May 31, 2010 - The "Sauna" Jam (part deux)

Hi everyone:

Well, I just got done wringing out my shirt from last night's jam - which seemed vaguely familiar to a similar situation last summer (see "The Sauna Jam").

It's the first time that I've ever had to put my instruments back in their cases with a de-humidifier! 

Because of the Memorial Day holiday, things were a little more relaxed than usual - Karen brought some of her family down for the fun - and Steve sold a few more Sprites than he normally would on a jam night.

Her son Rex (who I call "T-Rex", because of his love of the Natural History Museum) put on a pretty good show dancing and just being plain curious. Don't feel bad staring, Rex - nobody else knows what that thing that Howard plays is either! (And it IS about your size...)

He seemed a little perplexed about the dobro as well - why play a guitar on it's side? Hey Rex, now if I played it upside down - that would be weird! (Although some might argue that it would sound better - right Tony?)

Howard did manage to put down his toy for a minute and revive an early Bob Dylan's "Let Me Die In My Footsteps" - a highlight for me:  "...And some people thinkin' that the end is close by, 'stead of learnin' to live, they are learning to die."

Craig continued to impress throughout the night, with Loudons' "Dead Skunk" and a Yonder Mountain String Band song - now, if he would only become an A/C technician, as well as a sound guy - he would really kick!


Steve took a break from his favorite - "June Apple" - to lead Steve Earle's "Mercenary Song" on mando, just to show his diversity.

After co-host AJ's first half of the evening, which heavily featured "Beyond" songs - "Running Down A Dream", "So Far Away", "One After 9-0-9", "Hey Joe", "Goodbye Heart" and "Midnight Rider" to name a few - co-host Bill took over vowing to play fiddle tunes and banjo instrumentals with John, Kim and Mike until the A/C started working again...

Appropriately enough, our own Big Man - Mr. T - led it off with "Big Mon" - followed in short order by "Bill Cheatum", "Newton Grove"  and "Red Haired Boy" - at which point, I passed out from the heat! (I did have a dream about a uke solo on "Cherokee Shuffle" - nah, it couldn't happen...)

When I revived, Bill was leading "Jumpin' Jack Flash" - the heat must've gotten to him finally as well. 

Lynn continued her quest to lead famous Alison Krauss classics - this time "Steel Rails" - and rather successfully at that.

Finally, the holiday brought out an old friend Gerald - who lead a song for the first time - Townes" "Ballad Of Pancho And Lefty" - and left us all wondering why this was the first time? If I could lead like that, I wouldn't have AJ and Bill doing all the work at these jams. He probably can blog better than me as well.

See you next Monday, and Craig, night school classes start on Wednesday!