Old Friends

I have decided to seek out some old friends. The ones that made me feel passionate and alive. It's probably a typical midlife desire to possess a sense of nostalgia for youth or some such. But you see I started to neglect these friends and we drifted slowly apart. And it was my fault. They weren't sophisticated enough. They were sort of rough around the edges. Your mother wasn't really that cool with you hanging out with them. But, deep down, they were good. Self-destructive tendencies and all. They made you feel alive, hit you on a pre-verbal level. The guys that played jam-band music.

Now I've had music in my life ever since I can remember. Both my parents love music. Mom sang in the church choir and loved listening to classical music. Dad loved listening to jazz and bluegrass. I got a little sunoco transistor radio when I was in the 3rd grade. I saw my first concert sometime around the 7th grade. It was a Beach Boys concert at William and Mary Hall. There were 10 of us, including my dad the chaperone. All I remember is that I knew every song. And how those harmonies made me feel. So you see what really got me was to see a band live. To see how they performed the song live. Not like it was on the radio. Different. Back then, your songs had to be a certain length to get played on the radio stations. So you could go to the concert and and they would play the songs with solos and extend them out.

It was the heyday of the jam band. The Allman bros., Lynrd Skynrd, and the Dead. The grandaddies of them all. It wasn't until I was in High School that I went to my first Grateful Dead show. A buddy had moved in across the street from Northern California and seen some of the Day on the Greens that Bob Graham used to put on in San Francisco. So we talked our folks into letting us go. The parking lot was a circus. Smell of sweaty bodies dowsed with patchouli, sensimilla, tobacco and flat beer with stir-fry and a cool night breeze nowhere to be found. But the music, played live, was transcendent. Electrified bluegrass/jazz/world music. Jerry actually got up and walked across the stage. I know people that still trade that tape (Hampton, 1977). And while I was too late for the Allman Bros. band (Duane had just been killed in his motorcycle wreck), I owned my very own copy of Live at Fillmore East. And Skynyrd had just broken into the mainstream. They were from Florida too. And they jammed. Nobody wanted to admit to listening to that "Redneck" music, but everybody loved watching the show. Duelling guitars, B3 organs, thick bass, and smack-you-in-the-gut drums that you could feel in those huge venues. Or better yet, outdoors in the Stadium.

So, I've made up my mind. I'm going to go back in time, be a retro-redneck, and catch up with those old friends. No matter what mom says.