January Jam Session
Denny, long-time buddy and band leader for local band Down Yonder, held a jam session in his outbuilding yesterday. The pot-bellied stove was fired up, and there was faint wood smoke in the air. I brought my 000-16 Martin and a looper I got for Christmas, thinking that if no one shows (there was a mild blizzard), then maybe we could fool with that. Andy, Denny’s son, was there. He’s an amazing guitar player. My first thought was I should have packed an electric guitar so he could cut loose on that. He brought a small-bodied Martin that sounded amazing, a gift from his dad. Jan, one of Denny’s band members, showed up, and I was thrilled to see her. She has a beautiful, clear singing voice, plays a squeezebox and ukulele, and maybe other instruments. Denny surprised me by having a new guitar. (That’s not the surprise; he is always buying guitars.) He pulled out a solid wood Alvarez acoustic. He has a large collection of Martins, along with Martin kit guitars he built himself. So seeing any other brand guitar in his hands was otherworldly.
We covered a lot of songs from a variety of artists. Jan sang some Linda Ronstadt, Andy covered “The Way” by Fastball, I did a Stones song and pushed myself to the breaking point on others, and Denny played some classics out of the encyclopedic song vault in his brain. We weren’t hurting for songs. For me, the highlight was Jan singing Harvest Moon by Neil Young. I should have set my guitar down and grabbed my camera for a short video. If I had known she sang Neil Young so well, I would have suggested more songs, but unfortunately, that was the last song of the jam. She had to go; three hours had mysteriously gone by, and we may have all been thinking: get back on the road before they start freezing.
Fichigan 