Part two of the tour was on Saturday morning at the West Hartford FM, and again the vendors are glad to see me. This is a three hour workout and I started to feel my fingertips in the third hour. It was a strange sensation. It must mean I’m playing a lot.
I had a wonderful connection half way through when a vaguely familiar woman came up and tossed a dollar in the mando case. As talked about her husband’ left hand guitar, and folk coming up and wanting to play your instrument – he would say, ‘Go ahead’, and then watch the culprit deal with a lefty guitar. That was funny.
Anyway, she said she’d like to sing a song, so I said sure. She suggested Sitting on Top of the World. I knew the bluegrass version, and she said she’d like a minor version. So kind of found a key and I put together an interesting chord change that worked nicely, and she proceeded to the sing the hell out of the song, with some great improv/scat. Whoa. I remarked how amazing that was, and then we discovered we knew each other.
Margo Hennebach was with Mad Agnes, a crafty acoustic trio from CT that had played Godfrey’s several times in the past and had recently disbanded amicably due to travel fatigue. We talked about her adaptation – teaching voice, trying out the open mikes again – and just returned from a workshop with Bobbie McFaren. Sheesh.
It is always a wonderful surprise to connect with folks who know exactly where you are coming on the old folk circuit, and to feel the immediate respect from another folk pro. And we made some pretty good music together at a hot farmers’ market on parking lot in West Hartford.