Friday 09/23/2024
All day I was focused on the Folk Fest at 7:30pm. But for a relaxing change I walked to Cafe Zoe for breakfast. And yesterday by email I invited my friend Joanne to walk along, knowing that she usually takes a morning walk. So we had a pleasant walk and coffee and chatting about our neighbors and such. She’s a strong walker and as we approached CH she said, she wanted to walk the half mile up Homer street to where on Friday an artisanal bakery has a popup store. OK. So I ended up with over 10K steps, 4.2 miles. Thank you Joanne.
During the day I practiced my two numbers a couple of times. At 4pm I couldn’t stand it and went down and set up the auditorium for the show. Which only took 45 minutes. Then I had to kill more time. Got a quick bite of supper at 5:15 and then just went and paced around. The other cast and crew started showing up at 6, and by 7 people started to stream in.
Joan Baez arrived with my neighbors Tom and Nancy; Tom was her personal doctor from way back in the 60s, which is how we got her invited, and probably why she came. I think about a third of the 90+ people in the room had figured out who she was, but when about the 6th number in the program was a video of her singing Blowin in the Wind, she stood up from her front row seat, faced the audience, and led them in a sing-along, and everybody went nuts.
A few songs later it was We Shall Overcome, and when she stood up to lead the sing-along, the whole room stood up with her. That was an emotional moment! Then she did a little Q&A, with Tom asking her questions and her reminiscing. Only thing I remember was, that when she sang We Shall Overcome at the famous March on Washington (the day of the “I have a Dream” speech) she remembers that every time MLK talked about non-violence, she would get teary-eyed, and he used to tell people he liked having her sitting nearby because she was always crying when he said that.
I opened the show with City of New Orleans, Craig Allen on harmonica. We didn’t suck, got a nice round of applause. An hour later in the program, after it was time for Mary and me to do You’ve Got a Friend, with John on piano. We not only did not suck, we did our best singing evah. Mary’s voice was the strongest I’ve heard her, and her harmonies were impeccable. I saw her husband Andrew making a video so I’ll probably have that later.
And we all sang Good Night Irene and it was over. Everybody had a good time. Joan B stayed for the whole show, smiling, singing along, and applauding, so I guess she had a good time too. There were several little slip-ups but nothing got badly screwed up. A number of people complimented my singing, and there we are.
Codgerville 