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Note: long!

Okay well I got home a little early and found a note from Paul (MacMechanic) asking me how things had gone. I should tell you that it was Paul who arranged my "ticket" in the first place, only then he couldn't come. So here's the exchange.

In a message dated 3/5/2009 10:40:40 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, paulu@macmechanix.com writes:

>>So, how was the evening?

Marvelous beyond compare, at least for the time I was there. I misjudged how long it would (not) take me to get there, so I was actually at Retrofret by about 4:45, which made me first into the room. The actual music didn't really get rolling until around 7, not the originally-scheduled 6. Dan'l and I were griping about how it would be eating into the drinking time later. But it got going and it by God kept going. The most fortunate thing, in my view, is that Wayne Henderson really is one of the great bluegrass/oldtime/traditional guitarists of our age. He is that good. And also, he is not just a guitar player: he is an entertainer. So he told all his standard stories, such as we have heard before in the youtubes we have seen, but he all-the-same made them work and they were hilarious, and they were "mint" i.e. direct and live.

He did a couple of tunes by himself and then introduced his supporters, and they included a GREAT banjo-player, a GREAT fiddler, and a GREAT bass-player. I didn't get all the names, and I expect others here to fill in the blanks. But the bass-player just happened to be, oh, say, the luthier Bob Jones, who is a giant in his own right. And without rehearsal or any such thing they just kinda sailed into various parts of the trad repertoire, based on they all knew the tunes and they all knew how to play 'em.

I believe "Leather Britches" was the first, and later they did "Soldier's Joy" and "Billy in the Lowlands", among others. A woman named Mamie who I believe is famous in Brooklyn sang "Deep River Blues" with Wayne -- Bob Jones on bass -- and then they all came back and played/sang "Will the Circle be Unbroken" (I think). Wayne heard some of us singing and so he announced an all-singing tune which he was about to play and launched into "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". Then, once we had sung through it, he upped the ante by playing the song at twice the speed and with twice the notes. Fancy pickin, and fine.

Then they all came back and did some large/loud tune which I forget, and Wayne announced a break.

I had been there since 4:45 and it was now 8:30 and I hadn't eaten since breakfast so I made my manners to Wayne (who invited me to come down to Rugby and visit him)(although he invites everybody ) and Steve Uhrik who runs the joint, and thanked Mamie for singing and for her early hospitality when I arrived, and discussed next Tuesday's Avondale open mike with Tony, and left. Others will have to tell you about the second act.

That's it for now.

d

Okay, Part II:
First, Paul had requested a report from the group mail-list and I sent the above to all of them. So the corrections came pretty quickly.

First, from Todd:
>>It was On the Sunny Side, not Will the Circle. But it was hard to keep them all straight.

>>What you missed, Davey, was Bob getting out his 1942 J-45 and asking Wayne to pick a little on their own, which quickly shut down all the other playing going on and turned into a ten tune set.

>>The fiddler is Andy Stein from the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and though his day job is playing sax and some violin on A Prairie Home Companion. He was also in Commander Cody's Lost Planet Airmen and Sleep at the Wheel at times too.

>>The Banjoist remains a mystery but I sent them an email asking who he was.

>>The singer was Mamie Minch, a medium fish in this big NYC pond.

Second, Jesse (The Jest) filled in with:
>>The banjoist was John Saroyan. If you want to feel bad about
yourself, I'll tell you that he's not only younger than I am,
but his day job is that he's a professor of pediatric medicine
at Columbia. Feeling stupid now? Yeah, me too.

>>Nice guy. Has been waiting for his Henderson for 11 years
now. He gigs in a duo called the Manhattan Valley Ramblers; he
put some of us on his e-mail list for upcoming concerts.

>>Great time, it was good to see all of you guys, great to see
that picking, and fun to play everything in the store.

Third, Paul came back with some more information based on his experience:
>>Andy Stein also played in the band for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on Broadway for a short while; I met him then.

Okay. And by now you've read what Todd said, and Tony promises more videos. Jesse hasn't yet written to this thread, neither has Daniel Dorogusker. James 747 was also there, plus maybe some others I didn't know. James and I exchange views on Retrofret/Musurgia in the Vintage Forum.

Now I want to share some thoughts on Mr. Henderson, if I may, based solely on last night's experience. I have been playing his CD "Made and Played" all day, which I had with me last night and he kindly signed it for me, with the encomium "Keep on pickin'" . He also signed my copy of Clapton's Guitar, right under Allen St. John's autograph which I got when I bought the book several years ago. (Allen was there last night, by the way: you see him next to Steve Ulrich in one of Tony's pictures.) And I thanked Mr. Henderson for the autographs ... and he thanked me. And I should tell you that when I introduced myself to him earlier, he tipped his hat to me. He's a real deal guy, modest as can be, and genuinely glad when fans approach him, in the old country music way.

Umm, he's not a hick. He's a very smart guy. And he is a total performer. He broke between songs to tell stories and jokes and we've heard 'em all before. We've heard him on Youtube and people have quoted him, and lots of y'all have seen him and yeah, he told the ones about there's only 7 people in Rugby Virginia so they have to take turns being the Mayor and the Postman and the Town Drunk. And he told about why there's always just 7 people in Rugby, because every time a baby is born somebody leaves town. And he told "The white goat" and he told one or two others. And we've heard 'em ... and so what? That's part of his act and I mean "act". You go to hear your favorite performer in order to hear your favorite tunes ... and your favorite stories. It's like what I call "Grandpa stories", as in when we little kids asked Grandpa, "Now tell the one about when the dog chased you over the fence," and we expect Grandpa to tell it the same way every time. So that's all about that. Oh yeah, he did note at one point that his biographer Allan St. John was in the room ... and muttered something about how that book drove his prices up. So as I said, he's a very smart guy.

Todd has mentioned the sheer musicality of what was going on and I'll speak to that. The four of them really had never played together before and they really did sound as though they'd rehearsed together for days. You'd hear them muttering about what song was next and you'd hear little smatterings of "what key" and "who's first" and "oh yeah I know that one," and then they'd sail into it. Just four immensely primo musicians up there, all pros, and when the pros jam all us mortals can do is look and listen, with our jaws dropped.

I should tell you, Wayne is an immensely precise guitar player. I know that sounds a little bit sophomoric, but not every player is always on top of his rhythm, even in the most virtuoso (that's Italian academy for "fast") passages. Wayne is. He plays with his eyes on his hands, and the only time he ever looked up was to call a change. He only smiles after the tune.

Finally, what Todd said. I've been blessed to have a few musical experiences since I came on the forum which I would have to call "transformative". Most of them have been as simple as joining a good jam on a good tune. Sometimes they were much bigger things, such as the entire experience of my first MartinFest, or a warm memory of an afternoon or evening at someone's house. Once or twice, it's been at a performance. I truly was privileged to attend this one. It warms me.

So Tony! Where are the rest of the videos???