Saturday, December 28

I’m sitting on the floor of a hotel room in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. Outside the window a cable car screeches and rumbles by. I was here once before in February of 1998 for the Folk Alliance conference.  In the company of a myriad of songwriters and musicians we played song after song in the hotel rooms and lobby until the wee hours and raised a ruckus as we rode that cable car down to Beale Street for a stroll. I recall Jack Hardy in his black witch’s hat and his raspy voice singing out as we walked along in the dark. 

In the bleary eyed Sunday morning of that conference on a quest for coffee I took a walk where the trolley rolled us the night before. Making a right turn through an opening between the buildings I found a park where below the wide Mississippi River pushed thickly past. Where I stood, Tennessee and the East - on the other side, Arkansas and the entire West. Daffodils were blooming. This astounded me, as I had just come from Massachusetts, which was covered in snow.

 This December night in 2002, the daffodils still sleep in their bulbs under the soil. Memphis was chilly as Sue and I strolled down Beale Street, the neon bright and horns and electric blues blazing from speakers outside the storefronts. The whole time, I had this Joni Mitchell song in my head, “Old Furry Sings The Blues” with lyrics like –

 “Old Beale Street is coming down/ Sweeties' Snack Bar is boarded up now/ 
And Egles The Tailor and the Shine Boy's gone/ Faded out with ragtime blues”

 “Pawn shops glitter like gold tooth caps/In the grey decay
They chew the last few dollars off Old Beale Street's carcass”

"There's a double bill murder at the New Daisy/The old girl's silent across the street

She's silent - waiting for the wrecker's beat/Silent - staring at her stolen name

Diamond boys and satin dolls/Bourbon laughter- ghosts - history falls

To parking lots and shopping malls/As they tear down old Beale Street”

Beale Street looks good now on the surface with shiny new neon and music blaring. Couples and families walked down the middle of the cordoned off street. But between cheap souvenir shops, six-dollar glasses of beer, watching an Elvis impersonator through the window of a club, and having a mediocre meal in what looked like a nice restaurant, the feeling crept into me that Beale Street is just a shadow. The muse departed, and left tourism in its wake.

That night in Memphis was the last of a six-day road trip from California to North Carolina to bring Sue home to live in Asheville. We left Monterey on Christmas Eve and made it into Arizona to see the Grand Canyon on Christmas Day. It was the first time I had seen the canyon. It’s wonderful to sit here as I type and see the snow on the red rock and contours and the canyons shadows in the setting sun. The feeling of vertigo that the Canyon gives seems an appropriate metaphor for life. I had a thought that if you’re not feeling a little vertigo from time to time you’re missing something.

The next night we spent in Tucumcari, New Mexico.  I drove through Tucumcari once before after the Albuquerque Folk Alliance in 1999. The image of its vacant downtown stuck in my head and I wanted to see more. Route 66 is the main drag with all the old motels and restaurants, which is not in much better shape than the downtown. Single motel rooms can be had for $18 a night, and the busiest hangout seemed to be the “cheap smokes” discount cigarette store.

It’s funny how I can derive so much pleasure from broke down old Tucumcari in contrast to Memphis; its slanty red light in the shifting sun, the rocks and streets, dusty and dirty, and the old neon signs, half lit and blinking. The town is not stealing your wallet; it’s simply panhandling for a buck or two.  It means something to me perhaps because of Lowell George’s song “Willin’”, which was as irrepressible as Joni Mitchell’s song two days later. It’s a high, dry, poor, vacant, town. But it’s real and breathes the essence of the old southwest.

Thursday January 2^nd 2003

Finishing up these notes now at home in Asheville, safe home. Happy New Year everybody!!  Went to a fantastic New Years Old Time music party in Weaverville just north of Asheville to ring the New Year in with fiddle tunes and potluck and eggnog. Whew, everybody now, take a deep breath, as we push into 2003.  I’ll look forward to seeing you all sometime in the New Year. I wish everybody a lot of love. Come to a concert and say “Hello!” Sign the guestbook, keep in touch!

Dana