Whew, what a day we had yesterday. I know I was supposed to blog last night when we hit camp, but I figured after 24 hours awake, this could hold until today.
The Birthright Blues Project, along with Loren Seely, our producer and his daughter Jennifer Scheffler, left Sulphur Springs, Texas around 4:30 am Tuesday. We hit Helena, Arkansas around 11:30, without any serious mishaps except that Mark and Jack got lost in Texarkana. HaHa, they followed a similar truck to Jen's right off the interstate and around some construction, but caught up with us at a rest stop shortly into Arkansas half an hour later.
As is our tradition, after arriving in Helena, we immediately went to the Delta Cultural Center, where we visited with Sunshine Sonny Payne and Jack appeared on the King Biscuit Time radio show. Track 20 (Morning Sun) from the new LIVE album was the song played, and we got a chance to publicize our appearance on the Rising Biscuit Stage Friday night.
After the radio show and a quick lunch, we set up camp in Tent City, USA. While relaxing after "home" was completed, Dave Riley, internationally known blues performer who you can learn more about at this website, http://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/musicians/dave-riley.html, stopped by the camp and visited with us. He has been a longtime friend of Loren and Jen, and Jack played with him in 2009 when he came to the festival without me, but this was our first meeting. As I was told I would, I immediately loved Dave, he is such a positive person and he and Jack are so much alike! We all went to dinner and had some great food and even better conversation. Dave has so much experience as a blues musician, and he is one of the better kinds of musicians, the kind that is willing to share his knowledge, not the type who treats all other musicians as the enemy.
After dinner, we went to a "Jam" at Blues Bayou and played 4 songs. The house drummer didn't show up, so Mark willingly jumped onto the drums and jammed for a couple of hours. But then, they charged him for his beer, so that really sucked and was, IMHO, classless. But we enjoyed the music, of course, and even got a chance to check out one of the competitors for the Rising Biscuit stage, a great piano player that made me figure too bad Jack's not gonna break out any piano tunes on the stage.
After the jam and a conversation with a blues harp player and club owner in Phoenix, Bob Corritore, we headed back to camp. But, of course, our night was still young. The three of us headed down to join the campfire circle of the Baton Rouge Blues Society, where Jack played acoustic and we chowed down on some great pulled pork and drank beer and visited. It's funny how you make such great friends when you only see each other once a year, but that's how the biscuit works!
This morning, we were all having coffee by nine and around ten headed down to Bunky's. Unfortunately, in the offseason in Helena, some thugs broke the glass front and broke into Bertha's place. They ripped her off, just helping themselves to whatever they wanted, and made a mess of the place. Cleanup and repair are in progress, from which I'm currently slacking but am fixing to get back to, but tonight's jam is still on, because as we all know, you just can't stop the blues. Be sure to check back in to read about what a great time we'll have, as we know we have notable musicians planning to come play with us tonight. I'll try to get some pictures on tomorrow.
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