There must have been 25 musicians there last night -- 15 of whom never set foot in The Coffee Mill. Haven't seen the inside so dead in ... years? Finally coaxed Timmy Mills to join the THREE fiddlers, two guitarists and the fabulous Susan Gaskins on bass. Chris showed up and sang and played many welcome tunes. Casey ELDER (whose name I unforgivably screwed up in the recent Side Door promo e-mail) arrived late and tore up the ol' 8-string. Larry Saunders broke out the dobro, too.
Looking forward to the return of Bro. Wayne Frye, whose lost weekend in Chilhowie should make for some good stories.
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I gotta say the action in Chilhowie was excellent. It is a combo jam/musical show. As pickers come in, there are 3 rooms that you can gather in to jam. Someone comes around and asks if anyone would like to play a set on stage. I the main room, there is a stage and PA. There were probably about 50 -75 people in there sitting around listening to those acts. They were also free to roam around to the outer rooms and listen. Hot dogs, chips, drinks, ect. were sold in there, too!
Asenath and I teamed up with a bass player and a well know mando player from that area, Larry Blevins. He has recorded with alot of people and even has his own studio down that way somewhere. We did about a 40 minute set of tunes and jammed for about 2 and a half hours on top of that. There are some flat out great pickers down there. The local group Fescue was putting on the last act as I left. They were pretty tight! Great mando and fiddle player.......
It goes without saying, I had a good time. Think I may go back in a month or so. Asenath is moving back closer to this area in Jan. and is going to split time between the two jams. She has got alot of good new pickin' friends, and there is talk of a few of them putting a group together. It should be something to see/hear when they get going. (She may have a rythmn guitar player join in every now and then that you make recognize)
Anyway, I'll be back on Monday!!
Last night was hard work. The best time was at the end of the night. Ralph had packed up, I was all sung out, and Casey sat in, so we played straight fiddle tunes - St Anne's Reel, Woodchopper's Reel, Fisher's Hornpipe, Gray Eagle (mostly Doug on that one -four parts!).
I forget what all else. I can't blame the guys for staying outside cause it sure was nice, though personally I feel "jam obligation." That's when you see a couple people trying to play, my obligation is try to make it happen. It's the same reason I don't bail out on songs I don't myself particularly care for. Part of the fun is seeing how decent a sound you can make with what you got.
Should we road trip to Chilhowie?
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