kentucky Sassafrass were all on the stage. It was a monumental exercise in mental organization to get that show done in 59 minutes and 30 seconds with no editing ... but we did it. Very few mistakes, other than the fact that most of the notes I had on stage were wrong. But I have that same problem in life no less WoodSongs.

Governor Fletcher was on the show and signed a declaration making bluegrass the official music of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. What a very nice guy. And he stayed for the entire show. At the end, he even came back on stage while I did the TV commercial, holding my banjo in his three piece suite.

Now, I'm not a political person ... I could care less whether you are Democratic, Republicratic, or Automatic ... but when a guy has a freaking ROOT CANAL in the afternoon and comes on an international broadcast in front almost 2 million people plus a theater audience of 400 without even mentioning it, well ... 'nuff said on that.

Of course, everything was going great until I met this heart-stoppingly beautiful woman in the lobby. Brunette hair, soft smiling eyes, an hour-glass figure to die for ... she looked like my Martin guitar - only it jiggled. She even came up and talked to me. And I'll be darned I couldn't stop thinking about that and it kept me up half the night.

That's why I'm so tired today.

Folk on, my friends.

Show 444 - John Platania

Sometimes, WoodSongs is fun.

Don't get me wrong, it's always a great time. But after 444 shows, the routine becomes evident and you sort of go into "auto-pilot." Which of course, is the life of an artist. Musicians and songwriters must cultivate a very high tolerance for repetition in order to survive.

Think about it: they write a song. Practice the song. Rehearse the song. Record the song. Make a music video of the song. Release the song. Radio plays the song. They perform the song. It becomes a hit and they play the darn thing every night for the rest of their career.

I had a conversation over breakfast one morning a few years ago with songwriter Don McLean. He described that, as much as he love's American Pie and all that it gives him, it can be a bit of a struggle at times to stay interested in it. Especially after so many years. Then he said something that really stuck with me:

"It must be horrible being Chuck Berry."

And he's right. Of course, please remember that we are speaking in the context of repetition. Poor Chuck has so many 2 1/2 minute hits, written in the same key of E with the same 1/4/5 chord structure, and his audience and the promoters expect to hear every last one of those hits on stage that night. If he ever left out Johnny Be Good he would be boo'd off the stage. Poor guy.

"Massive hits" deprived Chuck Berry of being the artist he could have been. Or wanted to be. That almost happened to Don. American Pie was such a global monster that it almost swallowed up the artist who gave birth to it.

That's why WoodSongs can be fun. John Platania (pictured here) was on the show this past Monday. He is a brilliant and in-demand musician who toured with everyone from Van Morrison to Bonnie Raitt ... and he was with Don for almost 15 years. He stood onstage every time Don launched into that same song, night after night, all over the world and heard the explosion of applause each time the words rang out into the concert hall: "A long, long time ago ..."

Now John has his own CD out. He's gone from side-man to front-man. And the sense of the repetition is different. It is no longer is someone else's burden. Now, he is singing his own songs. Every night. Every concert. Every performance.

And, god help you if it becomes a Chevy commercial.
Let's hope, for his sake, he doesn't have a big hit :-)

Michael