Jamming

Music is the medicine of the mind. John Logan (1744-1788)

Laughter is the best medicine in the world. Milton Berle (1908-2002)

Life and love go on, let the music play. Johnny Cash (1932-2003)

What endeavor addresses these above quotes? Answer: A Bluegrass jam session.

With the coronavirus pandemic that has afflicted our world, artful activities have gone into hibernation. The BRC founder and fellow musicians have worked together to keep our music alive with Safe Bluegrass picking, singing, and clogging convened at outdoor fresh air venues like a neighborhood lakeside shelter house and a city park pavilion.

Two weekly jam sessions have been reinstituted with attention to some guidelines: masks mandatory, social distancing observed, limit to 10 people, bring your own hand sanitizer and beverage, feel sick-stay home. Weather reports are studied beforehand, and local public health updates are monitored. Feedback is always welcomed. 

A third weekly jam session was on the eve of being reinaugurated but has been postponed because the jam host was sidelined by an equestrian mishap. Our well wishes and prayerful thoughts go out to our fellow musician who is on the mend and will hopefully rejoin us soon. Music heals.

To All: be safe, be well, and keep the music alive.

This merry group of Bluegrass enthusiasts regularly congregate in the activity room of a burger shop in a rural Missouri hamlet every Wednesday afternoon. During the recent holiday season as pictured above, they performed a couple of times at a nearby nursing home inviting clients to sing-along or try a few gentle dance steps with our clogger (front left in red). Although this jam band has no official name, they sometimes call themselves the “Wayward Sons and Daughters of Eldon.” The abbreviated WSDE appellation sounds like a radio station.

Established decades ago, our university town has its own community radio station KOPN that features diverse talk shows and a wide spectrum of music. On New Year’s Day, the G&F band members were invited to be featured on the weekly “Farm and Fiddle” show which is a program that explores and celebrates life and culture found on farms and in small towns of central Missouri. What could be more enjoyable than cramming into a broadcast booth to play Bluegrass music being aired across the Show-Me State and live-streamed to faraway continents? What a fun way to spend the first day of 2020.

The Missouri River flood of 1993 swallowed-up fertile crop fields, barns, houses, and towns. The BRC founder helped sandbag a levee around the Hitching Post saloon in Hartsburg to deflect the menacing flood waters surrounding the Sunday jam session venue. After Big Muddy later reluctantly returned to its banks, he wrote a tune “The Hitching Post Song” which became a wrap-up anthem for the jamming pickers and singers. The barkeep installed a poster behind the bar to celebrate preservation of the saloon and its weekly music session.

A few years later, the jam session moved up river to a new locale in McBaine, as “Lucy`s” tavern was adjacent to the city water plant and perceived to be beyond the reach of potential river spill-over. The Flood of 2011, however, submerged Lucy`s under nearly 6 feet of Missouri River flood tide. When the tavern was refurbished and thereafter re-opened, the musicians were photographed near a window that bore a bath tub ring-mark at eye level documenting the previous height of the murky waters.  When cyclists from the nearby bike trail would stop-by for a soft drink and ask about the recent flood level, they were pointed to the stained window.

The springtime Flood of 2019 again swallowed-up large tracts of the Show-Me state. A few weeks ago, the Big Muddy finally shrunk below flood stage. Bluegrass jammers convened at a yogurt shop in our capital city located on a central thoroughfare aptly named High St. because the avenue is built on the bluffs safely above the Missouri River.

During the evening song fest, a listener passed-by and recognized the BRC founder from the 1990`s Hartsburg jam sessions and requested the Hitching Post Song from yesteryear. We sang:

Back in `93 the Flood came half through town/ But the sandbaggers turned the River `round/ God bless them all for this dry ground/ I’m riding home late from the Hitching Post tonight!

This month, our weekly jam session in a village near the sprawling Lake of the Ozarks moved temporarily to a nearby ice cream shop because of extensive remodeling underway at the fast food burger venue where we regularly convene on Wednesdays. Our Bluegrass music fans faithfully relocated with us to the new locale.

No sooner had we settled into this new site, when our monthly jam session at the capital city yogurt shop was suddenly postponed at the last minute for 24 hours because of an overlooked confluence of Oktober Fest, a football weekend, and a homecoming parade. Musicians and customers steadfastly adjusted to the surprise schedule change.

We are grateful to the ice cream parlor for graciously housing us this autumn and to the yogurt shop staff and customers for their accommodating flexibility. We pickers are especially appreciative of those friendly folks who wander with us to support live Bluegrass music in their communities.

In between tunes at these jams, listeners invent names for our itinerant band of musicians such as The Yogurt Gang or The Ice Cream Crew.  One youngster glanced-up distractedly  from his cell phone video game and suggested Lisa and the Flamethrowers. Which one do you like?                                       Other suggestions included Lisa and the Milquetoast Rogues or Lisa and the Local Ruffians.

The Bard himself could not have penned a more lovely opening scene for an evening of fun and outdoor frolic than what embraced the Heartland on the last Friday of July- the regular calendar date for a monthly jam session at the yogurt shop hosted by the owner (blue shirt left). Respite from stifling humidity and the scorching heat of a drought, crystal clear skies and refreshingly moderate temperatures enveloped the capital city, and the sidewalk was teeming with families, friends, and revelers from a class reunion at the bistro next door.

Picking and singing with reckless gusto, the Bluegrass musicians were greeted with waves of eager applause from passers-by while our clogger (red shirt right) instructed children on dance footwork as smiling parents looked-on and took pictures. Old pals were reunited in this cheery streetside scene.

The dreamy weekend concluded with a gentle breeze and cooling rainfall that bathed the surrounding soybean fields that thirsted for moisture. During our weekly Sunday afternoon gig at the family-friendly brewpub, siblings joined us onstage for some familiar kids` songs. Tips from both performances went to the Children`s Hospital.

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