Firstly… I’m at the Rockland/Bergen Music Festival today with the New Riders, Professor Louis and more. I’ll be going on about 1800. Be there or be square.
Last week, I got to share space at the Fur Peace Ranch with Scott Sharrard and his band.
Relaxin' at the baby grand
Then I got to sit in a little.
What a pleasure to jam with this gentleman!
Classes at the Ranch and a morning concert with Steve James.
Steve really is the man! Check him out.
Then before I knew it, after hanging with Zach for a couple of days, I was on my way to the Ram’s Head in Annapolis, Maryland.
Mmmmm... shepherd's pie too!
Foto by Phil Jacobs
Jorma Kaukonen 25, 2016
Jorma Solo
The Ram’s Head
Annapolis, Maryland
Saturday, June 25, 2016
First Set:
1. Ain’t In No Hurry
2. Dime For Beer
3. Hesitation Blues
4. I See The Light
5. I’ll Be All Right Some Day
6. Barbeque King
7. Sea Child
8. Sleep Song
9. Let Us Get Together Right Down Here
10. What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?
11. Keep Your Lamps Trimmed & Burning
Second Set:
1. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down & Out
2. Brother Can You Spare A Dime
3. San Francisco Bay Blues
4. Come Back Baby
5. Serpent Of Dreams
6. How Long Blues
7. I Am The Light Of This World
8. Watch The North Wind Rise
9. Good Shepherd
10. Bar Room Crystal Ball
11. Water Song
12. Encore: In My Dreams
A matinee show… on the road to Nyack by 1630… about four hours flat. Getting ready to head up to the Rockland/Bergen Festival.
More shall be revealed!
I know the song and your use of those lyrics in your comment is part of what writers do. Songwriters describing their vision with phrases and old sayings,
making up new phrases that become part of our vocabularies and then we use those to express ourselves when we write.
The word “whistle” is always good for imagery, noun and verb form.
If we had Jorma’s talent for writing, we might be able to metaphor and simile
ourselves into writing “…so I walked into a little room that whistled like a
sigh.” (it’s more than a combination of metaphor and simile. There’s a lot going on in there.) Richard Condon authored that book and wrote that line. I’ve heard
that “she came like a train whistle” was actually in the Brooklyn vernacular during the era that Condon places Prizzi in Brooklyn. He wasn’t plagiarizing it — he just wove it into his narrative.
I must say, a lot of imagery comes to mind in that “…she came like a train whistle.”@Barbara Jacobs
LOL – BARBARA. That line is from Jorma’s song “Third Week in the Chelsea”, I neglected to put it in parentheses!
“On an early New York morning
a mirror in the hall
showed to me a face
I didn’t know at all
lines were drawn around a pair of eyes that opened wide
and when I looked into them I found nothing left inside
so I walked into.a little room
thT whistled.like a sigh.”
Honestly – I wasn’t plagiarizing – just a little reference to Jorma’s incredible songs, which I tend to do.@Barbara Jacobs
some of you folks need to stop hijacking Jormas chat page with your BS.
Ya’ll need to hush.
Carlo: That would not be exceptionally detailed because I take bathroom breaks.
(That entails a lot of Lysol wipes and I can easily miss an entire song or two.)@carlo pagliano
Ugh, apologies to all. MIKE Falzarano. (0h, the aging brain plays tricks. Pete Falzarano was my 8th grade science teacher)
Mentioning NRPS. . . Two weekends ago I was coming home from clearing a plot with my in-laws about three hours from home. I was taking back roads on the way home to Western NJ and getting hungry. Just before the last hump before my home, we passed a tiny festival right off the road – nothing much, a few food booths and a beer tent. Maybe 150 people. But we noticed a professional stage set up and a bunch of guys getting ready to play. Grabbed some food and sat down by the stage and I remarked that the band was really, really good. Near the end of the set, they did “Where There’s Two There’s Trouble” and the guitar player said “I’d like to thank my friend for putting my song on his cd.” No need to ask who the friend was and (insert forehead slap here) no accounting for the serendipity for stumbling into a set by Pete Falzarano and Bob Steeler. . . And the crowd hadn’t a clue. Drove over the last hill with a full belly and a sated soul. Thanks always to Jorma. Jack and the extended HT family. Keep on truck in’ wherever!
Well finally said Barbara: ‘How Lucky We Are’. Bless our luck by writing a detailed report of yours of a live Jorma/Tuna gig, that would be something. Stay well Barbara!
Richard Condon’s novels are very entertaining. I even liked the adaptation
of “Prizzi’s Honor” to filmdom.
A bit of perspective here, not meant to bring anyone down:
Jack acting the role of “Prizzi”.
Most of us here need not ask :
“Jack who?”
These days Jack is retired, having readily admitted that he doesn’t do movies
anymore because he has trouble remembering his lines.
Meanwhile: OUR Jorma and Jack, (in the same age-group) are still going strong.
How lucky we are.
@Barbara Jacobs
“Are you a writer?” I ask because even if you don’t write as a profession, I think you may keep journals or some kind of on-going diary/notes on topics that interest you.
You wrote a great sentence, up there^^^ in that comment:
“…then walked into a little room that whistled like a sigh.”
I will compare that to one of the very best sentences written by Richard Condon, in the “Prizzi’s Honor” series of books:
“…she came like a train whistle.”@rich l
@rich l
Phil’s “Friends” at that time included Warren Haynes in that particular band.
I remember Warren singing a solo “One”, which sent shivers up my spine.
It was late night and freezing there. I was in the tent/dressing room, curled-up on a couch wrapped in a wall-hanging thing that I removed for purposes of warmth.
After the festival, Ken the promoter asked me:
“Is there anything that you can advise me to do as an improvement to next year’s festival?”
“BLANKETS,KEN! YOU NEED BLANKETS IN THE TENTS!!!
That’s funny!@George Henn
Poody is a cockapoo.
He was named in memory of Willie Nelson’s best buddy, Poody.
(a story I told here before: I found that dog on the street not long after Poody
passed away. I think he may be the reincarnation of the human Poody. He loves
when Willie Nelson music is playing. He loves big buses (and he can not lie!).
Sometimes when I take him for a walk on Main Street, he sees the Hampton Jitney bus and the doors are open because they are unloading passengers and luggage.
He always pulls me toward the bus and tries to get on. He thinks it’s the
“Honeysuckle Rose”.
I want to take him to the Willie Nelson concert and let him visit Willie’s bus. If he tries to get on and is allowed to take his pick of seats — he may go sit in the seat where human Poody preferred to be. This will be an affirmation but also problematic because he might not want to get off the bus. If he sees Willie and freaks out, will that freak Willie out, too? Will Willie want to keep him?
It would be O.K. with me but my boyfriend wouldn’t want him to go.
I’m not “a writer” by profession but I write as part of my thing: Press Releases and PR writing. I was also writing a book with a friend. It was mostly him writing his life stories for his auto-bio and sending the chapters to me, for re-write. All about him growing up on a dairy farm in Ohio, going out into the world and working on big tours. If you haven’t seen the documentary :
“The Passing Show – The Life and Music of Ronnie Lane”, post an address so I can mail it to you. He started out touring with The Small Faces.
The book is currently in limbo because although I got us an agent– my friend suddenly became struck with what he calls: “writer’s block”.
All he needs to do is recall his good stories, write a rough chapter, send it to me and I polish it up.
Jorma tours, has a family and business to take care of. Yet, he doesn’t get
“writer’s block”. So, my friend is ashamed of his lazy-ass-self.@rich l
SEE?! Even a real hippie/Deadhead agrees with me.
Germs in general=YUCK.
Germs+mud=YUCK in places that get irritated.@marcus
Jorma, Always a pleasure to read your blog comments! And we are grateful that you continue to perform around the country and world with such great spirit and skill. Loved your show in Eugene, OR not that long ago. I hope I can attend another Fur Peace workshop someday and we hope to see you at Hardly Strictly this autumn! – Jeffrey
OMG – that guy would have no doubt ate H&E’s lasagna – too funny.
And I figured out who Phil and friends were.
Finally – Barbara – are you a writer?
“Those bare necessities, the simple bare necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife
I mean the bare necessities, ol’ mother nature’s recipes
that bring the bare necessities of life.”
Reminds me of telling my boss about our backpacking trip in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana. He said his idea of camping was a Hiatt with room service.
But he’ll never experience the incredible vista’s one is treated to when your forced to take a break at one of the turns in the bend of those tortuous switch backs. A vista one will most likely never set eyes upon again. Or the knucklehead conversations between five good friends!
“Looking for that windy place
Searchin’ ever higher
High upon a mountain top,
Thoughts about a brighter day
Together in the sun.” Fortress thick and bonded@Barbara Jacobs
I love, Teresa’s vocal’s on that song on the CD!@johno
Thanks for playing Genesis last Sunday at Rockland – it’s my wifes favorite song. As well as one of my faves along with Sea Child. NRPS are The New Riders of the Purple Sage who also played last Sunday. Jorma played a couple of songs with them – this was a great show and a perfect day. Jorma’s set was wonderful and I had so much fun. I was humming Where There’s Two There’s Trouble the whole way home.
@rich l
One last thing; I was in a Jorma mood yesterday and pulled out “Ain’t in no Hurry.”
I listened to it all the way through, and then kept replaying songs 4 -through 6 – “In My Dreams,” “Sweet Fern” and “Ain’t in No Hurry.” The musical equivalent of baseball’s triple play.
I heard Jorma play “In my Dreams” at City winery last year. It was a grand slam, easily my favorite of the night. I still don’t know what to make of Sweet Fern, by find myself inexplicably compelled to sing along with the chorus. (you must have put voodoo on me) I’d have to relegate that to a swinging bunt single! Ain’t In No Hurry would be a legged out triple!
Good stuff!
Who is NRPS?@Ham n Eggs
@jim hitchcock
Garcia and Toy! Never heard about that one. Man I miss that chickin pickin.
All use guys reflection on that concert reminds me of a recent story. I loved H&E’s reference to “The Mud People.” It reminds me of an episode you might see from Flash Gordon.
at any rate, my 20 year old son asks me if he and his girl friend can go on a camping trip/amusement park weekend I’m thinking near Sandusky Ohio. I thought they were going with her parents. That was my first surprise. Turns out they were going by themselves; Lord have mercy.
(“Oh, and by the way dad, can we take the Prius, it’s better on gas.” And I spend the entire weekend driving our 2005 Honda Oddesy, the vehicle with no air conditioning. And it was in the mid 90’s that weekend.)
Greg get’s home about 10pm Sunday night with a new Catfish and the Bottlemen tee shirt. He excitedly tells me about a concert they went to – in Philadelphia! Greg said his girl friend said not to tell me they were going because “I’d worry about them too much.”
The first thing I did was pull out the Atlas and turn the page to Pennsylvania. Holy crap, there’s a lot of streets leading into the City of Brotherly Love.
I shook my head when he was done talking about all the groups they saw, and then walked into a little room that whistled like a sigh.
Barbara – I couldn’t agree more on Jorma’s autobiography. So many stories, I’m sure. Also, I’ve got to know; is Poody” a “poodle? and who were “Phil and friends?”
As far as germs go, I’m reminded of what my mom used to say, “You’ll eat a peck of dirt before you die.”
lol true that,i always been a hippie deadhead but even i had standards,i remember different events and gatherings and always in the back of mind mind was always thinking about not catching something,germs,everything you name it lol funny comment but true : )
Englishtown! Best $10 I ever spent.
Hi Jorma~
Thanks so much for allowing me to steal a few moments of your leisure time as you passed through our county. It was an honor and , as you gleaned from my reaction, a thrill, meeting you. You are more than a rock legend. Your face is soulful. Your blogs are raw and real. I can see your experiences have given you vision and direction.
Thank-you for indulging me with a few photos. My last posting to Facebook prior to our photo and accompanying fan-fodder~was a Pinterest recipe for coconut cream pie.
My kids, all in their 30’s, appreciate classic rock from the 60′ and 70’s. You’re welcome kids.
I have but one regret. In my schoolgirl madness I did not get your autograph.
But a picture truly speaks a thousand words… and then some.
I’ll keep watching the “Fur Peace Ranch” listings for one of your performances nearby that isn’t sold out!!
BTW~You look fantastic~ Jean Hanes Hill
The official title: “Gathering Of The Vibes”.
Thereafter, I referred to it as :
“The Gathering Of The Germs”.
Fractured memories, lol!
I could never be one of “the mud people”. I was never even “a hippie”.
Your Miss Barbara can live with the bare neccies:
Toilets, running water, hot showers, clean bed, heat in the winter/a.c.
(or at least a breeze and a fan)in hot weather.
My memory of one of the first (if not the first) “Festival Of The Vibes”:
I’m there with Wavy Gravy. We are sharing a tent/dressing room with “Phil and Friends”. Food in the catering: pretty good.
We had rooms in a hotel in Albany (the nearest civilization). A half-hour drive to the festival location. Not so bad and good enough for me.
Wavy calls my attention to “the group bong”. Am I interested in checking it out?
No way, Wavy! It’s out there in the crowd and, um, I don’t even know those 10,000 people.
@Ham n Eggs
One of the water holes had a real hole that wasn’t visible, being under water and when the person went down they jumped up covered in mud and looking over saw the ever growing mud tribe welcoming them to the fold. They had a great time and didn’t get sunburned.
I thankfully don’t recall the water hoses.
retreating about half way through a great NRPS SET after the latter part of Marshall Tucker or visa versa. Ah memories
Peace
Love All Ways
No, I was not one of the mud people, just observing the scene.
Had I known you back in dem days, I would have brought some food-less friends over to your area. Thankfully, I was able to go backstage and get water and food.
I was bringing out water bottles, to give to my friends out in the audience.
But,like many events we participated in, back in the day — we survived.
Anybody remember the guy who was walking around, calling out:
“I WILL PAY $20 FOR A HAMBURGER !!!” ?
During the course of the day, his offer went to:
$30, $40, $50… $200. for a sandwich !!!”
Had that guy known about you and your funky lasagna, you coulda’ made at least gas money for it.
@Ham n Eggs
Englishtown they backed trucks up in a circle and had four entrances. You could bring in in bbq’s,coolers anything. We had a feast set up by friends who arrived the night before.
It sounds like Barbara became one of the mud people , a tribe that steadily increased as the day went on.
Frankie the Wood was on security and loves to tell the story of someone rustling through the woods and suddenly appearing with wire cutters only to look up at the wall the trucks made. “Leave the cutters, ten bucks down the road is the entrance. HAHAHAHA”
Another friend got way up and fried in the sun and decided he would run to shade. One of says “look at the fuckin nut running through the the crowd . Holy shit its—-, good thing Freaky Ron recognized him and was in the tent when he came to.
Peace
Love All Ways
Sorry, phone typoed.
Was that when Garcia sat in with The Marshall t ml Tucker Band on 24 Hours at a Time?
Englishtown!
Yes, I was there and it was a hot mess!
The food/beverage stands were sold-out. It was so hot that day.
What to do about the hot, hungry fans?
Sorry to say that a decision was made to “hose them down”, which entailed sending crew up onto the fences and then having them spray the crowd down with industrial water-hoses.
Happy to say, it was not my idea.
(they had running water-hoses. Fill cups/anything that the audience had available; and let them douse/pour it on themselves/each other.) @Ham n Eggs
4 “greats” in one descriptive. Well worthy of those “greats”.
Always kind words from me to you because I love good stories about everyday-life
topics.
Which brings me to explain why Jorma’s autobiography will be such a great read:
Jorma is a great teller-of-stories from his own life experience. (we already know that, here.) His stories are very evocative and reading them leads us to memories of our own. (we already know that, here.) That’s what great writers do.
That’s what makes a great book.
Jorma’s audio-book will be, not just “appointment listening”, but also a wonderful background sound to fill our hours. I will put it on and let it roll, non-stop, throughout the day/night. Go about my day and every time I’m within range, it will be like dropping into it.
@rich l
@Adam
What a great album – when’s the last time you played “Love is Strange,” (you know that’s right), Jorma? “And if she still won’t come, I say baby, baby, baby, your the one.” (turn it up, the saxophone…”)
Starting over again today – another year written in the book. Despite all the challenges, trials and tribulations, well as Satchmo would put, “I say to myself, what a wonderful world.”
Just you tubed Barbecue King with Jorma and Barry from 2012. You can tell Jorma loves playing that song! “Cook your barbecue anyway you please…” Ah, play those barbecue blues – Jorma you be q-ing.
Well, I refuse to hate, in order to stay young, so I guess I’m stuck with my mirror face -you know the one with “lines drawn around a pair of eyes that opened wide.”
Hopefully, they’ll be lots more “Roads and Roads” in my walk. Certainly, no more “running with the fast crowd.
although I may have to find some of that ol” jelly roll –
“I’m gonna tell you all, what jelly roll done, done
Made grandmama marry her youngest grandson,
Now I’m wild about my jelly, my sweet jelly roll…”
Ham and Eggs – how the hell do you end up with your feet in Lasagna?! Perhaps you were “stoned, immaculate?” On a side note, a girl at work who was a bit of a wild child, once told one of my co-workers she wanted to make love to him in a bathtub full of spaghetti – indeed, love is strange! She had a bumper sticker that said “Shit happens when you party naked”
I’m a big Dinty Moore fan, but the lasagna would have been my first choice! Aren’t left overs the best. “Left Overs,” sounds like a good name for a blues song. Too funny H & M – I bet your friends bring that gem up every time you get together.
Jim, glad to hear your house didn’t burn down – “three hundred, sixty five degrees….”
Barbara, thanks for the kind words.
@rich l
Ah Dinty Moore Beef Stew!
At Englishtown in ’77 I stretched out to rest before driving home as the Dead played. (Aside if you know any atheist and want them to find G-d, let me drive.) After the set everybody who was left was dying for the leftover lasagna,, which I was unknowingly happily relaxing in with my feet when I stretched out. Guess you can get what was left to eat?
Peace
Love All Ways
Rich is awesome 🙂
Good story.
(also, another good story from rich, up there^)@jim hitchcock
So here I am, about two hours into a vacation, watching Justin Turner of the Dodgers ground into a dbl play in the ninth…
…when comes a serious, hard banging on my door.
Pull on pants, and shirt, walk outside.
To the right of my driveway is a mostly de weeded patch, about 15 × 20″, angles downhill at about a 40° angle. My downstairs tenant had denuded it about 90%. It still had a a lot of detritus of cotton from the cottonwood trees which had begun falling a couple of weeks ago.
I guess some maniac had tossed a cigarette from his car, and set it ablaze.
No problem; fire trucks and cops wherever I looked. The fire was extinguished post haste.
I thanked the FD & PD, went back inside to watch the final out, another rapid knocking on my door. Fireman tells me my sewer overflow has burned out, will have to get it fixed. Oh great.
Never a dull moment in Carson City.
Jorma –
Great to see you yesterday in my own backyard at the Rockland music fest.
Thank you for signing my copy of BBQ King.
This was a present from my wife of 25 years, and I had no idea she snuck off to get you to sign it.
Thanks for the music.
Really enjoyed the Rockland show – loved the electric songs with NRPS and the acoustic set – what a blast! What a spectacular day – had so much fun.
Great set list!
I noticed you might have a penchant for Shepherd’s pie. When “we get together, right down here,” at the Old Town in August, you may want to check out The Grafton Irish Pub. It is literally next door to the Old Town.
They have an awesome Shepherd’s pie and Beef and Guiness Stew. I recall once in a show you mentioned that you looked in the fridge of the van and saw something red. As I recall you said, “I’m not sure if that’s my steak or Jack’s berries.
Based on what I gleaned from that info, I’m assuming Jack eats on the healthier side. For the phlegmatic bass player extraordinaire, there is the Veggie wrap or, and this really sounds good, goat cheese, dried cranberries, spinach, cherry tomatoes, almonds, sun dried tomatoes all topped with a wild raspberry vinaigrette, salad! I know, crazy.
And, if your going to stick around in the Windy City, they have an open mic on Mondays. Boy, would that blow some patron’s socks off!
Depending on the size of your entourage, I’ll pick up the bill – I’m serious about that, and we won’t bother you.
There is one caveat though; I’m not what is known as a food connoisseur. (LOL – when my dad took us boys up to Lake Rooesevelt in Minnesota, one of the mainstays Dinty Moore Beef stew. Don’t laugh, if your hungry, and add some bread and butter, after along day in the northwoods, it’s to die for!)
My sister never lets me pick a restaurant out – I think it has to do with a time she baby sat our two kids over a long weekend. It was around Thanksgiving, so she took the kids out to one of those pumpkin patches, and asomeartsy, fartsy type store among other activities. Trust me, when your with Aunt Mary Therese, it’s non stop action, from pillow to pillow.
By the end of the day everyone was exhausted. So my sister asks my daughter, “What type of food do you guys like?” Taylor’s reply still makes me smile: “Chuckie Cheeses is pretty good.”
You have to understand, my sister is always checking out the newest restaurants on shows like Check Please. Visions of her eating soggy pizza and having a glass of rock gut wine are priceless! The first thing she said when we picked the kids up on Sunday was, “I will never step foot in a Chuckie Cheese’s again!”
at any rate, trust me; to put it in the words of Andy Griffith, The Grafton Irish Pub is “goooooood!”
Hope your having a great summer jorma,enjoy reading your posts,best regards and blessing brother : )
yea steve the Asbury park video has the hair you mention ! g
Great matinee show Jorma!! Excellent way to burn a Saturday-wife was at the mall and I saw Jorma. It is all about making concessions hahahahahaha!!! Great bit of trivia about resurrecting Sleepsong-that video of you at the Capitol was the first time I ever saw you. Too bad the black and white film doesn’t capture the pink hair!!! 😉 See you at The Arts and Mind Fest next month!! Twas ever thus!!!
What a day for an outdoor festival – sunny and 80 degrees – can’t wait Jorma!
Caught the show Saturday at the RamsHead, cool small venue. Awesome show. Liked the guitar geek stuff, I’m one…