Dave's Music #103 What a Wonderful World
My weekend in music started as a picked up the 2021 Great River Folk Fest Songwriter winner Siena Christie from the airport. As Lori, my wife, put it earlier this stranger was coming to stay for four days. Yes that can be a crap shoot of who you will be hosting but 95% of the time it ends up to be the best experience of your life; but it started Thursday and an evening at the Trempealeau Hotel where Siena got a gig. I had a good 30 minute conversation with Siena the year she won the festival's contest, and truly I expected a unique and sometimes funny person who is an incredible writer.
The night at the hotel was truly a beautiful and the guests on the deck were generous and great listeners to Siena. The only thing that still haunts me is from that pickup to driving home that night, I can not find my keys. Arghh and those key fobs are not cheap to replace.
Back to music, I taped a few songs from the night, and "Station Wagon" (I could have the title wrong) was the one I picked for you all since I recorded "Heaven is You" both at the hotel and the festival on Saturday.
Friday is the day my wife sells, but I also ask everyone I host, "Would you love to hike up a bluff?" Siena said YES. According to my phone the trail is about 4,000 steps but it takes you up an equivalent 28 story building. Another reason I love the hike is that I have too many words and questions just to sit and chat, so a during a hike, they can't get away from me and we talk and talk and talk. Now what's said on the trail typically stays on the trail because I'm old and forget stuff all the time. We did make it up slowly without stops and did not see any local rattle snakes.
Poor kid though, her hand was not 100% and couldn't play as much for us as she would have loved. Truly I'm spoiled now; I love live concerts while I wash the dishes.
Saturday was the Great River Folk Fest, and I had the honor of announcing the finals concert. I loved all the music, from Matt Monsoor's Dylaneque raspy tenor, to Andy Baker midwest stories, and the full sound of Stone & Snow duet of Karen Bridges and Clint Thomson. I'm glad I wasn't the judge. Andy Baker did win, and he opened for Siena. Now they had met in Kerrville so they knew each other which is very cool. Yes we had rain and wind in the morning but the afternoon cleared up. The evening forecast was threatening so they choose to move the stage concerts to a wonderful local theater five blocks away, The Cavalier Lounge & Theater.
While I didn't tape any of the finals, I did see that this video I took of Stone and Snow at Mocassin Creek Festival wasn't in YouTube, so let's fix that and their is a snippet of a second song at the end. They will play my house concert in March 2023, but I had made that commitment back at MCF. They passed the Lori test... ha.
And while I caught one song of Eddie Allen in a song swap, I am sitting on three gem videos from his house concert. Here's my favorite. Now I believe Eddie is a wonderful storyteller and while there are a number of Eddie Allen's on Twitter I think that part of the song is marvelous fiction. Now on the other hand he is a wonderful follow on Facebook and people look forward to his sermons.
Andy Baker was a great addition to this years songwriting contest, and his warmth and songs won him the top prize on Saturday. Here he is opening for Siena.
Speaking of Siena again... here's the Heaven Was You song I mentioned earlier.
The day started with rain and the wind still was around in the taping of Siena's song above. The Fest decided to move the evening concerts to their rain site a wonderful local gem of a place, The Cavalier Theater and Lounge. (yes I have Lori interested too in their upcoming vaudeville Purr-lesque show too)
Joseph Huber was my most favorite find and his music definitely will continue to show up in the blog in the future since I started my purchasing effort with his double vinyl release. Totally loved Happy Hour and I caught him at break to hear more specifically who wrote it, now I'm a Ted Hawkins fan.
Ok the weekend extended into Monday when Siena's plane departure was screwed up by the weather in Chicago, and we got another night with her and my nephew Sean and his son Jackson around the campfire. If it wasn't for Siena's hand issue, we would have asked for a few songs too. Ha. Tuesday I crashed with Hobbes, but got up in time to run to Onalaska and catch the season ending concert at Dash Park with the String ties.
Boy, we're spoiled in La Crosse. Now Dan the lead singer of most of the songs showed such class when a young new fan Soren came up at break and requested "It's a Wonderful World"... while that song is not likely in their set list and they admitted never playing it together as a band. Dan is a walking juke box and the group is so talented you just tell them what key you're playing it in and they were flawless. Sorry after all that, I didn't record it but it is the title of my blog post for the weekend.
