03/13/2024
I want to mark something on Facebook before it passes by. Exactly 20 years ago, on March 1, 2004, I walked into my first bluegrass jam. And my life changed forever.
A few months before, on a rainy night in an overlit apartment in Lagos, Nigeria, I learned that my marriage of five years was ending. I had spent the past 4 years as the "trailing" spouse of an Austrian diplomat in Damascus, Syria, teaching English Learners, exploring ancient ruins, partying, playing music, and camping with other expatriates and teachers, but it wasn't until we got to Africa that my now-ex told me how deeply unhappy she had become in our marriage.
I had a few weeks to lick my wounds; flights out of Lagos had a waiting list, so I used the time to my return. I realized I wanted two things when I returned to my pre-nuptial life. First, I wanted to live in Brooklyn. I was done with Manhattan, which is wonderful and also the loneliness place on the planet for single people.
Second, I wanted to play bluegrass music. No more singer-songwriter. No more folk music open mikes. I'd had a taste of playing with some dear friends, Trisha Khlief and Bill Michael in Damascus as a band we called Burning Shrub. We played a few originals and lots of covers, all of us on guitar. But now I wanted to play the music I'd heard Steve Earle play with The Del McCoury Band, that Lyle Lovett and Gillian Welch and Emmylou Harris interpreted in their own musiuc.
My ignorance of bluegrass and its mighty originators was profound. It remains so because that is an ocean that is wide and deep. Mostly, though, I wanted to learn and I wanted toplay music with other people. I had a lot of healing to do, and nothing heals better than music.
On the internet, I found a furnished apartment in Carroll Gardens, a section of Brooklyn I had lived in before. My third week there, my downstairs neighbor, Katie Dixon, hosted a bluegrass jam. I asked her about it and she told me about the Sunday afternoon jam that was about to restart on March 1 at a bar called Smithwicks a few blocks away.
I showed up. I fell in love. I fell in love with the music. I loved that everyone sat in a circle and played their instruments and traded songs and solos. I only knew one song that really fit that day. It was John Prine's Grandpa Was a Carpenter, but it had what works well in a jam situation, three simple cords, and an easy to follow chorus everyone can sing along with.
More important, I fell in love with the people I met that day who I still consider friends, though time and distance are between us. I'm thinking of Charles Puckette, Fran Leadon, Jen Larson, Joseph Choina, Irv Landau, Pablo Conrad, Brad Einhorn, Joel Turoff, and so many others. On Marc1, 2004 I went from feeling alone and sad about my impending divorce to being a part of a community of people who cared about me.
That was huge. I started learning songs I could bring to my new friends, like a mangy cat offering yet another expired mouse. Within a year I'd built enough of a repertoire that I started a band and a few weeks after that I started playing a bluegrass brunch (shout out to Nolita House) and through that got to play with some amazing musicians including Billy Failing, Greg Garing, Wes Corbett, Tod Patrick Livingston, Ellery Marshall, Jeff Picker, Joe Mando, and so many others.
So it's been 20 years of going to jams for me and I pray God gives me 20 more. I'm hosting a jam tonigh, in fact, here at The Post - Taps & Bottle Shop in Fort Thomas, KY. We start at 7 pm and I do hope you'll join us. It's tonic for the soul.
