Day Three at the Folk Alliance. Up late again the night before. I wanted to see a bit of the exhibition area but I had a 5p showcase so I had to move along pretty quick. In the entrance to the trade show, I ran into Gilles Losier, a fiddler I hadn't seen in years and we just got out our instruments and started jamming (as many others did throughout the hotel and convention centre). We were joined by Lan, the erhu player from the night before and Gilles and she got on great (he was already familiar with that 2-string Chines fiddle). My showcase went fine but I was starting to run out of steam. There was one lady in the front who was cracking up throughout the set (who are you? where are you?) and this time my friend Alyson was snapping stills and video of the set. This was the showcase where I broke a nail - I like to make a big deal about it...I broke a nail in the middle of a Folk Alliance showcase. I've even got a little video souveneer of that!
That night I jammed with the Lee Boys, a scared steel outfit from Florida. Hard to imagine they fit everything into that room, drums and all. And if you know the Lee Boys, you will have noticed that they are all very large fellows. As I was walking down the hall, I poked into a room where Digging Roots wre playing - I thought it was a showcase but I think now it was just their own room. We'll I had been standing in the doorway for only a minute or two when Raven stops playing for a minute, grabs a guitar from behind the dresser and hads it over to me. That was a nice thing to happen. I stuck around and played non-stop for a couple of hours. Another couple were jamming with us too, they were called "Redwood Central" - the harmonica player played along on a couple of my tunes and it fit perfectly. Michelle the singer had that "high-lonesome" sound I like so much. I played for quite a while on a steel-bodied resophonic, and though it's a little heavier than my wood model, I think I'd like to get one.