Across the South - Home to Florida

On October 16 I rolled into Cullman, Alabama, south of Decatur, to play Berkeley Bob's Coffee House. It sure was nice to get back into the south. I'm a southern boy, y'know! I'd been told about Berkeley Bob's by my friends, blues duo Bill and Eli Perras, who played there on their way through Alabama once upon a time. If you get to Cullman, don't miss Berkeley Bob's. Truly a lot of fun, it is a classic coffehouse. I was still fighting my bronchitis and cold when I played there, and so did more croaking than singing. Played some alternate-tuning stuff on guitar, some mandolin numbers, and a standard-tuning guitar instrument or two, or three. The packed house that turned out certainly was enthusiastic, and Bob and everyone else had many kind words to say---so I guess I made it through all right.

The next morning, Sunday, I drove to beautiful Montgomery, Alabama to the lovely peaceful home of Len Daley and Becky Porter. Len and Becky are wonderful friends, and I like to do a house concert at their place when I pass through. Enjoyed doing that this trip. I played a wide range of music. I wasn't feeling too well, but just had a great visit. Stayed over a day or so and rested up. I've invited Len and Becky to my November Sunshine State Acoustic Music Camp in Florida, and I hope they can make it.

By October 20 I arrived back at my own rambling old place in Largo, Florida. It was wonderful, wonderful to finally reach home after six months on the road. I pulled into my parking area behind the house, shut off the engine of my van, and just sat looking at my home for a few minutes. Home!! Yes!!! Six months is too long to be away, and I don't think I'm going to spend that long on the road again without a break.

Florida is a surpassingly beautiful place. I live on a quiet oak-shaded street where I'm surrounded by a large number of plants and trees, most of which I've planted in the years I've lived here. I have bougainvillea, cultivated and native hibiscus, gardenias, bleeding heart, sea grape, grapefruit, lemon, silk oak, live oak, Florida holly, loquat, and rubber trees, frangipani, a fern garden, cactus, spanish bayonet, lantana, jasmine, on and on, and I love it all. I live eight minutes from a flawless white sand beach on the Gulf of Mexico. I live about three blocks from a really nice walking/bike trail. People come from all over the world to vacation where I live...so...what do I do? Right: Spend most of my life on the road in other places nowhere close to as gorgeous. I may have to modify that pattern.

My friend and great songwriter Larry Mangum posted a comment on Facebook a while back, saying that he swore the sun got brighter the minute he passed the sign at the Florida borderline, heading south. Thinking about what Larry wrote, I put together a song very recently: Florida Home. It has a call-and-response chorus in which I sing some key words and the audience sings them back to me. Last weekend, at a jam session at the Fall Jamboree in Barberville, one of our very best festivals, I got to sing my new song for Larry and tell him that he had inspired it.

The word "forida" in early Spanish, meant "land of flowers".

Whaddaya think??

FLORIDA HOME
Copyright (c) 2010 by Charley Groth

VERSE:

I was runnin' south through Georgia, just the other day,
Carryin' hopes and dreams and one old road guitar,
When I passed a sign that told me "Wanderin' boy, you've come back home,
Though you've been long gone and you have travelled far.

CHORUS:

FLORIDA HOME (FLORIDA HOME), beautiful home (beautiful home);
It's the finest sight I'll ever want to see!
FLORIDA HOME (FLORIDA HOME), beautiful home (beautiful home);
This land of flowers is home sweet home to me.

VERSE:

I've made music up in Nashville, sung my songs around the world;
I've even bathed in those bright nights out in L.A.;
But I swear it all sounds sweeter under spreading live oak trees,
Where a southern moon sails high above the bay.

CHORUS:

FLORIDA HOME (FLORIDA HOME), beautiful home (beautiful home);
It's the finest sight I'll ever want to see!
FLORIDA HOME (FLORIDA HOME), beautiful home (beautiful home);
This land of flowers is home sweet home to me.

INSTRUMENTAL THEN BRIDGE:

Some folks are made for ramblin', and that's the way with me,
Always chasin' off to try to find a song--

But I only get this feelin'---wanderin' boy you've come back home,
Where the shining Suwannee River rolls along!

CHORUS:

FLORIDA HOME (FLORIDA HOME), beautiful home (beautiful home);
It's the finest sight I'll ever want to see!
FLORIDA HOME (FLORIDA HOME), beautiful home (beautiful home);
This land of flowers is home sweet home to me.

TAG
I've come back home; it's where I love to be!!


People have been liking that one. I hope you do too.

On Saturday, October 23, I played a house concert in Tampa, on the big screened patio of Greg Gove's beautiful waterside home. For the first time I was joined by bass player Carolyn Dunn. She did a terrific job with music not very familiar to her, and I knew we'd be doing plenty of music together down the road. We already have! My loyal friend Carl Wade got there to play guitar, although his truck broke down on the way and had to be towed to a place where Carolyn could go pick him up. Now that's a real friend!! All he said when I thanked him for making it was "Not showing up was never an option." Very very cool.

The following Tuesday, October 26, I played one of my favorite Florida gigs. I was the feature at Kojak's Rib House in Palmetto, Florida. Every Tuesday evening at Kojak's, area musician/radio personality/showman Pete Gallagher and partner Pat Barmore have a special evening of Florida roots music, presenting the best of Florida's roots performers. Pete and Pat play and sing, other opening acts are presented, and then the feature. The place is always packed. Joe, the proprietor, a great guy and a true music lover, serves up WONDERFUL food, including a fish salad that is to die for. I always have that when I play Kojak's. BIG fun. At one point I jumped down off the stage and danced with a lady sitting at ringside, whose husband wouldn't dance with her. Why not??

On the following Friday I did my "big show" of this time in Florida, a concert in the auditorium of the Center for Spiritual Living, on Busch Boulevard in Tampa. Opening were Big Bear and Red, my old friends Doug Travers and Ellie Daulton, who did a really nice set of music. Joining me onstage were Carl Wade, guitar, Doug Travers on bass, harmonica ace and longtime musical cohort Joe Reina, and special guests flatpicking phenomenon and thoughtful songwriter Jesse Sam Owens, and Ellie Daulton bringing her great swing guitar backup to some swing tunes I played on guitar, Dobro, and mandolin. There was a decent baby grand piano on the stage, so I took the opportunity to play some Fats Waller and James P. Johnson ragtime on it. It was a good, good concert, I do believe. The audience certainly seemed to agree.

Went out with some of the show folks for breakfast very late after the concert. I love to do that.

I found myself quite interested in the Center for Spiritual Living, and I plan to go back there. I like the way the folks there think, and I like what they believe. Fits well with my own views.

This past weekend, November 6 and 7, I played one of the very best festivals I play all year, the Jamboree at Barberville, Florida. The 2010 show was the best one ever. It just gets better every year. It is fabulous fun!! Crowd size was about doubled over last year, and that's downright amazing, considering our economic recession.

I played my shows with a good band and am happy to say I was very warmly received by all. I was scheduled with very good times on the stages. Sound was superb. All good. I had Jesse Sam Owens, one of the south's premiere flatpickers, sitting in with me, and Raven Stands Alone, the Indian flute player from Jacksonville, on various sets. Carl Wade played guitar all weekend. He came all the way up from Sarasota to Barberville, around 200 miles, just to play music with me last weekend. Carolyn Dunn played bass (bass fiddle this time) and did her usual fine job. All good.

I would have to say the level of musical talent at Barberville is simply light years beyond what I have seen as usual in most of the festivals I play. There are some **wonderful** musicians in Florida!! (Most of the participant are Floridians, though not all.) I am pleased to call a great many of them my friends.

After the shows Saturday night we jammed in the performer campground until very late! Super fun. One jam included two extremely good songwriters, Joe Waller and Larry Mangum, me, and a couple of others. We traded songs we'd written for quite a long time. A young songwriter, Leah Morris, age 17, of the Morris Family Band, participated, and she did right well with a few good songs she wrote. She was a little bashful and reluctant to offer her work, but we encouraged her, and her mom and sister (both excellent musicians) accompanied her, so she blossomed. It was beautiful to see.

Highlights... Wow, there were so many. The aforementioned Morris Family band was terrific, as always. Larry Mangum fielded a western swing group that REALLY cooked!! Yess!! Wonderful fiddle player. Very fine flatpick guitar soloist. Holy smoke, I knew I had to hustle up if I was going to equal that band with my people. I think we accomplished it, though.

Joe and Katie Waller's band, Jackson Creek, is a very smooth and professional group, often featuring Joe's excellent compositions but able to do much other material as well. Elements of the Morris family often work with Joe and Katie.

Back Porch Revival, Bill and Eli Perras, Jerry Mincey, Chuck Hardwicke, Ron Johnson's band, Jenn Weidley and her powerhouse folk group, Lloyd Baldwin---there were super musicians and entertainers everywhere you looked!

I loved watching zillions of happy young folks, and some older folks too, contra dancing to the music of Jackson Creek and other bands, including among others such dignified aggregations as the Fish Camp Cutups! Not all the kids are out using drugs and vandalizing things. A lot of them, at least at Barberville, are dancing, singing, playing, and doing what good kids do.

On the way home Sunday we (Carl Wade, Carolyn Dunn and her husband, and me) stopped at a Ruby Tuesday in Ocala to chow down---something that has been traditional with my crowd after Barberville for a few years now. Wasn't quite the same without our good friends Rick Kennedy and Denise Adams, who recently moved to Nashville, and Dan and Diana Ost, who moved to Austin, Texas, a few years ago; but we had lots of fun. Doug Purcell hasn't moved but he was unable to make it to Barberville this year for health reasons.

As you can tell I've just had a wonderful weekend. I know I am getting to be an old coot, but I have a WONDERFUL time living my life and I hope to be full of life and able to enjoy my life for many years go come.

Friends everywhere, it is really, really nice for me to be back in Florida for a while. Several nights I've gone out to the beach to watch the sun go down. A couple of times I did my morning walk along the waterline. Went kayaking with a friend one afternoon. I've spent plenty of time riding my bike and playing with my gardening. On November 20 I have to go to Omaha, Nebraska, to finish mixing a CD I'm producing for some artists up there. I love projects like that, but it won't be easy to leave home again so soon.

Enough for now. More next time!! As they always say in Australia... See ya!!