So here I am on my first roadtrip for more than a couple of gigs in a year. I’m driving my RV so the whole deal is more than exciting on many levels. It seems that I, like so many others, am starting to get my life back… in a way. My colleagues Myron and Phil are ensconced in the hotel and I am boondocking in the parking lot. Since I’ve got pretty much everything I need here in the rig, I decided to take a walk to pick up the two things I neglected to bring… salt and pepper. We’re at a Hampton Inn here and even though I have yet to even set foot in the lobby, it looks like all Hampton Inns.
I remember living in Upstate New York more than thirty years ago. It wasn’t exactly the Rust Belt, but I could always detect a certain feeling of gentle, or maybe not so gentle decay. The countryside is so beautiful but these older urban areas just seem like they have seen better days… a long time ago. Now, my observations are simply based on where I’m parked right now so I don’t mean to generalize. There was a boarded-up Ramada Inn next door and a mile or so away at the shopping plaza most of the shops were empty.
Now back home at the Market On State St. Shopping Plaza many of the stores are empty too, but it just seems lighter somehow. There is not real point to this entry so far… just morning observations from a traveling voyeur. I have loved the face of America for many years.
We set out on a cloudy day from Pomeroy and wound up in Belle Vernon for a gig at the Vinoski Winery. The clouds opened up but the audience hung more than tough and the first gig of this little run was rewarding in so many ways!
Open mess on board Hawke
Photo by Jorma Kaukonen
Jorma Kaukonen 22, 2021
Jorma Solo
Vinoski Winery
Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania
Tuesday, May 4, 2021
Dime For Beer
Nobody Knows You When You’re Down & Out
Letter To The North Star
Day To Day Out The Window Blues
I Am The Light Of This World
Serpent Of Dreams
Corners Without Exits
Uncle Sam Blues
99 Year Blues
How Long Blues
New Song For The Morning
Ain’t In No Hurry
Another Man Done Gone
Hesitation Blues
Great Divide Revisited
Candy Man
Come Back Baby
Living In The Moment
Trial By Fire
Good Shepherd
Death Don’t Have No Mercy
I Know You Rider
Encore: Water Song
Yeah… a bunch of songs were played… rain is just rain.
A cloudy but scenic drive from Belle Vernon to Homer. We had a day off to do it in so we cruised it. The storm still seems to be following us… or we’re following the storm.
Time to get a good night’s sleep after a long day behind the wheel.
At my age I have been saying a lot of goodbyes the most recent being to my old friend Al Schmitt. Al was such an important part of the Jefferson Airplane Family in terms of what he brought to the table as a producer. RCA assigned him to us starting with After Bathing At Baxters. At a point in our relatively young lives when we thought we knew it all we were probably not the easiest folks to work with. That being said, Al found a way to get the best out of us without being constraining. Al had golden ears. He knew good sounds when he heard them. Our recorded life would not have been the same without him. He was a good man and a wonderful human being. As so often happens, I was just thinking about getting in touch with him when I heard from my good pal Mike Lawson that he had passed. Another moment down the river. More than being a great recording engineer, Al knew when he heard the great performances in a time before Frankensolos.
The earth is a poorer place for his passing. Fair wind and following seas brother.
Come see us yet one more time!
We’re going to have our first small but live audience at the Fur Peace Station for this show. Please join us for the fun!
Last but not least. There have been some bizarre threads in the comments section of this blog. I foolishly let it go for a while hoping that it would peter out. It didn’t. At the risk of sounding pissy, it’s my blog and I’m going to sound pissy. I’m not into conspiracy theories. Please don’t use my space for yours. Enough already. As Mom used to way, ‘A word to the wise is sufficient!’
It’s been well over a year since I’ve had the privilege of playing in Manhattan. The good folks at the City Winery invited me to come and bring my guitar and so with a smile on my face… I came.
You can’t see the smile… but it’s there!
Photo by Myron Hart
Four shows… in two days. Playing three hours a night for the first time in well… a long time, is quite different from the Quarantine Concert Series. Good to get back in the saddle!
Jorma Kaukonen 17, 2021
Jorma Solo Early Show
City Winery
New York City
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Too Many Years
Ice Age
The Terrible Operation
How Long Blues
Uncle Sam. Blues
Search My Heart
Trial By Fire
Sea Child
Serpent Of Dreams
Candy Man
Been So Long
Keep Your Lamps Trimmed & Burning
I Am The Light Of This World
That’ll Never Happen No More
Encore: Embryonic Journey
Jorma Kaukonen 18, 2021
Jorma Solo Late Show
City Winery
New York City
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Dime For Beer
Hesitation Blues
Come Back Baby
I See The Light
Second Chances
Let Us Get Together Right Down Here
Corners Without Exits
Sleep Song
Good Shepherd
Day To Day Out The Window Blues
I’ll Be All Right Some Day
Mama Let Me Lay It On You
I Know You Rider
Encore: Whining Boy Blues
Jorma Kaukonen 19, 2021
Jorma Solo Early Show
City Winery
New York City
Thursday, April 22, 2021
True Religion
I’ll Let You Know Before I Leave
Broken Highway
Blue Railroad Train
Been So Long
Heart Temporary
Great Change
Full Go Round
In The Kingdom
Ode To Billy Dean
San Francisco Bay Blues
How Long Blues
What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?
Keep Your Lamps Trimmed & Burning
Jorma Kaukonen 20, 2021
Jorma Solo Late Show
City Winery
New York City
Thursday, April 22, 2021
Hesitation Blues
Come Back Baby
Serpent Of Dreams
River Of Time
In My Dreams
Follow The Drinking Gourd
Prohibition Blues
Living In The Moment
Watch The North Wind Rise
Flying Clouds
99 Year Blues
Waiting For A Train
Walking Blues
Things That Might Have Been
Roads and Roads &
Encore: Genesis
Man at work…
Photo by Phil Jacobs
I was so moved by the response of our friends in the audience at the Winery. Many thanks from me!
The Old… and the new…
Photo by Jorma Kaukonen
It was a new skyline for me here in the Tri-State. I’m walking up the Hudson on the Weehawken side and I look to my right and there is an old friend… the Empire State Building. It may seem dwarfed in this shot surrounded by new architecture, but for a guy of my age, it will always be the One!
Life goes on indeed…
Photo by Jorma Kaukonen
Now tonight… #46
Special Edition tonight…
Tonight John Hurlbut and I will play the entire River Flows record… Volume One, and Volume Two which will not be released until July.
Well… thinking about posting the set list from #45 from Saturday night and with the number 45 in my head got to thinking about that wacky little 1994 flick, Love And A .45. Watty Watts in the movie per his granddaddy: “Watty, only two things you need in life to get by on this planet: Love and a 45.”
I think after I upload this I’ll see if I can find the movie streaming. Anyway…
I’ve loved all our shows in the Quarantine Concert Series, but to be able to play songs with our daughter Izze… is special. My pal, Myron Hart, added the rhythm guitar part and I was blown away by how his vocal harmonies blended with Izze’s voice. Good times!
On the one hand it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that we’ve been doing these shows for over a year, yet on the other hand it seems like a lifetime. To be able to make music with friends and family is more than a blessing.
Wow! Leaving home for a gig in the Northeast! Good stuff. I’ll have my vaccination record with me, of course. I think I’l re-string my guitars to get a little in front of the game.
Vanessa and I drove the Mule down to the river, parked it and set out for a nice hike. It’s still early spring so the multi-floral rose has yet to conquer the woods and it’s too cold for snakes.
The Mule waits patiently…
Photo by Jorma Kaukonen
There is always a treasure hunt going on in the woods this time of year
Morels… the treasure of the forest
Photo by Jorma Kaukonen
Yeah… over at the old farm on Kingsbury Rd. I knew where to look We had twenty five years there so there was time to find the secret places. Better late than never I say!
If you just know where to look! 🙂
Photo by Jorma Kaukonen
So last night along with the roasted chicken, Morels, breaded with Radical Sprinkle (right from the FPR Company Store) and fried in butter. Not exactly health food… but boy is it delicious! The first find on the Fur Peace Ranch Property in more that a quarter of a century!
Question: Where did you find those morels?
Answer: Oh… in the forest!
And there’s trillium and fiddlehead too
Photo by Vnessa Kaukonen
We won’t be eating these…
Photo by Vanessa Kaukonen
Not quite primeval… but pretty darn nice to have in your ‘backyard.’
The forsythia has come… and almost gone. Redbud is here in all its glory. Before you know it, these beautiful lavender branches will have turned to green and unless you are tuned into such local beauties you will wonder, ‘What happened to the redbud?’
It’s like, ‘What happened to life?’
I was thinking about the Tom Waits character in Rumblefish. The ‘I’ve got thirty five summers left,’ soliloquy. Great scene, but it made me think… it’s been a long time since I’ve had thirty five summers left. When I was young I just took the endless stream of summers for granted as we all seem to. There’s always next year… there will always be another time to do this or that.
One day you realize how quickly you are running out of that time and that there never was such a thing as an ‘endless stream of summers.’ The pandemic has robbed us all of so much, most notably time. The time to have lived, the time have proceeded on the course you laid. Time that you will never get back no matter what happens in the future.
Staying alive gives you another shot at another endeavor… perhaps another season of redbud, perhaps another cardinal on the back porch railing. Perhaps seeing your daughter grow into womanhood, you son moving deeper on the trail into manhood.
Perhaps…
Indeed…
In the meantime, here’s the link for this weekend’s Quarantine Concert Series #45.
You think we’d pick up on the misspelling of ‘Quarantine’ immediately… but it was not to be. Proofreading is tricky stuff as I found with my book, ‘Been So Long. You go over it
again
and again
and you still miss the most obvious stuff. No matter, the show will be great and I’ll be on the chat feed with Vanessa.
On Easter morning Maverick and I walk the perimeter of the Fur Peace Campus
Photo by Jorma Kaukonen
Happy Easter to all who celebrate! It is a lovely morning… finally.
Last night we found our into and out of #44 of the Quarantine Concert Series.
Jorma Kaukonen 15, 2021
Quarantine Concert Series #44
The Fur Peace Station
Darwin, Ohio
Saturday, April 3, 2021
True Religion
Heart Temporary
Big River Blues
I See The Light
Death Don’t Have No Mercy for Allen Albrecht
Everybody’s Talking with John Hurlbut
Driving Wheel with John Hurlbut
Ice Age
Hesitation Blues
Sleep Song
Bar Room Crystal Ball
I’m pretty psyched about my EC Strat through the Louis Electric DelTone channeling the Eventide Black Hole and I can only say we’re going to be hearing and seeing more of this chain of gear!
