On the Road Again...

Wow, it has been a long time since I updated the blog! I left Florida February 3, bound for Texas and a tour with Terry Smith's show, the Rio Grande Festival at Mercedes away down on the southern border of the state, a concert in Austin, and onward to New Mexico and Arizona. It has been a busy and music-filled trip!

Things got off to a bit of a bumpy start. The first day went smoothly: As always it kind of tugged at my heart to leave home, but a few minutes out I was already in my "on the road" mode and mood. I drove to a point about fifty miles west of Tallahassee on Interstate 10, and spent the night in a truckstop there. Kind of fun, and very comfortable, sleeping in my familiar bed in the old van. I've done that a lot.

The second morning I began to hit torrential rains and by the time I crossed a bit of Alabama and made it to the Mississippi state line I was largely driving blind. I decided to stop overnight with a friend, Brian Asbury, in Gulfport, Mississippi. By the time I reached his house it was raining so hard I got soaked to the skin just going to the door. Whew.

I had planned for the next day's drive to be a short one, because I wanted to stop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to visit old friends Jim Adams and wife Cindy and in Milton, Louisiana to visit very dear friend and Jim's sister Ann Guidry, and family. Didn't work out that way. I reached the Adams home in Baton Rouge only to find the whole household sick and doctoring. Got out of there fast. Drove on to Milton, where I found Ann in bed and drastically ill with something that seemed like stomach flu. Got out of there fast too. I certainly regretted not having the opportunity to visit with my friends, but it would have been disastrous for me to come down with illness on the road. I needed to do everything I could to prevent that from happening.

I made the day a long day of driving instead of a short one, continuing on to Beaumont Texas, where I slept in another truck stop. The next day I drove on westward to Martindale, Texas, for a stop with another great friend, banjo wizard and philosopher Dave Seeman. Dave wasn't sick. We had a great time visiting. Dave Seeman is one of those people who really thinks about things that matter, and who has really good things to say. As he often does, Dave had several great books I had not seen before---one on Plato and his teachings; a terrific volume entitled The Spiritual Science of Kriya Yoga (ISBN 0-9613099-1-1) by Goswami Kriyananda, one of the best books on yoga I've ever read and one I will buy as soon as I can; and another on the practice of pranayama, yogic breathing and breath control. I'd been looking for a book on that subject for some time.

On Sunday we drove to Austin, Texas, about forty miles north, and made music, from bluegrass to folk to jazz to country to swing, at Artz Rib House, a great acoustic music venue, almost all day. Ran into and picked with a number of people I'd met and made music with before, and some who were new to me as well. Great, great fun all day. That evening at Artz I also had a good visit with leading Texas swing musician and good friend Gary Hartman and the members of his Texas Swing Kings band. It was my great good luck to be at Artz on a date when Gary and his band were playing there for a couple of evening hours.

Super visit.

On Wednesday, February 10, I made the long, long drive from San Marcos to Corpus Christi, Texas, where I joined my current tour with the Terry Smith show. I'm doing Terry's acoustic guitar and mandolin lead work in Texas this year, as I have done often in the past. Many times I've written in this blog of how talented and thoroughly professional onstage is Terry Smith, and how much I enjoy working with him.

We did several concerts in the Corpus Christi area. They were a little rough, being the first in the tour. I have a slightly different onstage monitor setup than I've had before with Terry, and so I had to do a considerable amount of adjusting and readjusting to get things working as I want them to work. I think all the bugs are out of the setup now. Hope so.

I stayed with Terry Shamsie and family in Corpus Christi. One of Terry's kids is Katherine, about sixteen, who is a talented piano student. She has been yearning to learn how to improvise at the piano---something about which her academically-oriented teachers do not have a clue. I very much enjoyed teaching Katherine some of the methods of improvising. She caught on fast and seemed thrilled to have learned how to begin improvising. I dearly love to pass on musical knowledge to talented young people. Teaching Katherine made me at least as happy as doing concerts, and maybe more.

Leaving Corpus Christi Friday, I drove to Mercedes, Texas and to the LaCopa Motel there, where I will be staying for the next ten days courtesy of the Rio Grande Music Festival. The Terry Smith tour in this area starts tomorrow.

More as things develop. Have a good one. See you back here in a short while...