Two weeks without gigs! A chance to finally go down south to where half the music I play comes from…so I set out from Baltimore, thanks to my parents’ generosity in lending me their car (I rented one for my mom and took hers…long story). Camped out near Morgantown, WV, on the way to Clifftop. The next night I arrived at Clifftop, also in West Virginia, and miraculously found Louis who shared his big blue tent, camp stove and (most importantly) COFFEE with me throughout the whole festival.

My primary feeling was one of normalcy. Living in Brooklyn, playing old-time music can feel a bit outlandish. But here I was among a thousand other people who also had tunes floating around in their heads half the time and had come together to play them all night. So, I learned a whole bunch of tunes (favorite: Three Forks of Cheat, a West Virginia tune I learned from a fiddler named Chance) and met a whole bunch of kind folks, too numerous to list. I bought a banjo uke for $40 which matches my sparkly blue bow. I drank ginger moonshine (!) I got to hear Benton Flippen play Benton’s Dream. I went to clogging class almost every day in my wierd new vintage clogging shoes I found at Beacon’s Closet right before I left, and learned a few new steps.

I wasn’t sure what was going to happen for Shabbat, but it was great in the end…Friday night we had a sweet little candle lighting ceremony at the tent with a few friends, and used Cheerios for challah; Saturday night, we used rosin for Havdalah (the ceremony that ends Shabbat where you have to smell some sort of spice…I’ve never used bow rosin before, but it kind of worked.)

Then I went to my friends’ farm, Maverick Farms, in Boone, NC for a few days. They were incredibly generous, besides being among the best cooks I have ever met in my life…and it felt wonderful to play tunes for them after dinner in the parlor room, and think about all the music that had taken place in that beautiful old room over the years. I woke up with a waltz in my head, the Forget-Me-Not Waltz (I still have to make sure I actually wrote it and didn’t just remember it…hm.)

One day turned into three days at the farm, but in the end I made it to Asheville just in time for the Jimmy Martin tribute that the Steep Canyon Rangers hosted, and the old time Jam at Jack o’the Wood. So I got to see a little bluegrass and a little old time. And many old-new friends from all over. My oh my.

Now, back in the steaming city, I am going through a bit of old time withdrawal…but fortunately there is a jam tonight at Puck Fair in Soho. And last night we had a little Jamtigua reunion at the Shank Bone Mystic show in Williamsburg. And Tuesday I’ll be playing bluegrass again at Brother Jimmy’s BBQ, in the surreal faux-Southern Upper East Side scene…bizarre mixings of North and South…as usual.