I'll Never Get Over Those Blue Eyes...

It's taken me three days to really come to terms with processing the three days that I spent at the Warren Hellman / Emmylou Harris Amazing Music Fest, otherwise known as The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. With the single exception of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, there is nothing anywhere that compares to this.

The weekend started, as I mentioned in a previous post, with Friday afternoon's Speedway Meadow concert featuring Jimmie Dale Gilmore (one of my all time favorite musicians)and Butch Hancock, followed by Elvis Costello… with accompaniment provided by the Blue Angels. Joining the roster of players was Emmylou Harris (The Goddess of Music in my opinion), Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, who all joined Elvis' set (after he had already played a 30 minute solo set, AND a 30 minute band set ) for a rousing hour long preview of just the way the rest of the weekend was bound to go. The San Francisco weather even responded when the grey fog of the previous week, broke through to clear skies (something almost unheard of in the fogbank of western San Francisco) at sunset. A glowing orange sun lit the stage with an ethereal light while the whole crew sang an astonishing rendition of "Train Train" to close the set, before returning for several encores, including Elvis' declaration of political clarity – "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?"

The weather held for the rest of the weekend with bright sunny skies and San Francisco's amazing Indian Summer temperatures providing the unspoken theme of clarity and brilliance as every style of music found its way into the Hardly part of the fest and Bluegrass Legends (and near legends) held forth on the Banjo stage, the Rooster stage, the Arrow stage and more.

The constant reminder of Bush's war machine, in the guise of the daily Blue Angels flyover (it's Fleet Week in San Francisco doncha know) provided an interesting juxtaposition to anti-war tunes of every possible stripe from classic bluegrass protests about the human cost of war (written in response to our own civil war, but still applicable to the one currently taking place in Iraq) to reimagined blues tunes like Huddy Leadbetter's "Beaujois Town", 60s utopiana like "If You're Going to San Francisco," and hot off the presses esoteric protests like T Bone Burnett's "Palestine Texas."

The highlight for me though.. in the midst of three days of astonishing acts, and painful choices (I had to forego hearing the North Mississippi Allstars and Richie Furay in order to catch Richard Thompson and Emmylou Harris), was Emmylou's opening afternoon duet with Elvis on "I Still Miss Someone." Bluegrass, and bluegrass influenced music of all stripes, is nothing if not melancholy and the pain of loss (lost love, lost lives, lost opportunities) is the rue from which the gumbo of the music comes to full boil. In that sense, beginning with that lovely duet Friday, plucking at my personal heartstrings with golden voice and thoughtful touch, and concluding in much the same manner at sunset Sunday, it was in this musical reflection of the losses in my life during the last year (the loss of love, of home, of place, of purpose) and the similar (and often far more profound) losses of friends and acquaintences, that I found relief and strength and joy and hope. Obviously, these were accompanied by the frequent tears I have come to know of late and the deep hurt in my chest that never totally goes away. But it was on this weekend, saturated by this music, that I was treated, again, to the bright flower of a hopeful future that seems to be rising from the raggedy ass garden of my disconnected life.

What a weekend!

Thanks Emmy!

Thanks Warren!