A league of my own

Tonight I went to the Weiser Fiddle Festival. It's official name is The National Old-TIme Fiddlers Contest and Festival in Weiser. I went with an old friend, which is really the best way to go. I guess I should clarify here that many people who attend the Fiddle Festival don't actually go to the contest itself. In a lot of ways, the Festival is an excuse to get a lot of Bluegrass musicians together to jam late into the night in the campgrounds and booth areas that are common to a lot of small-town festivals. That's what my friend and I did. After getting reacquainted and catching up on all the news and reminiscing a bit, we started to jam. It should be noted that while I can play the guitar, my friend (Brent) is an actual guitarist. We had a lot of fun until the gnats drove us away. So, we decided to move to a different location. After moving to a more central locale and playing a few songs, really cool stuff began to happen. Another friend of mine showed up and started to play along, then another, then some of Brent's other friends started showing up and all of a sudden, we were this huge jam session with upright bass, dobro, three guitars, a fiddle (of course) a harmonica, a mandolin and several really good singers. I was truly amazed. What was really amazing is that people started to crowd around and before I knew it there were probably 75 to 100 people who had brought their lawn chairs and were sitting back and really enjoying themselves. Now, I know for certain that they weren't there because I was a phenomenal bluegrass player. On the contrary, I think they stayed in spite of my miscues and utter lack of ability to keep up at times. But mostly they stayed becuse they were genuinely enjoying themselves. There were some really good/great players there so I don't need to say how inadequate I felt during most of the jam session, but there was this one shining moment when Brent asked me to sing a song that Brad and I wrote together that has a Bluegrassy feel to it. "Lenny the Noodler" went over very well with the other musicians there. For one moment, they were listening to a song that I wrote and were really enjoying it. I had some genuine compliments from people I admired a lot musically. There was something that I could offer this amazing group of musicians and it felt pretty good. Even though I was completely out of my league, I had something these musicians admired about me as well. Even for a little while. Many thanks to Brent for still claiming me as a friend after I ruined what were probably pretty good Bluegrass tunes. I owe him lots for other stuff as well, but especially for the experience tonight. Well its late. Bed is calling.

More to follow . . .