More Golden Days with guitar in Hand

More Golden days and guitar playing

I loaded up the kids, camping equipment, and five guitars and all the paraphernalia, and set off for Diamond Mountain and the 32nd annual Diamond Mountain Fourth of July party. We got there about noon on Friday and after saying hello, laying out the ground rules for the kids (Yeah, yeah, Dad), putting up the tent and stowing the gear, I got out the guitars.

Setting up in the grape arbor, I tuned all the guitars, and sipping on a mineral water considered what I wanted to do. "I should go talk to people and mingle and generally socialize." "Oh, I need to put new strings on the Gallagher. Right." Putting new strings on the Gallagher led to playing it so that the new strings would stretch out by nightfall. Which led to just playing. And then I had to play all the guitars. And I gave way to obsession. Free from all the things I should be doing I did what I really always want to do: play guitar.

I've been really tired of my playing, the same cliches over and over again. I hadn't played slide guitar for a long time, bummed by cliches and not having a resonator ("everybody else has one"). This time it sounded good on the Martin 000-18 and I found new stuff to play and new control over slide and scale.

"If your man gets personal, and you wants to have your fun,
If your man gets personal and you wants to have your fun,
Come on down to Friar's Point, Mama, we'll barrel house all night long."

All the live music I've been listening to gave me drive and new ears and a bigger sense of whole songs. Simplifying the songs to their basic riffs.

I came to about four in the afternoon and went and socialized for a while. The kids were already moving around in a pack and ignoring adult interference. Then the obsession returned and I played again. Around five Michael and Linda Lou showed up with their instruments, parked them in the grape arbor, said simply "We'll play in a while", and went off to say hello and mingle. I noticed there was no check-out to see if I could or would play and I smiled to myself. And I kept playing.

"You got to love her with a feeling, or don't you love at all."

And what I played changed to slowly changing repetitions of exercises of the blues. I practiced many riffs, changes, and runs in several keys. Always with the full performing rules on--no mistakes allowed, no stopping, full development and complete stanzas. The homefolks were watching and if I wasn't going to play for them by the tough rules where would I? I was playing for people and not in my bedroom.

Friday night's regular spaghetti dinner came on. I knocked off, checked the kids who were nicely dirt coated and eating all the wrong things, and talked with my old friends Brett Champlin, Gene Yano, and Michael Stein who were passing around a guitar and doing old Donovan, Dylan, and folkie tunes.

People were showing up solidly now and among them were a whole crew of twenty year olds with guitars. They were still learning to play them, but they were going at it in between basketball sessions. I felt like my years of playing and bringing guitars was beginning to pay off in passing the music 'jones' on. A couple of them were showing some real signs of getting good.

Randy Gremp, award-winning brewmaster, had brought a fine handmade ale, and I sipped one while talking with people as it got dark. I checked that it was cool to make a fire in the fire ring and got one started. Then I practiced a little bit to keep my fingers warm. Michael and Linda Lou were not around and I began to get itchy. A big circle of the kids were playing up on the back porch and I picked up the Gallagher to join them. Only one of them could keep time and as I walked toward their circle I resigned myself to a night of playing rhythm on songs I didn't know.

Suddenly out of the dark Michael and Linda Lou appeared and Michael said "C'mon, Lindy and I have some new songs we need to rehearse for some gigs and we need to do this now before everybody shows up." As we walked down to the fire ring around us coalesced a whole group of beginners holding guitars and songbooks. It was uncanny. It was like they'd been waiting in the dark for us to appear. And with them was the audience.

We set up fast to try to get a jump on the songs but got only through two of them (Wow, Linda Lou, your new songs are great!) before the beginners started a round robin of songs. Some of them had to have a flashlight held on their songbooks. Since they were dropping beats and whole bars of music, I listened really hard to what they did in order to play with them. Adding fills and figures between verses I really tried to make them sound good and Michael was working hard at it too. Michael's patience is an example to me. I lost patience only once and jammed in the extra four beats that one person had been consistently dropping at the end of the verse and thus losing the turnaround. The payoff in being patient was how gratified they were in having they songs sound full and structured.

Quite simply, we waited out their songs and then began to do the many songs we know. And we played and played. At one natural break I suddenly got over my shyness at singing and did the hard fast-change version of John Henry. My lower register held up and I got through it.

Playing with Michael and Linda Lou I found that my ability and harmonic conceptions had improved since the year before. I was able to fit in even better. I can't remember all the songs we played. We played until 2:00 in the morning. I was so jazzed that I had trouble getting to sleep.

Saturday I woke at 7:00 a.m. to make sure that the coffee setup was good. I found that my fellow senior member Janine was up too and had the coffee in hand. We recruited the early risers and did the trash out on all the plates, bottles and cans. Then I went back to bed.

I awoke about 10:30 and went and checked that my kids were ok. They were of course. The Diamond Mountain Fourth of July Party is beloved by parents because the kids roam in packs and only show up when they are hungry. They play and play and play. They all ask every year to come to the party. If they get hurt or are hungry the nearest adult takes care of them. Mothers love it.

After coffee and a muffin I went back to the guitars. I was in the zone and saw no reason to stop. And I played for hours. People would come by and we'd sit and talk and some people would ask for songs. And a lot of the time I was playing exercises again. And I played blues and bluegrass.

"When first I came to Louisville, some fortune there to find,
A maiden there from Lexington was pleasing to my mind,
Her rosy cheek, her ruby lip, like arrows pierced my breast,
And the name she bore was Flora, the Lilly of the West."

"I can't sleep at night, I catnap through the day,
I can't hold out much longer, feeling this-a way.
You know I'm crazy 'bout you baby,
And I wonder do you ever think of me,
You know I'm wild about you Darlin',
But you don't care nothin' in the world for me."

Rumors of a wedding had surfaced the night before, and in the daytime it became clear that Valerie Campbell and her boyfriend Ketuk (from Bali) were going to get hitched up at the holy rock on the mountain top (you can see for thirty miles there). The wedding would be about 4:00.

I went for a shower about 3:00 p.m. I would have gone earlier but all the senior ladies had suddenly gone into full wedding mode and the shower was jammed. I should describe the shower. The water system is a spring lower down the mountain pumped to a tank up the hill and down pipes through the garden and up the opposite hill to the house. Partiers avoid using the house bathroom and use the outhouse back in the woods and use the shower in the garden. Only valley girls have to use the bathroom in the house.

The garden shower is simply a stand and riser made from 3/4 inch galvanized pipe with a valve at the top. The old time shower method of wet down, lather up, rinse off is how it's done with this shower. And the water is unheated. This sounds grim--but it's great! The shower thirty years ago was unenclosed and we used to watch each other- heck, we were hippies, right? Now it is enclosed with a fine redwood lattice work enclosure on which a dozen years worth of honeysuckle grows. In the heat of the summer it is overpowering in deliciousness. One of the party members works for a hotel chain and there is a basket of better soaps and shampoos. The ladies love this shower. And the men too.

The wedding was beautiful with the mountain landscape and the bride and groom. Michael and Linda Lou played for the wedding. I did not join them on their set wedding pieces. The golden sun and the knarled trees of the cliffside were like songs.

After the wedding Michael and Linda Lou came to the grape arbor and we played by ourselves for a while. People came to join us and we had a small audience for a short while. Meanwhile the chicken was cooking on the grate of the fire rings and the food preparation was going. Randy showed up with a full barrel of porter he'd made. And we knocked off and got a beer.

After talking to people for a while I needed to play again and I played the blues again. For two hours while the chicken got ready and the line formed for food. And I played all through dinner. People seemed to like it. Last year we had played most of the night and lost our first audience about 11:30 p.m. We'd worried about that. Now I had several people come up to me and tell me how much they had enjoyed listening to us lying in bed. A quiet thrill.

Then the landlord, a difficult person, had his annual freakout and gave Marci, the hostess, his annual diatribe with new rules. I don't know why he does this, he always attends the party, has a good time, and then freaks out. It kind of put a damper on things and slowed Michael and Linda Lou. I made the fire anyway and set up the song area. We played until midnight. We were too beat to continue.

Another great time with guitar obsession.


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