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US Tour June 2008 - from the Little Lazy to the Big Easy
June 1, Spokane Washington, Little Garden Cafe.
June 6, Pacific Missouri, The Great Pacific Coffee Company.
June 8, Mayfield Kentucky, house concert (private party).
June 11, Mayfield Kentucky, house concert (private party).
June 15, Birmingham Alabama, house concert (private party).
June 19, Bay St Louis Mississippi, The Mockingbird Cafe.
June 21, Hope Arkansas, Southwest Arkansas Arts Council.
June 22, Hope Arkansas, Southwest Arkansas Arts Council.
June 25, Great Bend Kansas, The Back Room.
June 30, Danville Washington, house concert (private party). |
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I'd toured through the US once before, in 2004. I had a second tour booked for June of 2006, but in Dec of '05 I was in an accident and was injured badly enough that I had to cancel those shows. A year later, when I was about half-way recovered from my injuries, I began putting my second US tour back together, planning it for June of 2008.
I live, like 99% of the Canadian population, close to the Canada/US border ("huddled up to the stove", as one American friend of mine puts it). This tour began with me crossing the border on June 1st at Danville Washington, about five minutes from my house, and driving three hours to play in Spokane that night. I then drove to Pacific Missouri, just outside St Louis, where I played on June 6th and from there I proceeded south.
For the 2004 tour I had the shows set up in such a way as to allow me just barely enough time to drive from one city to the next, with literally, in most cases, not a minute to spare. This trip was a little more relaxed, at least for the most part. I did ten shows in one month, like last time, but without that long drive down the west coast to LA and across the Southwest to Texas and on into Arkansas and Tennessee.
Instead, I played Spokane, drove to St Louis and did the rest of the tour through the South: two shows in Mayfield Kentucky, one in Birmingham Alabama, one in Bay St Louis Mississippi, two in Hope Arkansas, one in Great Bend Kansas, and the last show all the way back up in Danville Washington, five minutes from the border, ten minutes from my house. I crossed back into Canada on July 1st, arriving at my hometown of Grand Forks British Columbia, the place I call the Little Lazy, early in the day, so I could join in the Canada Day celebrations.
On this tour, I had days off in every city I played, sometimes two or even three days, so I could get around and see the sights, take in the atmosphere of some of these legendary and historical places.
I spent a couple of nights in Spokane, playing music and visiting with old friends, a great start to the tour.
I was chased by tornadoes across Nebraska.
I skipped stones on the Meramec River in Pacific Missouri.
I got my cowboy boots wet once more in the Mississippi, dirty with that red Mississippi mud, and I stood on the banks of the old Ohio and heard the echos of a thousand songs, sung by a hundred thousand human beings over a million years.
I bought a couple of really nice shirts in a thrift store in Nashville.
I played once more for the Moonlight Man in Birmingham, took a drive up old Route 31 and I believe I got the flavour of Alabama.
I spent a couple of days in Pensacola Florida, enjoying the hospitality of friends, soaking up the sunshine, eating raw oysters and drinking cold Corona. This, instead of sightseeing around the Gulf, but if you’d been there in that heat and humidity I know you’d have no difficulty forgiving me.
In Bay St Louis I performed just two blocks from the Gulf Of Mexico, in a cafe that was opened in 2006 in answer to Hurricane Katrina's having devastated the other cafes in that town.
I drove through New Orleans, and out through Morgan City, New Iberia, Lafayette, Baton Rouge...unbelieveably beautiful country.
Then I headed on up to Hope Arkansas, where I spent a couple of days playing music and getting to know a little better this beautiful small town. The folks in Hope made me feel right at home, again.
I drove once more through the breathtaking Ouachita Mountains.
I saw the State of Oklahoma for the first time.
I did not mess with Texas this trip.
I drove from hurricane country back into tornado country in less than a week, and in Great Bend Kansas I played just spitting distance from the geographical centre of the continental United States, in one of the classiest rooms on the whole World Wide Web.
Denver was right on my way home, and whaddaya know about that: my
daughter and her family live there! I was able to spend a day with the grandkids, got down to Pike’s Peak, did the tourist thing.
Then, all the way back up in Danville Washington I played for my friends, mountain folks who live just up the Kettle River from us. We-all hardly think of ourselves as Canadians and Americans. We live in the Kettle River Territory, and there just happens to be an international boundary between us.
It's always a party in Danville, they've trained me to expect it, and this night was an expectation once again fulfilled.
I’ve been home for less than a month and I’ve already written an entire album’s worth of songs about this trip. When I get them recorded I’ll put some of them up here so you can listen.
-DS, July ‘08.
 Click here to view videos from the tour.
Newsletters from the Road
MAY 08
OK, here we go.
The tour begins in a few weeks and I'm in final preps, it feels like I'm leaving tomorrow, like I'm all out of time.
There's a few of you I've been trying to contact and you're not returning my emails or phone calls. I'm trying real hard not to read this wrong. All I want to say is, please try to stop by one of my shows, let me see you again, sit and have a drink with you, it could be our last chance. And there are a few of you I've never met at all, not in person. Of you I ask the same thing: take a look at my itinerary and see if you can arrange to be at one of my shows. I'd like to meet you.
The itinerary, now carved in stone, looks like this:
-Sunday June 1, The Little Garden Cafe, Spokane Washington.
-Friday June 6, The Great Pacific Coffee Company, Pacific Missouri (St Louis).
-Sunday June 8, house concert, Mayfield Kentucky.
-Wednesday June 11, house concert, Mayfield Kentucky.
-Sunday June 15, house concert, Birmingham Alabama.
-Thursday June 19, The Mockingbird Cafe, Bay St Louis Mississippi.
-Saturday June 21, Pruden Center For The Arts, Hope Arkansas.
-Sunday June 22, Pruden again.
-Wednesday June 25, The Back Room, Great Bend Kansas.
-Monday June 30, house concert, Danville Washington.
See you on the road.
All my love to every single one of you,
yer everlovin'...
NEBRASKA
All is well. Played Spokane a few nights ago, I'm on my way to St Louis, sending this from a public library computer in Gothenberg Nebraska, gonna get to Kansas City tonight, should hit St Louis by mid-day tomorrow. Playing in Pacific Missouri tomorrow night. (Paul Becker in St Louis, if you read this, call my home phone and leave a message with your ph#. I'll check messages tonight and call you in the AM as I'm leaving Kansas City.)
Driving through Cheyenne last night, had the radio on and caught the weather report...first time in my life I've ever heard a tornado warning. Just a kind of almost flippant, you know, tornado warning, sounded about as big a deal as a wind warning in Vancouver. I told the girl at the Super8 when I was checking in and she smiled, said, "Welcome to our part of the world."
Spokane was great, the audience was awesome. I'll write more about it when I get time. Gotta get back on the road.
Hope you-all are safe and happy.
yer everlovin'...
STORMCHASER
I don't want anyone getting mad at me for sending out too many newsletters and cluttering their inboxes, but this tour is a big deal for me and I feel I should send out some kind of updates, so I'll just keep these reports as brief as possible.
It was actually foolish of me to try outrunning those twisters a few nights ago, they came a little too close for comfort. The state troopers closed down Hwy 29 east of Nebraska City just about a half-hour after I drove through there. A half-dozen tornadoes were touching down and being tracked through places I had just passed through. I was listening on the radio and watching the incredible lightning storm just across the Missouri River, where people were being told to get down into their basements NOW. When I got into Kansas City and checked into a Super8 the first thing I did was turn on the TV and there it was: semi trucks overturned on Hwy 29, at the junction with the 2, east of Nebraska City.
Earlier in the day, driving across southern Nebraska, I missed getting a photo of something I think might have been a funnel cloud, and I definitely saw the incredible damage done to someone's farm right along the side of the road: a building was torn and devastated, bits of which were scattered amongst the torn, broken and twisted trees. Irrigation pipes were twisted and scattered across the fields like spilled spaghetti. I was driving at 80 mph across an 8o mph wind, working hard to keep this light-weight Cherokee rolling straight. The sky was black and the rain fell in sheets off and on all day, alternating with brilliant sunshine.
So the "stormchaser" became the chased, and I can honestly say I've been about as close to a tornado as I ever really want to be. But, there it is: I had a gig to get to in St Louis, and I had to get some highway behind me.
Well, actually, the show was in a small town outside of St Louis called Pacific, Missouri. It reminded me very much of my home town of Grand Forks BC. About 4000 population, beautiful river flowing through. Again, I'll write more about it when I get time. For now I'll just say I'm very happy I got that gig and I owe many thanks to Paul, Dan, and the rest of the folks who made Pacific such a wonderful experience for me. I had been thinking this may very well be my last tour, but I can't see how I could possibly go home after this and not plan on ever seeing all these folks again.
Left Pacific late yesterday and drove south through Cape Girardeau, crossed the Mississippi, then the Ohio at Cairo (pronounced "kay-roe"), and made my way down to Mayfield Kentucky, arriving at my friend Eddie's house somewhere around midnight. I'm sending this from Eddie's computer. House concert here tonight.
Love to you all.
yer everlovin'...
KENTUCKY
My thanks to all who have emailed me on the road so far. It makes a huge difference, hearing from you-all. Maybe I should say "y'all". Spending so much time around these gentle southerners I think I'm beginning to develop a drawl.
I'm in Mayfield Kentucky, have been here for some days, have done two shows here and am driving south to Birmingham Alabama tomorrow.
Across the plains I was chased by tornadoes. Now I have to stay a step ahead of the very serious floods coming this way from just north of here. And in a few days I'll be in Bay St Louis Mississippi, just outside of New Orleans. I hope it's not hurricane season (grin).
Great tour so far, good rooms, beautiful people. I'm making lots of new friends and already thinking about touring down here again in 2010 or 2011, only at a cooler time of year, like October.
more later,
yer everlovin'...
ALABAMA/FLORIDA
Left Kentucky a few days ago, drove through Tennessee, down to Birmingham Alabama and found my way to the home of one of the best presenters I've had the pleasure of performing for, guy named Keith Harrelson, used to own the Moonlight Music Cafe in Birmingham, where I played last time I was there. This time I got the chance to drive around a little bit, out into the Alabama countryside, drove until I "got it", could say I understood why the people who live there love it like they do. I've seldom seen such lush and luxurient terrain.
So far I have to say, if I needed to choose two adjectives for the South, one for the weather and one for the earth, I would have to go with "dramatic" and "gentle". Right from Missouri on down to the Gulf.
The Gulf Of Mexico.
After my visit to Birmingham, late-night conversations with Keith, playing for the good folks at the Red Rain Boutique...I left yesterday morning and drove yet further south, into the Florida panhandle and right down to Pensacola. I have friends here who I met when they were vacationing up in Cherryville BC a few years ago. I arrived at their house yesterday, hot, sweating...Theresa brought me in, cracked me a Corona, and led me straight to their outdoor shower so I could cool down. Marty got home from work and we had dinner, then the house started filling with people and I played some songs for them. Played late into the night. Then after everybody'd gone home, Marty went to bed and Theresa and I went out for a walk. We sat on a dock on the edge of a bayou and talked until we were both tired. The bayou was so still it looked like you could walk on it.
Today I'm going to swim in the Gulf Of Mexico. Tomorrow I'm driving into New Orleans, just want to see her.
The people I've met so far, here along the Gulf, are, in a word, enchanting.
for now,
yer everlovin'...
MISSISSIPPI
I took a whole bunch of photos of Bay St Louis and New Orleans, the damage done by Hurricane Katrina and the rebuilding and other stuff too, but didn't realize, about half-way through, that the card in my digital camera was full. So I got some shots of each place but missed some good ones, like that beautiful little street of colourful shops in Bay St Louis, the neon-lit, music-filled and incredibly narrow Bourbon Street in New Orleans, and crossing Lake Pontchartrain on that 30-mile causeway, a bridge so long it fades away ahead of you into the mist, had Lucinda blasting from the deck, WOW! what a drive!
I had hoped to try dirty rice when I was in New Orleans, read about it in a book one time and was curious...went looking for it but, well, I'll just say it got complicated and I was running out of time. But there's a fellow here in Hope Arkansas who says he just may be able to locate a dish of dirty rice somewhere around here, so I haven't given up on that yet...
In Bay St Louis I played for a fantasic bunch of people, maybe none of them actually from Bay St Louis. I met a couple from Sweden, a girl from Venezuela, an Irishman, a Brit or two, a girl from all over, another from Seattle, a man from Minnesota...and there's me, a Canadian, singing for them all in Bay St Louis, on the Gulf Coast of the State of Mississippi. It's a place that attracts a certain kind of human from all corners of the world. Maybe they're all artists...and they don't seem to be intimidated by bad weather...
Got up yesterday, said my goodbyes to the Gulf Coast, and pointed my Jeep north. I play here in Hope Arkansas tonight and tomorrow night, then move on from here to central Kansas.
Hope you're all well, enjoying the summer.
yer everlovin'...
ARKANSAS
Goodbye Hope. Hope Arkansas has been another perfect stop on a perfect tour. It has been so good to see my friend Repha again. She's a stunning Southern beauty. Transplanted from Kansas to Arkansas ten years ago, she's the reigning queen of the Southwest Arkansas Arts Council. I did a house concert here in her home four years ago and later wrote a song in her name which I have waited almost four years to sing to her. She graciously had me back for two shows this trip, and on the second night I did so. It got me a hug, and if you're thinking "big deal, a hug", you haven't had a hug from Repha. I'd travel back here and sing the song again for another one.
I have made a few more good friends here this time, too: a brewmaster and Kansas City transplant named Warren, a songwriter and pinball wizard named Mark and a southern belle named Judy. These folks and the rest of the good people of Hope have made this a hard good-bye.
Repha and Warren gave me a tour of the countryside today, lunch at Old Washington, then a tour of that historic townsite, a little bit of shopping, then they left me with Mark for an ass-whipping at pinball, after which he and I came back to the house and enjoyed a homemade dinner with Repha and Warren: dirty rice! Arkansas style. Cooked up by the lovely Repha herself. After dinner Mark entertained us with his songs.
Do the people in these towns I visit: Spokane, Pacific, Mayfield, Birmingham, Pensacola, Bay St Louis...Hope...do they know how tough it is for me to drive away, having gotten to know them? Do they feel as I do that they are now somewhow part of me?
As I write this I am the only one awake in the house, the world outside is rowdy with cicadas and crickets...tomorrow I drive away, north toward Great Bend Kansas, and from there up into Washington State and finally home to Canada. Two more shows and the tour is done. And don't be misled by the sentimental air of this missive: I'll be glad to be home. I am very much looking forward to holding my wife again, seeing my family and friends, settling back into the working life...
But you know, from now on, when I'm ordering eggs in a restaurant, I'll order them "over ever so gently". It's a Kansas City thing.
yer everlovin'...
KANSAS
I drove up through western Arkansas, across into Oklahoma and up into Kansas, took a room late that night in Wichita. Found out there was a squaredancing convention in Wichita and that 50,000, that is, FIFTY THOUSAND squaredancers, had converged on little old Wichita that night and I was lucky to get any room at all: there had been a cancellation at this one motel and I happened to walk in right then. It was a smoking room, and I don't smoke anymore, much, hardly at all. The room reeked of stale smoke, even the mattress and the bedding, but I put up with it, and I figured I'd shower in the morning and so wouldn't smell of stale smoke when I left the motel. Turns out the towels also reeked of stale tobacco smoke...
Also, the air conditioner came on every ten minutes through the night, sounding like a Mac truck revving beside my bed, ten minutes on, ten minutes off...
People all over the motel were up and walking, or running, or squaredancing around all night, running water, flushing toilets...and the water sung through the pipes sounding like one of those deer whistles you put on the hood of your car, only right beside my ear...
And to top it all off, I guess all of Kansas is "making hay" right now (it's harvest time for the farmers), and the motel owners in Wichita are no exception: 50,000 squaredancers needing rooms means big bucks, so of course the logical thing to is double the rates for that one night: my room cost me $100. I didn't get any sleep and left smelling like a cigarette butt dipped in motel shampoo.
So, I'm driving to Great Bend at six in the morning thinking Great Bend better be good, or I'll not be coming back to Kansas. I was met at the Mickey D's by Don Shorock, the man who gave me the gig, and as soon as I saw him walk in I knew all was well. I'd never met Don before, didn't know what to expect, but I can tell you now: this man is one of a kind, a true music lover and one of the cheeriest people I've ever known. His cheeriness is contagious, and I found it impossible to remain bitter toward Kansas.
I needed sleep, found my way out to the farm where Don had arranged for me to stay, and man you have got to see this place. There is a website at http://www.ksdom.org/index_files/Page7283.htm
that'll give you an idea, but you really oughtta go there if you ever get the chance. I felt so at home there. They gave me a small house to myself and I picked the smallest bedroom with a bed right up against an open window, fell in and slept as if it was my grandparents' farm and it was 1972.
Got up in the afternoon, drove the fifteen miles back into town and met up with Don and his wife Nora Jean for dinner, then down to the venue to do the show. The venue has a website, too: http://bartonarts.org/backroom.html where you can scroll down just a little and click on a video from last night's show. Don's already got it up online, at youtube too!
I had a great time, did a good show, met another roomful of wonderful people, but you know what, I think the true "road" moment, the part of the night that will stay in my memory from this visit to Kansas as a True Touring Experience, the kind of thing which, when I mention it, other players who have been there will smile and nod, was after the show, after everybody has gone home, I've packed up all my gear and I'm in the car alone, and it's that fifteen mile night drive under a starry sky on a deserted road out onto the plains of Kansas, to Heartland Farm where there's a room, a bed, an open window with the night breeze blowing in...a fifteen mile drive back into another time.
Had coffee with Don this morning, well, early afternoon, and then left for a seven-hour drive to Denver, where I am now, at my daughter's house, visiting the grandkids for a day before I head out on my final drive, back up into northern Washington State to do my last show in Danville, ten minutes from my home across the border in Canada. Hit a heavy wind storm on the way today, blowing raw dust and rain in through the car window, saw a small twister but didn't get a photo. It was quite small, a whirlwind 40 to 60 feet high blowing dirt and dust around out in a field. I pulled over as quickly as I could on that highway, but it's the I-70 and everybody's doing 80 miles an hour. I got my camera turned on but by then the thing had morphed into just a billowing cloud of dust. I did get a picture of that, for what it's worth.
You probably won't hear from me again until I'm home, the day after my Danville show. That'll be July 1st, Canada Day, I'll be driving into Grand Forks about one in the afternoon, looking around the town, at the people, the festivities, looking for my Nora Jean. If you're a deejay or a talk show host and you're feeling kindly, you might play "Nora Jean" from Hurricane Of Tenderness right about that time.
Wish me well in Danville. If Danville goes well that'll make this a perfect tour.
yer everlovin'...
TOUR’S END
Danville was awesome. A house concert in a beautiful mountain home, just five minutes from the Canadian border. The host and hostess were gracious and the audience was an absolute pleasure to play to. It was the capper to a perfect tour. I don't think there's a single aspect of this tour that I would change, or could improve.
I can't, right at this moment, sum up or adequately describe what this experience has meant to me. I think it'll take some time for me to understand. When I am able, then I'll write about it.
I consumed too much beer after the Danville show, I guess I just kind of let loose, celebrating the end of the tour, giddy even without the beer at having pulled it off. I hope I didn't make too big an ass of myself. Arrived home to Grand Forks about 2 PM, in the middle of the Canada Day celebrations. "It's good to see all my family again" is a gross understatement. It's bloody wonderful, is what it is. Had chicken dinner at my mom's house this evening: my son and his wife, my granddaughter, my brother and his wife, and of course my own Nora Jean, were all there. That's my mom's favorite thing, a noisy houseful of hungry, happy people, enjoying her cooking.
I'm going to take a few days to get back into my normal life, making the switch from touring musician back to travelling seafood guy, going out in the fish truck on Saturday for a 12-day run.
As I left home for my first show in Spokane just over a month ago, I was 98% certain this would be my last tour. The expense of it all, the time away from home and work, but mostly the fear. I was going out on the road to face my own personal monster, and would have accepted almost any excuse, any reason, to just go home, pick up the phone and make eight calls, take about ten minutes, cancel the whole thing. Maybe this sounds overly dramatic to you, but I would rather have fought lions barehanded than drive into a strange town, walk into a strange room, get up in front of a bunch of strangers and sing. It was playing a few too many of the wrong kind of room that just about killed me three years ago, and the fear of going back out there was almost too much for me to face. I am very happy to be able to report that that fear has been conquered, and I will certainly tour again, if only to see my friends once more. The presenters who brought me to their towns, into their homes, cafes and concert halls this June have, each one, helped me step from a dark shadow, back into the sun. I need to express my heartfelt thanks to them all. Tom, Theresa, Paul, Dan, Eddie, Paula and Royce, Keith, Theresa and Marty, Alicein and Martin, Repha and Warren, Don and Nora Jean, James, John and Sherri, Brenda and Eric: thank you for giving me the right kind of room. I hope we can do this again in a year or two.
And thank all of you who have followed me from State to State through these newsletters, I wish I could take you all with me in my Jeep, but it's good to know you're at least with me here. And if there are any of you who would like or be willing to have me come out to do a house concert, just let me know and I'll add you to my next tour.
Well, until some other newsworthy thing happens, you-all treat each other well, keep safe, and enjoy the summer.
yer everlovin'...
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