I got up to the West Hartford Farmers’ Market for my three hour set, after a relatively late night at Ron’s and jumped into my music. I set up along a sidewalk while the vendors set up in a parking lot 10 feet away. Not too many kids but appreciative shoppers passing by, many of whom threw in a dollar. But I’m not doing it for the tips, though they are welcome.
I do take time to strike up conversations with the folks, engage the kids and their families, and the vendors do value my talents. At the end, some vendors offer me some vegetables (I scored some fine small potatoes and garlic and an eggplant) but another one charged me full price for a pastry. A couple came by when I was finishing up, the lady was a percussionist and her husband a sax player. We had a great talk about what we do, and the woman commented that she thought it traditional for the venders to accumulate a gift bag for the musician at the market. Seems it hasn’t become a hard and true custom.
At noon, I packed up as quickly as I could (I had to grab my guitar from a rocker/farmer who was playing some fine stuff on my axe – he was no slouch..) and hit the road for a backyard gig back in Bethlehem. My GPS said I would get there in time, and I made it only 5 minutes late for my 4 pm gig.
It was a very nice and small gathering celebrating a woman’s 60th birthday, folks who were familiar to me from my Tallarico Chocolate gigs (in fact, Brian got me the gig). I launched into a couple of sets of adult music and folks really enjoyed the situation. Good food, good friends and acoustic music. Kenny and Sandy have wonderful gardens of zinnias, water plants, so it was even more spectacular. And Kenny was wearing a Taj Mahal t-shirt, so I new I was perfect for the gig. I had a good time chatting with Brian, playing tunes and enjoying the late afternoon.
Sandy and Kenny cut me a fine bunch of flowers to take back to my apartment. All and all a full day of music, with 5 hours of traveling thrown in.
I was spent, but it was a good spent.