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Joined:
July 2002
Posts: 327
Location: Houston, TX | Guy I know owns an auto repair shop. Every now and then on a Saturday night he clears out one of the bays and about 8-10 of us set-up there to play. We grill out and a bunch of neighbors bring lawn chairs and sit in the parking lot. There's all kinds there -- computer tech, a pilot, a plumber, some dork that sells medical equipment (me), a roofer...you get the idea. Anyway, it's always a good time, and it got me thunking that y'all (youz guyz) probably have some good stories of cool/weird/wild sessions.
Let it fly... | |
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Joined:
May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | Scott
You are on to a good thing, relaxing, fun, and everybody polishes their skills as long as there isn't any pressure. When I lived in Poway, CA in the 70's and hung around Poway Music, Bill the store owner and his son Steve who played guitar with me and our banjo player Joe, started the Poway bluegrass club and our main activity was a weekly jam at Poway Lake Park, which had good restrooms tables, etc., and the beautiful CA weather 12 months out of the year. We would plug a PA system and bass amp into an outlet on the restrooms and jam usually to a pretty good crowd although we tried to keep it informal as possible. We had as many as 20 pickers at times counting some who sat on the sidelines and strummed along and others who led the melody on banjo, mouth harp, mandolin, guitar. We got gigs from those jams, which we would do with the players who wanted to show up with our core band, which was my son, Bailey Jr., on electric bass, me, Joe, Steve, and my son Charlie on guitar and vocals at times. Amongst the pickers we had an ex Air Force Pilot who was an executive at a large company (and had an alchoholic wife who livened up our jams in the wrong way), he had a new Gibson mandolin that he bought for $1000, big money then, and could play most of the songs in the mandolin blue book quite well, helped me cause I hate tablature, but can learn a song by ear. Also a college freshman classical music major from a good family with a top line Gibson Banjo, who could read music on the banjo and had us playing classical tunes in support of him as well as the usual banjo tunes. He couldn't play rythym so if he showed up for a gig, it was kinda like an orchestra, he was silent until his break, play his break OK, and stop, requiring us to have another banjo player along to play rythym. We also had a young Japanese professional engineer banjo player with a really expensive gold plated Gibson banjo who knew all the good Scruggs banjo tunes, had the Scruggs twisters, had no interest in playing rythym same as previous picker (the joke was all us regular players had cheap japanese instruments, he being Japanese knew better). We had some fun gigs where there were 10 people on stage each stepping up and playing his song and getting a chance to play and hear that applause. The jams at the park were what gave these and others confidence to try a gig even though most of them were not interested in playing other than for fun. One gig that sticks in my mind was at a trailer park on top of a small mountain near Escondido, thunder and lightning were striking all around us and we kept right on playing as the rain was not there yet and these guys were having too much fun to be scared like we should.
By the way, Bill sold Ovations and some of the jammers played them at the Park and they sounded as good as any other guitar at the time. We tried to be the antidote to the incredibly correct folk scene at San Diego State who worshipped vintage instruments. We loved blowing them away with bluegrass drive on instruments that didn't say Martin, Gibson but sounded better in our hands than anything they had, they couldn't understand that a name on an instrument doesn't gaurantee applause.
Scott, you got me to ramble on, but if you read this at bluegrass speed it will be a one minute post.
Bailey | |
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Joined:
August 2002
Posts: 41
Location: Boston MA | Hey I lived in Poway for two years in the late 80's then to Escondido what a small world... another great story Bailey | |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 873
Location: puerto vallarta, mexico | though the beach parties and open mic nights are hard to beat down here, when i lived in oregon, every year on my birthday i would put a whole big lamb in the smoker and supply two kegs of beer. the rest was potluck. over a hundred would show up. we would have as many as 25 instruments playing mostly bluegrass and irish fiddle tunes in the front yard till dawn. there were always a few palid bodies left over for breakfast and the party would go on--------- | |
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Joined:
May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | Brian
Sorry I missed you, I left with son Charlie and family in 1980, Bailey Jr. still lives in San Marcos with his wife and son. We settled in Poway in 1963 and bought our first house for $12,000 by taking over the payments, it was the boondocks then.
Russ, I've been to some jams like your party and they are the most fun in the world, endless pickin and good chow and beer, that sun would go down and come up with no warning.
One other jam that was memorable to son Charlie and I was at a Norco CA 2 day bluegrass festival in 1978 with 27 bands (I have the handout here in my hand for reference) featuring Bill Monroe.
Charlie, myself, and 3 or 4 of our BG players attended sleeping in our vans etc.. First day listening to all the bands fired us up so we had a 15-20 piece jam going by our van that evening with some pretty good pickers. As the sun set, the jam dwindled down to maybe 10 serious pickers and I can't recall whether somebody lit a camping light or what but we had light and sound and near midnight we were joined by a good fiddle player in a cowboy hat, who proceeded to swapping tunes with the group that was left in a way that taxed our rythym playing and challenged us to some blistering breaks. It was Kenny Baker, Bill Monroe's fiddle player and ex coal miner and he jammed with us until close to daybreak, swapping old and new fiddle tunes. There were 6 or 7 of us left and we weren't going to quit until he did as you can imagine. I think he was motivated somewhat by somebody's good whiskey that was circulating but he didn't do more than sip and sure didn't show any effect. We broke up at some early hour before daybreak as he said he had to get some sleep for an early show as Bill Monroe was scheduled for the second day.
Bill Monroe opened with a gospel show at around 10 AM and we dragged out our played out carcasses and saw Kenny up there playing away with the Bluegrass Boys, They also closed the show later in the day with a set worthy of their reputation. Son Charlie got Bill Monroe's autograph on his guitar which I'm not sure he has anymore but he sure remembers jamming all night with Kenny Baker. | |
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Joined:
August 2002
Posts: 41
Location: Boston MA | Aw San Marcos knew a nice girl from there used to pick her up for a ride on my motorcycle good times good times............... | |
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Cool jams