I am not a musician,
but I can play just enough music that I sometimes get to hang out with musicians. Friday evening I got to do that again, play bass with my guitar-pickin' friend, DB. We hadn't gotten together in some years, but the new Johnny Cash compilation, Cash: The Legend, and the new Johnny Cash movie urged us back to our instruments.
DB is the guitar-player, and the singer. I, on the other hand, am not allowed to sing at his house - I'm so bad at it that if I try his wife will put me out. When we used to play bluegrass, DB played banjo. When we wanted to play old-time fiddle tunes, he fiddled - "Back Up and Push," "Hell Amongst the Yearlings," "Down Yonder," and that train song which seems to keep tornadoes away, "Orange Blossom Special."
I have a dobro I sometimes slide around on, and a little Fender lap steel, another old slide unit I call "The Green Machine," and a real pedal steel that I haven't touched in ten years, at least.
Back in the days when I worked second shift, a lifetime ago, we played music after work, after 11 p.m., one or two nights a week. There were three or four of us then. We were much younger and, yeah, there was a little alcohol involved. Okay, sometimes there was quite a bit of alcohol involved, those Friday nights we played all night long to put the moon down and sing the sun up.
We started in bluegrass and country, mountain music and old folk songs. DB knew what he was doing, if any of us did, and he led us. When he didn't know, he wasn't afraid to venture in. He plays anything with strings, picking songs up by ear. He might be able to read music, but I've never seen him do it. He listens and learns. We learned some Elvis Presley, a few Beatles songs. Some John Prine. We did a pretty rousing version of Elizabeth Cotton's "Freight Train" that seemed to involve only one verse and a lot of chorus; the rest of it was our instruments talking to each other.
And they do talk to each other, the instruments. When you are there - in the music - the instrument plays you. Time disappears. The world dissolves around you. All that remains of you is your foot, tapping.
We hadn't played for at least a couple of years when we got together Friday evening. My thinking brain didn't help me a bit with remembering the songs; it must have been my lizard brain controlling my fingers. After a little warm-up, my fingers seemed to find their own way around on the neck of the bass, pretty much ending up where they were supposed to. They had a knowledge which is not stored in consciousness.
We opened our session the other night with Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues," and at the end I wanted to play it again. I said, "This time, let's get that train really swaying back and forth as it goes down those railroad tracks." And oh how it did sway. We set the house to swaying. We set the universe to swaying - perhaps you felt it Friday night about 8 p.m. CST. "I hear that train acomin', comin' round the bend...."
We've promised each other that we're going to do this again - SOON.
These are images that make me happy, Tom! Music is a good way to usher in the New Year, and I wish everyone would let go of the idea they "can't" and just join in. I like how you expressed the way time and self dissolve. Here's to more music-playing in 2006!
Posted by: beth | January 01, 2006 at 12:50 PM
Thanks, Beth. I agree aplenty. As Neil Young would say: "Live music is better. Bumperstickers will be issued!"
Posted by: Tom Montag | January 02, 2006 at 07:24 PM