Whether you’ve played for thousands of fans or a handful, if you’re a pro, you know enough to give your best performance each time. After all, folk music was originally played on porches and living rooms not unlike the ones in Edwards. So, after a dinner of American cheese on white bread, slathered in mustard and mayo, we jumped into our set with all the energy we could muster.
Chris kicked off the show with “I’m a Goin’ Fishin’,” which talks about grabbing a day on the stream. Then Tom told the story of how we were lost in the Adirondacks a few years back when we heard a 10-watt, “all-fishing, all-the-time” radio station coming across the car radio. The audience listened intently. I’m not sure they knew the story was a put-on, although the mention of a Studebaker with disc brakes did bring scattered chuckles.
I played my song “Big Old Trout,” which owes more than a little to Herman Melville and the whale that obsessed Captain Ahab:
About 20 years
Just as clever as a trout can be
He lives in a pool on a mountain stream
I think he must have psychic ability
I look at him, he looks at me
I know that I met my match
With his giant fins and big brown eyes
He’s a fish I just can’t catch.
And then, after an hour or so, it was over. People left quickly. I signed a few CDs and walked to the parking lot. Some crickets chirped and then became silent. The night smelled of ripe apples and cool northern air.
“It’s pretty quiet after the sun goes down,” I said to the guys.
“Come back in February,” Chris said, “when it’s frozen solid.”
It occurred to me that an opera house with live music in the middle of nowhere is literally a light in the wilderness.
It was a long drive home, with miles of quiet highway until Saratoga Springs. Then there were headlights, hundreds of them, speeding toward Albany. In his song “Gaia,” James Taylor describes traffic as a “foolish school of fish on wheels.” The traffic got so thick by the time we reached Albany, I thought I was on a California freeway.
In Los Angeles today, bands starting out literally have to pay to play at clubs. That may be why so many young musicians record directly into their computer and post music on MySpace or YouTube. If the song is good enough or weird enough it might get thousands of Internet hits. A kid in Edwards can do this as easily as anyone, and potentially reach an international audience. But it’s not the same as a gig or a jam session with real musicians. Live music has always been at the heart of American culture, from garage bands to jazz players in late-night clubs to R&B rocking a juke joint in Mississippi. Small-town America produced some incredible musicians in the old days, men and women who hit the road and found their audiences in other small towns. Some of us still believe in that method of reaching fans, and we’ll slog down a long highway to do it. The idea of getting fresh music out into the world sometimes seems as remote as Edwards. But at the end of the road, with luck, you may finally arrive.
