Tom Mason: Journal

America!! Sept 12-Nov. 24

Okay! It’s been a long time since I wrote here, and it’s not due to some idea that Europe is superior to the United States. No, I’ve been traveling since I got back, writing, taking beautiful pictures, and loading them all onto my laptop computer. Unfortunately, my hard drive crashed, and all the pictures and words disappeared. But let me tell you, it was all great!! A day after I arrive, Dobe Newton, legendary Australian and lead singer of the Bushwhackers, Australia’s greatest folk rock band, comes to visit for the Americana Music Association’s conference. He’s there representing Australian artists, and he has a new solo CD out entitled “A Convict Can’t be Trusted”. The Bushwhackers have been around for thurty some years and do for Australian folk music what the Pogues do for Irish.
On Friday September 18th Red Beet Records held a Happy Hour Showcase celebrating the release of their 3rd East Nashville compilation, which includes my song “Chano Pozo’s Shoes”. I played with some help from Jim Gray, Paul Griffith, Kevin Gordon, and Eric Brace, and accompanied Phil Lee and Audrey Auld on their sets. Great fun, and saw a bunch of folks from near and far that I hadn’t seen in a while.
That Saturday night I was resting up for a Phil Lee show, an adjunct event during the AMA Conference, when Dobe called me up from 3rd and Lindsley to let me know an AMA act hadn’t shown up, and to ask if I could do my part to come to the aid of Americana. I got out of bed, grabbed my instruments, shot over to 3rd & L, and jumped on stage. I coerced Wallflower and great guy Fred Eltringham to play guiro on “Chano Pozo’s Shoes” and Dobe and Webb Wilder to sing on “The Pirate Song”. After the set, I sped over to my gig with Phil at Douglas Corner. Imagine my surprise when Dobe showed me the Tennessean the following morning!

After a fine week of learning about Tennessee history from an Australian (Dobe), I caught a plane to Minneapolis/St. Paul to see my family and perform on a boat in the great Mississppi river. From there I flew to Pennsylvania for some gigs with Phil in the little town of Bethlehem (Godfrey Daniels, legendary spot) and the littler town of Barto (Landhaven B & B: tremendous!). Both were great, and we took a side trip to the Martin Guitar factory, where we were given the greatest tour ever by designer, artist rep, and long time Martin man Dick Boak. We met some great people in Pennsylvania, and played with a keyboard player named Gene who had been in a band with Phil when they were teenagers back in the 1860’s.
That Sunday we went into New York City and appeared on Dave Marsh’s Sirius radio show and had lunch with Dave, his engineer, and an incredibly knowledgeable guest and good guy whose name is in my old hard drive.
After a brief stop in Nashville, we headed down to New Orleans to play at a cool club called Chickie Wah Wah. We also toured the Voodoo Museum and had coffee and beignets at Cafe Du Monde, both Phil and I dressed in black, and somehow managing to avoid being totally covered in powdered sugar.
From New Orleans we went to the Catfish Festival in Conroe Texas, meeting up with such dignitaries as
Mike Smith, Mark Germino, Steve and Jubal Lee Young, Kevin and Dustin Welch, and some fine local folks whose names are hidden in my hard drive.
From Conroe we were off to an extended stay in Austin. In addition to our gig at the Cactus Cafe with Steve Young, I got to do session with Steady Freddie Krc and go kayaking on Austin’s Town Lake, where I was greeted by swans. (More fine photos lost for now.)
After Austin we went to the legendary Blue Door in Oklahoma City, a great venue with only a blue door as a sign, a fact that hasn’t kept it from being a successful venue for years. Greg Johnson and company have been hosting some of my favorite acts for years, as well as creating a tribute to Oklahoma’s favorite son, Woody Guthrie.
On Saturday we were off to the little town of Chester Arkansas, where for the second year running we played at Royal Wade Kimes’ Trail Ride. A beautiful setting in northeast Arkansas, playing for genuine cowboys and cowgirls.
After a few days home, I was off to Ashland and Harrisonburg Virginia with Last Train Home. It was the perfect weekend for a drive with Eric and Jimmy along the Blue Ridge mountains and through the back roads of Virginia, the autumn colors bursting. (I’ll have to get some of Eric’s photos, though he didn’t have the one of me standing next to the town sign of “Cuckoo, Virginia”.) Last Train Home’s fans are the greatest, and responded with gusto when Eric threw me the spotlight for The Pirate Song, Chano Pozo, and other songs.
After that weekend, I got to spend some long awaited time home, during which time my computer crashed and, on a better note, my wife Pru returned from seven weeks in Australia.

The beginning of November brought another string of dates with Phil, starting in Fort Myers, Florida. We stayed with Phil’s old friends Frank and Phillis Greathouse, who run a cool vintage guitar store in Fort Myers called Real Guitars. We played a few nights in Fort Myers and one in Sarasota, a benefit for the wonderful WSLR. Before leaving, we were given the coolest jacket ever by Woody Hanson. Woody’s grandfather was a doctor who worked with the Seminole Indians, and Woody gave us each a beautiful jacket hand-sewn by the Seminoles.
Tom in Seminole jacket c/o Woody Hanson
Tom and Phil in Seminole jackets c/o Woody Hanson

Next it was up to Tampa for a pair of house concerts, the first given by the wonderful Susan Reiss and her Lunazoot House Concerts. Then it was off to our weekend digs and the site of out next gig, Gram’s Place. Gram’s Place is a cool sprawling hostel in Tampa started in 1991 by the late Mark Holland, a big fan of Gram Parsons, and now run by his brother Bruce. The rooms are spread out through two houses, with a funkily comfortable courtyard where we performed that Sunday afternoon. I highly recommend Gram’s as a cheap and memorable place to stay on the road.

Speaking of cheap and memorable places to stay, our lodging the next night, on the way to Savannah, Georgia, was the Hostel in the Forest, an environmentalist’s dream destination, just outside of Brunswick. The rooms are all second-story dwellings nestled in the forest. The whole place is set up to create the least waste possible. The trails through the woods are covered in white sand and wildly shaped boardwalks, so that I was able to go on a nice walk at night. Every guest is required to perform a chore when they stay, whether it be sweeping, cleaning the communal kitchen, or maintaining trails. I woke up to the sound of roosters crowing, and when I played my guitar on my stairs in the morning, dozens of chickens gathered around. I believe I’ve found my demographic. Chicken-pickin’. Cock-rock.

From there we went to the Beautiful town of Savannah. I’d been there a few years back when I was on the “Ring of Fire” tour, and had a few days to check out the historic district, rent a bicycle, and even go on a ghost tour. Phil and I played at the Sentient Bean coffeehouse on the edge of the historic district, and got a bit of a chance to roam around. After the show we had pizza at Vinnie Van Gogh’s (great!) with
Phil’s old friend and one time Dylan guitarist Jack Sherman.
The following night’s gig in Raleigh was cancelled, so we blew off a guest spot that Thursday and headed home the next morning. After crossing the Georgia/Tennessee state line, I got a call from the Sommet Center in downtown Nashville, and my friend Nancy had been given an extra ticket to the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert. They put on the best show imaginable, playing the entire Born to Run album as well as plenty of requests, including an impromptu version of “Ring of Fire”, a song I played hundreds of times as a cast member of the Broadway show of the same name.

I had a great few days off, with a little time for recovery (I’d caught a cold in Florida, go figure) and on Saturday Phil and I headed back east to play at Bentz Kirby’s Alien House Concert in Columbia South Carolina. After the long drive we had a wonderful time at Bentz’s. The show was a gas, and we met a lot of cool new friends, including the other performer Elaine Townsend, who I joined on stage for a number and returned the favor by playing on “Pirate Song” and Phil’s “Babylon”.

I’ll gradually add more photos to these recollections, either from other sources or perhaps I can find a mad scientist to conjure up the ones on my old hard drive. But for now, I’m off to practice my Christmas songs!!

On Thursday, August 27th, we arrived in the City of Cork, me sporting a bruise from the Blarney Stone. I loved the city immediately. It is Ireland’s second largest city (200,000) after Dublin (2 million), and it has a great European feel to it. The Corner House Pub is off McCurtain Street, a lively place with bookstores, a great traditional Irish music store, coffee shops, a theatre, and plenty of pubs. We stopped at the venue and then went to the York St. B & B to check in, and met the lovely Monica and her three grandchildren, Rosey, Ruby, and Louie. They asked their grandmother if we were pirates, so we sat them down for an inspired version of “The Pirate Song”.

The Corner House Pub, Cork

Phil’s gig was put on by the Cork Blues Club, and they were an attentive audience, despite the roar of the crowd behind them. Our hosts were a blues trio, and we met some great folk, including Peter Harding, a big music fan who had stumbled across Phil’s first record ten years ago.

On Friday afternoon we drove down to the seaside town of Kinsale, parked in front of the pub where we were playing, and Rob and I walked up to tour Charles Fort, a structure built in the mid seventeenth century and used until the Irish republican rebels burned it in the 1920’s. The fortitude and impenetrability of it led our tour guide call it a “monument to paranoia”.
Charles Fort
Kinsale Harbor

We returned to the pub in time for the sunset on the harbor, and I struck up a conversation with a wonderful 70 year-old chap named Michael, who cranked up a Sydney Bechet CD in his car while we watched the sun go down. The pub was nice, the people were nice, but the gig was a bit of a challenge due to the roar of conversation.
Michael
Kinsale Sunset

The next day we meandered down to Peter Harding’s shop, and he outfitted us with great Celtic design belts. His shop has that great leather smell, and is decorated with some of his favorite Albums, as well as an old photo of Dylan walking down a Paris Street. Though we were a bit late for Saturday market, the streets were alive, and it was a great day for a walk. Later we played at the LV pub, a last minute fill in show provided by good guy Ronnie Costley. There was a comedy show going on at the same time, and after we all finished I had nice conversation with a veteran comic named Pat O’Shea.
Peter Harding, Phil, Me
The Belt Shop
Sign in Cork

The next few days were spent Kris-crossing Ireland, with Sunday in Dundalk, Monday in Galway, and Tuesday in Dublin. In Dundalk we played at a music venue called the Spirit Store, and before our set I sat in with the local weekly traditional music jam, who play every Sunday from 6-9. I tried my best to lay down chords behind the button accordionists and fiddlers, and they insisted I sing a few songs. In Galway we played at the legendary Roisin Dubh, and they put us up in a comfortable flat around the corner. Though I didn’t get as much time to walk around Galway much, I loved what I saw, canals weaving through the town. I can’t wait to go back. When we do, we’ll try our best not to break the key off in the door of the flat again.
Galway Canal
The Roisin Dubh, Galway

We arrived for our brief visit to Dublin late Tuesday afternoon, and it was electric. We were playing in the Temple Bar area near Trinity college, a wonderful mess of winding cobblestone streets filled with people. Dublin seems to have maintained it’s Irishness while hosting a greatly varied international community. I just love the energy of a city of people crowding the streets on foot, out of the insulation of cars. We met up with two great Dubliners, Stephen Averill and Ronnie Norton, for an interview and photo session. We played a short set of Phil’s tunes at a weekly benefit for the homeless called “The Ruby Sessions”, and the large crowd was the most attentive we had in Ireland, so much so that when Phil’s guitar didn’t work during the first song, the whole place could hear us play it acoustically.
Ronnie & Stephen
Me & My Monkey

The following morning we caught the ferry from Roselear to Fishgard, Wales, a three hour ride. From Fishgard Rob drove all the way across Wales and England to London through a heavy rain trying to get to the Leytonstone
Area of London for a show at What’s Cookin’. After missing a few exits and creeping our way through the clogged London traffic, we made it to the club at 9:00, our scheduled time to play. There was a full house at this weekly event, held in the upstairs of the Sheep’s Head pub, and the stage was decorated in a crazy fusion of Tex-Mex and funeral parlor, with a painting of Freddy Fender riding a horse behind the stage. We were sandwiched between Georgia songwriter Adam Klein and the Ugly Guys, London pub rock veterans who played revved-up Gram Parson inspired country rock. They wouldn’t be that out of place on Nashville’s Lower Broadway. Host and ringmaster Stephen Ferguson gets a good loyal crowd for What’s Cookin’, and promised us a few slots next time we’re in London.
“The White Cliffs of Dover” (Liz Young sang beautifully of them in Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s “Richard the Third”)

After a much needed day off in Sheerness, we boarded a ferry from Dover to Calais, a relatively short ride on what Rob called the world’s busiest waterway.
We took some time to enjoy our short time in France, and I practiced my French on Rob and Phil, who seemed quite impressed. (I was a little less eloquent when it came to speaking to people who knew French.)
Friterie, which is French for “place to fritter away your time with Claudia”
The Pirates of Calais
Calaisian Peacock

On the way out of Calais we picked up a pair of hitch-hikers, a pair of young idealistic Brits named Marion and Sylvie, who were headed to Romania via Berlin. They had spent a few days in Calais, working at a squatter’s camp of refugees who’d been denied entrance to the UK. They had a world changing spirit that I had at that age, when I hung out with anti-nuke protesters in the native American neighborhood of Minneapolis, though I seemed a whole lot more naive. We took them through Belgium and let them off outside Utrecht, during a brief lull in the rain.

After a long day of driving we arrived in the northeast Netherlands town of Delfstijl, at the home of DJ Roel Stabler. We were greeted warmly by his wife Tineke their enormous dog “Dog”, who is big enough for Phil to put a saddle on and ride to the next gig. We crossed the street to their neighbor Mario’s garage in which he has a full bar. There over multiple drinks Tineke and Mario’s partner Ina tried unsuccessfully to teach me to speak Dutch. They put us up for the night and in the morning gave us a feast before conducting a remote radio interview in their home.
Roel and Tineke
Ina, Mario, and Martin

From there we went to another radio interview, with Johanna Bodde at Radio Winschoten. Johanna had really done her research, and after a lengthy interview we played four songs, including my “Ramblin’”. From the studio window you could see the big old windmill in the center of town, a block away. I say “old” because Holland is filled with old windmills and new windmills, which I wouldn’t be surprised if they powered the country, judging by the number.
Modern Dutch Windmills
The windmill outside Radio Winschoten

From Winschoten we drove somewhat circuitously to our evening show in Spijkerboor, stopping to ask directions a few time and even going so far as to buy a map. (Once again frittering our money away on luxuries like maps!) Spijkerboor is a tiny village and the venue, the Café t’Keerpunt was an inn at the end of a canal where the workers on the canal would spend the night. The audience was great, singing with gusto (in a foreign language!) on “The Pirate Song” and Phil’s “Rat’s Lips”. After the show we stayed at the home of Jan and Maria in an even smaller village. Their home is beautiful, with a canal running through the back and a pair of horses in the yard.
Jan & Maria’s back yard

On Sunday we drove to Hoorn on the western peninsula of the Netherlands, crossing the Afsluitdijk, the 20 mile dike that was built in the 1930’s, forming the big inland sea. I’m not going to pretend to understand it, but it has effectively changed what was once a huge bay into a lake fed by rivers, with a mixture of salt and fresh water. The ocean side is some twenty feet above the inland side, and from what I gather the levels are maintained by energy supplied by windmills and regulated by canals throughout the country.
Afsluitdijk
Dike builders

We arrived in Hoorn, which was once a shipping center and home to some of Holland’s wealthiest merchants. The sight of everyone riding bicycles made me feel like we’d arrived in some kind of Utopia. The organizer of the show, Nico, met us at the train station (on his bicycle!) and we followed him to his friend Hank’s house, the site of the house concert. After the show Nico showed us around Hoorn, with it’s winding cobblestone streets, old buildings built at an angle so that they seemed to lean in on the streets at the top, and the wonderful lack of traffic, apart from pedestrians and BICYCLES!! The streets were clean, the people looked healthy and happy, and I felt like I’d found a bit of heaven on earth.
Hoorn Canal
Hoorn Unicorn, their mascot. (I KNEW they existed!)
Dutch Quisine

On Monday morning we set off for northwestern Germany to be interviewed by Hermann Lammars Meyer, a country DJ, songwriter, and steel guitarist. He took us to the ice cream parlor in his village, which served Ice Cream that looked like spaghetti, and then we went back to his house for an interview and some songs. After sitting down for a great German meal made by his wife Anka, Hermann, Phil and I sat on his back porch and recorded an hour of trading tunes for Rob’s monthly radio program for ukcountryradio.com (including a German language version of “Up Against The Wall Redneck Mother”). Hermann and Anka have a great back yard abutted by a cornfield, and their apple tree bears the best apples I’ve had in years.
German Spaghetti Ice Cream
Hermann Lammars Meyer

On Tuesday we returned to the Netherlands and the town of Leeuwarden to meet up with DJ Mathijn de Wit and his fiancé Ling. After a delicious vegetarian meal we all drove to Dokkum for his program Tuesday Night Americana Club. That night we crashed at their apartment, and woke up to a feast of pastries and great conversation.
Me, Martijn,Phil & Rob
With Martijn and Ling
Dutch Bicycles

Wednesday marked our last performance, in the fantastically named Bergen op Zoom in southern Holland, a live taping for Dutch radio also featuring the American blues-rock band Frank Carillo and the Bandeleros. We washed up at our host Bert van Kessel’s house and then headed to the venue, nestled in an old part of a historic city, meeting up with the agent Joanna and radio presenter Jos. The program is taped in front of an audience in a building that’s been around for centuries, and the neighboring dressing rooms were being used by actors of all skills donning medieval garb for the dress rehearsal of a massive outdoor theater production, taking place on three stages, two on the grounds of the castle a few blocks away. The enormous stage behind our building featured multiple levels and a two story projection screen that showed both traditional scenes of the canals and city, and films of the actors that moved the plot along. After our set Phil caught a part of the show that involved pyrotechnics, and later Rob and I saw some of the show, which was actually the dress/ tech rehearsal. One day I hope some philanthropist will give the Nashville Shakespeare Festival that kind of budget. (I’m crazy about outdoor theater, theater for the masses.) Later Bert played us some rare Sir Douglas Quintet recordings and he and I argued playfully about songwriting.
Bergen op Zoom actors
Bergen op Zoom Set
Bergen op Zoom dress rehearsal

On Friday the three of us planned to celebrate the end of the tour by taking in some of Amsterdam, hitting the Van Gogh Museum and wandering the red light district, but the search for the ferry docks ruled that out, as the ferries actually leave from the town of Ijmueden, half an hour away. No matter, as the ferry itself was a fun, goofy experience in itself, a mini-cruise complete with a six piece cover band, a dance troupe, and a solo guitarist (all Bulgarian), and a karaoke show , as well as a cinema (of sorts), and plenty of decks on which to enjoy the North Sea air. The waves rocking me to sleep in our little cabin inspired me to get back to work on my sea-faring songs.

The Ferry to Newcastle
Tynemouth Priory from the sea, four weeks after seeing it by land.

Friday we disembarked in Newcastle, and Rob began that final drive to Edinburgh, dropping Phil and I off at an airport hotel before heading back to the Highlands. What a great guy, just thrilled about music, exposing people all over to songwriters and musicians. Many a time on our tour he opted to sleep in the van, and he was at every show showing support and seeming to enjoy it, in the face of all the crankiness that comes with touring. He was a great tour guide, and I already miss that Scottish accent. The best part was that it was “See ya later” instead of “goodbye”.
Rob waving goodbye.

I found out that double-decker buses bound for downtown Edinburgh stopped every ten minutes outside our hotel, so after settling in I went to the city to take in Scotland (and the UK) one last time, and on that late Friday afternoon it was perfect, climbing the hill to the castle built into the rock above the city and wandering back on ancient cobblestone streets past pubs and parks, past the national gallery and other sites to take in on future visits, listening to accents and foreign tongues, and finally getting back on the bus, sitting in the front row of the top, and watching the sun set during the ride back to the airport hotel.
Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Streets
Edinburgh busker
Sunset. (The plane represents us leaving Scotland. However, we were not actually on that plane. I was standing in the grass taking the picture, and wouldn’t leave until well after sunrise the next day.)

Minster Workingman’s Club, Isle of Sheppey

On Monday August 18th we performed at the Minster Folk Club, held at the Minster Working Men’s Club (the irony of us performing there was not lost on Phil and me) on the Isle of Sheppey. The Working Men’s Club is right next door to one of the oldest churches in England, the Minster Abbey, in a lovely hilltop town that looks over the sea on one side and the island on the other. The folk club meets in a room with an actual stage, and on our night five local singers each sang a song, I did a set, and then brought Phil up. It was great to hear the local blokes, including a folk trio, one who sang “Broke Down” by Rod Picott, and a version of “Sunday Morning Coming Down”, a song which I still have yet to tire of after performing so many times in “Ring of Fire”. They were a great audience, and (perhaps due to their proximity to the sea) were the best chorus yet for “The Pirate Song”.
Minster Abbey
These guys were collecting money for the Sheerness town festival, a tradition that’s been going on for years. Holly says they only still get away with it because Sheerness is an island, and that they scared her as a little girl. Scary is right.
The Isle of Sheppey played a major role in WWII, and there are still reminders on the waterfront.

On August 19th we left for York, a long drive in English, and were smooth sailing until we hit Doncaster, where the motorway was completely closed down due to a wreck. When we finally got to York, the satellite navigational system on Phil’s phone (dubbed "the Oracle" by Rob) placed us across the river from the club, and after asking dozens of people where the club was and how to get close to it, Phil came back with the super friendly manager Joe, who climbed in and took us there. York is a beautiful Roman walled city with Yorkminster cathedral, and great tiny winding street like the shambles. Though York itself was kind of a madhouse due to the influx of drunken tourist there for the annual horse races, we played at a hip place called the basement bar, on the ground floor of a venue called City Screen which houses another venue, cinemas ,and restaurants. There were two opening acts besides myself, a filmmaker/bluesman named Alex, who reminded me of a very young John Koerner, and GT, who had an early Tom Waits vibe going. Upon hearing that we'd neglected to secure lodging for the night, GT offered up his flat, a temporary squat that's the caretaker flat of a great hotel that is under renovation. The Hotel is a block from Yorkminster Cathedral and right in the midst of the great scenic city centre of York. The four story hotel and its pub is called The Judges, as it was built in the early 1700's as the mansion of a Judge, and these days there is a great gated patio (where we parked the van) for the Pub, which is open during renovation and where GT sometimes works. After the gig we went there, divvied up beds and mattresses, Rob went to van to cook up some sandwiches, and GT, Joe, a gent named Johnny sat around with us listening to bootlegs and talking. In the morning the far-too-early beer delivery man woke us up, giving us a chance to see Yorkminster, get a guided tour of the Shambles by GT, and feast on fine breakfast and conversation with the publican Andy.

The Judges
York’s Roman Wall
York Minster Cathedral
Rob & Tom in York

On Thursday, August 20 we rode through the English countryside from Liverpool to Glasgow, through high rolling hills passing Jersey cows, sheep. Cloudy and a bit rainy, unlike the rest of our trip. Really lovely place, old stone walls, mountains or moors in the distance, the sea off to the side. On Wednesday we stayed in Little Neston, south of Liverpool and just north of Wales, with Phil and Leslie Norman (Phil and I ) and Billy and Pauline Norman (Rob), in ultra clean modern houses. Billy Mason and Phil Norman have a duo called Upturned Collar, and they got a lot of airplay on BBC Mercybeat radio (Billy Butler) with their recording of "Just Some Girl", struck a chord with many a scouse, so the four of us performed it on air yesterday. (It was so popular they aired it again the next day.) We went to a pub called the Harp and a Chinese restaurant that evening in Neston, the village south of Liverpool where they live, which overlooks the bog and river, and Wales in the distance.
BBC Merseyside, Liverpool
Phil N, Pauline, Leslie, Billy, and Rob, at Harp Inn

Billy has a lovely tradition of giving traveling performers sandwiches, and both couples sent us away with a feast of all sorts: sandwiches, cheese sticks, shortbread, fruit, cokes and juice, and crisps. Next tour we’ll make sure that Liverpool is on the way to every gig.

We couldn’t just speed away from Mecca, so we headed back into Liverpool and went to the Beatles Experience museum at the Albert docks. It’s a great show, with a cool recreation of the Cavern, the office of Merseybeat magazine, and a special exhibit about John & Yoko’s bed-in for peace. Even though I’m a big fan of the Beatles and always have been, I kept thinking about the excellent parody film Eric Idle did called “The Rutles: All You Need is Cash”, especially the scene when their record sales rise dramatically when conservative protesters buy Rutles records in order to burn them.

The night of August 20th we got into Glasgow for a radio show on Sunny Gavan Radio, and then headed back to Largs for a night’s rest before a long weekend. We arrived in time for a late night Indian take-away feast provided by Victoria Hotel proprietor and music promoter Tam Skinner, and shared with some local musicians and regulars. Tam is a great guy and friend to musicians, even though at first glance he may seem like a long-haired Scottish gangster. There was a full weekend of music, with Phil and I opening for Baz Warne of the Stranglers in a quiet room on Friday, and all of us playing with London’s Mick Kempe band on Saturday night, and on Sunday jamming with Mick Kempe’s band and later some local guys, Johnny and Alf, as well as enjoying sets by Ronnie Costley and Stretch Dawson.
The Victoria Hotel, Largs

Viking Fish & Chips, Largs (My people preceded me!)

On Saturday we heard that the Highland games were happening on the Isle of Bute, a short drive and a ferry ride, and more importantly, they culminated in a parade of dozens of drum and bagpipe bands. We took the ferry ride from Weymiss Bay to Rothsey and wandered up past an ancient castle complete with a moat, to the sporting grounds. Unfortunately, it was quite the opposite of a Tennessee August, and before long we were freezing our asses off while the kilt wearing officials on the distant stage gave out award after award to various Highland dancers. Finally it was the bagpipers’ turn, and band after band marched out onto the field, wearing different tartan colors, but they too were all blessed with some award or another, and we needed to thaw out, plus we had to catch the ferry back in time for our gig. (Yeah yeah, a Minnesota boy complaining about cold while watching hundreds of people on the field wearing kilts. Speaking of which, I never got around to buying kilts while I was in Scotland. I’d better go back!) We wandered down to a coffee shop, past the crowds gathering for the parade, and then they came, band after band, led by staff-twirling and tossing mascots, the pipes and drums letting out a glorious sound, and I was smiling so wide that one of the drummers broke her stone faced concentration and smiled back. I was in Heaven, I’m still wondering how my songs would sound played with pipe and drum backing. On the ferry back we sat across from an old fellow decked out in full regalia, like, as Rob tells me Harry Lager, a popular music hall comedian.

Largs reminded me of playing in little northern cities years ago, places like Superior Wisconsin, people coming in from the cold on a Saturday night or Sunday afternoon for beer and some songs, never quite thawing out for most of the year. Even the flats had that old rock and roll feel to them, parties seeping out of the walls. In Largs, the musicians and bar staff would all gather in the upstairs bar after hours for a few more drinks and either fine Indian take-away food or a good meal cooked by Jill, Tam’s wife.

On Monday morning Phil, Rob, Peter, Laurie, and I headed out for Stranraer, where we were catching the ferry to Belfast. On the way we happened upon the ruins of Crossraguel Abbey just past the River Doon (Bonny Doon!). We had a private tour, and took a little video footage of me playing dobro, part of a video collage I’ve been making over the past few years.
Crossraguel Abbey, Scotland

After spending the night in a B & B in Stranraer, we boarded a huge ferry to Belfast. We sat with a pair of Scottish horse traders who owned a gypsy wagon, which perked up Rob’s ears, just the thing to draw attention to his traveling musical medicine show.

When we were approaching Belfast, I looked at a map and saw that Carrickfergus was on the north coast of the bay. I first heard Sheila Lawrence sing that song beautifully at a Pat Gallagher St Patrick’s Day gig, and found the Van Morrison & Chieftains version, and I even tried warbling it myself a few times ( though “I’m drunk today, and I’m rarely sober” is one of the few lines that sticks with me.) Just the first of many discoveries ahead.

We wound out way southward out of Northern Ireland, not even noticing the border, and headed to the prehistoric burial mounds at New Grange. There were three sites, and the tours for the New Grange mounds were sold out, so we caught a quick bus for the final tour of Knowth. The extremely dedicated residents from 3000 B.C. managed to transport massive stones great distances and place them in perfect alignment with the sun on summer solstice. The vertical stones that made up the walls of the tombs are etched with one of the biggest collections of Neolithic art. After our tour we headed for the still-unexcavated site of Dowth, another burial mound that archaeologists have yet to completely uncover. We explored, being careful not to disturb the artifacts left by the current caretakers, a herd of sheep.
Ancient burial mound at Knowth, in Ireland
Neolithic Art, Knowth
Me standing atop ancient burial ground at Dowth

Our tour guides at Dowth


On Wednesday, Phil, Rob, and I headed to the west Coast for a show at Dolan’s in Limerick. Dolan’s is a great venue, with a downstairs pub with food that features traditional Irish music seven nights a week, the music hall upstairs where Phil and I played, and a big rock and roll room out back. Mick Dolan and his crew welcomed us heartily, and after sound check Phil went to the dressing room to gugg (warm up his voice) and I headed off to explore the immediate area. When I returned, I struck up a conversation with a Nick Lowe look-alike named Bof and his friend Jo. After our set Bof heard we hadn’t secured lodging for the night and invited us to stay, so after the show we popped over to his flat. Bof worked for a few circuses in the past and one of his jobs was taking care of an elephant in a Dutch circus, so his place has cool elephant carvings everywhere.
Dolan’s, Limerick
Clock Tower, Limerick

The River Shannon
Our new friends, Jo & Bof

We headed next to the city of Cork in the County Cork, stopping on the way for a morning repast on a little side road near Churchtown.

Chef Robert
The restaurant at Churchtown
The restaurant's sign
The view from the restaurant

On our way from Limerick to Cork, we saw the signs for Blarney Castle, home of the legendary Blarney Stone, which, when kissed, gives the kisser the gift of eloquence. Well, being songwriters and all, we had to stop. We paid our ten euros to get in and saw the beautiful ruins before us, along with scores of tourists. If I hadn’t seen the castle, I would have thought I was at Graceland. At Graceland you can have your photo taken standing in front of the gates, provided you pay the $10 for the picture at the end of the tour. At Blarney, after winding your way up the narrow spiral staircases behind other tourists (“oh, jeez Barb, I don’t think I can make it!”), you get in line to have your upper torso lowered into place to kiss the Blarney stone quickly while your photo is taken, available at the end of the tour for 10 euro. Well, there were a lot of anxious tourists, one weary old guy helping them all into place, and a light rain was starting to fall, so the old guy was trying to get them all through as quickly as possible. I took my position and he lowered me to kiss the wall and unintentionally (I assume) butted my forehead against the Blarney Stone while pulling me up and shouting “Next!”. Now I know I must have kissed the stone, but all I could think of is the knot growing on my forehead.

(The photo I didn't purchase)

I’m sure the Blarney Stone must be sending me a message, but I can’t quite figure out what it is. “Shut up and play your guitar”? “Don’t get fresh with me, Yank”? “You need all the eloquence you can get”? It will all come to light soon enough, in a meadow of four-leaf clovers.

We did, unlike many of our brethren who were winding from the steps, take a good walk around the rest of the grounds, where there was a druid stone circle (real), and a witches den and kitchen (dunno), all very nice. We got back in the van and headed to Cork. I crawled in the back and slept, eloquently.

On Friday morning we went to the Belladrum Festival, held on a Victorian estate outside Beauly, Scotland, where we’d be camping over the weekend. Lugging all our belongings through the about-to-open fairgrounds to the Potting Shed stage, where Rob Ellen puts on his medicine show, a string of performances by up and coming artists, and a place for impromptu collaborations between artists. The area behind the stage was a cluster of tents and the Medicine Van, Rob’s headquarters for the weekend. We stowed our stuff in a tent and walked off to find some good Scottish fair food, as well as chasing down the artist liaison for meal tickets. I opted to postpone the haggis experience, settling for some other local fare. When I got back to the Potting shed stage Tim Scott and Matt Morrow invited me and Australian transplant/slide guitar bluesman Gypsy Dave join them onstage. (I didn’t taake any photos at Belladrum. Others did, and I’ll find them.)


After the set I was pulled away by the beautiful sound of a crazy Slavic sound and saw a troupe playing out in the open, dressed in black and red, playing the most alluring gypsy music on sousaphone, accordion, sax, trumpet, violin, clarinet and drums. They were entertaining a crowd and drumming up business for their performance at the Hothouse stage. They were wild, Pied Pipers of Hamelin to my inner rat. It was clear that I would have to divide my attention between them and Nashville comrade Tommy Womack’s set at the Grass Roots stage. A few hours later Tommy, Phil and I, joined by Gypsy Dave, did a set called the Nashville All-Stars (not the first time I’d worked under that moniker), two songs apiece. Tommy played the first song I ever learned on guitar, the Velvet’s “I’m Waiting for My Man” (thanks to my brother Chris), and during Jemima I ran to the truck and grabbed a bass and Mark Dean Ellen jumped on the drums. When my turn came Isaac Sutherland grabbed the bass for a full tilt version of “Little Walter”.

After our set I went to a great performance at a stage called “side burns”, a celebration of the bicentennial of the writer Robert Burns birth, called The Burns Homecoming. I learned about it from Cross eyed gals accordionist /singer Lisa, whose husband Bruce Macgregor played fiddle for the performance. The performance started with the three musicians (Bruce, Andy on keyboards, and a fine acoustic guitarist) playing a few Scottish traditional numbers, and then they were joined by a singer and by an actor named Hamish, who read wonderful poems and stories in old Scottish inspired by Robert Burns. Though I could only understand half of what he was saying due to the old manner of speaking, ( even a Scot told me they didn’t catch it all), the performance was incredible, and funny. There were touches of current events, like a rant about Bush and weapons of mass destruction, spoken in an ancient tongue, ending with a re-telling of Burns’ hallucinatory tale Tam O’Shanty, with the audience hanging on every word that they could understand. Through the performance the musicians segued seamlessly from style to style, at one point moving from a cool noir jazz feel to a Scottish reel, and between spoken word pieces the singer sang beautiful songs, some familiar to the crowd and some not. The performance ended with the musicians playing some traditional Scottish fiddle tunes, and the crowd was invited to dance. Two women were standing next to me, Sue and Heather, on break from their booth that sold African drums and jewelry and didgeridoos, and Sue invited me out to do this extremely popular Scottish dance (before I had a chance to observe!), and was very patient with me as I twirled the wrong way, stepped on feet, and laughed as we danced around in circles with all the other couples.

After half a haggis roll (these things take time), I caught a bit of Glen Tilbrook’s great set, hit the potting stage again, and then found the Macdonalds, who graciously invited me to stay in their teepee. At Belladrum there is a camping area devoted to teepees that sleep up to ten people, and it was quite luxurious by festival standards, with a fire burning in the center to ward off the cold night.

(Belladrum Concert Photos by Carol Keith - © eFestivals.co.uk)

Saturday I showered (luxury!) and hunted down some coffee, wondered around the festival, and made it back for a fun set by Highland Cajun group the Cross-eyed gals, one of whom is Swedish (Sophie), and another who is not a gal (John, her husband), and I joined them on stage for the Randy Weeks song “Can’t Let Go”. I caught a bit of a cool young band 30 Miles to Breakfast future touring companions Robby Hecht and Carrie Elkin, Joe Cassidy and his band, and then went to warm up for Phil’s big gig at the grassroots stage. The show went well, and we had enough room up on that stage for the Rockettes to join us for our big dance routine. After the show we were interviewed by Kriss Ritchie for Panda films, and then I went back to the potting stage to throw together a band of Scots for my abbreviated set. I had Phil on drums Gypsy Dave, Matt Morrow, Lisa & Sophie, and Isaac on bass, and the crowd singing along on the Pirate Song, I had a great time. After that Phil and I ran off to do a live radio interview (he played the tender “25 Mexicans” while the rock band on the main stage pounded away), and then were filmed by John Dingwall of the Glasgow daily record. After that, I took in several bits of performances, including a combination burlesque and drag show, and hung around solving the world’s problems with my new friends.

Sunday after striking the tents we climbed in Rob’s Medicine Show Van with Carrie Elkin and Robbie Hecht and started heading towards Glasgow for a radio show, passing through the beautiful highlands, driving along Loch Ness (no monster) and Loch Lachy, and a quick look at Rob Roy’s gravesite. Suddenly traffic stopped due to a motorcycle accident, and we were marooned with dozens and dozens of other cars in a picturesque mountain pass, complete with a bridge over a waterfall a quarter mile away. Rob made tea for us all and we broke out the guitars and took in the moment.

(Traffic jam location. Not so bad!)

Needless to say, we didn’t get to Glasgow in time for the interview, and soon we were consulting maps, GPS systems, oracles, and tea leaves to find our way to the coastal town of Largs, where we were to stay for the night above the Victoria Hotel, a venue to which we’re returning on August 21st. We arrived to the last of the Sunday night revelers, and the owner Tam treated us like royalty opening the upstairs bar to us and running off to use his connections to procure us some pizza and Indian take-away long after the restaurants had closed. After a weekend camping in the midst of eight stages and twelve hours in the Medicine Van, the rooms above the bar suited us quite nicely. We had checked in during at midnight during a drizzling haze, and woke to a sunny day looking out over the Firth of Clyde (Firth being the Scottish word for a fjord or mouth of a river). I’m looking forward to our three day stint there.


On Monday, with our ever capable ringleader Rob at the wheel, the five of us drove to Newcastle and to Tynemouth, where we played at a house concert in a great neighborhood two blocks from the waterfront. The next morning Robby and Carrie fled to Birmingham, and I went to the beach, took off my shoes, and had my feet massaged by the sea and sand, and then took a wander around the ruins of the Tynemouth Priory, which due to its loation still ad armaments from World War II, and over the centuries was attacked by a variety of adversaries.

(Me in front of my rustic fixer-upper)

(I feel like Slim Pickens!)
Tuesday afternoon we took the short drive to Stanley and the South Causely Inn, a pub/hotel surrounded by stables, where we played at the Stanley folk club. Four local acts (including Jack B., the host) opened the show, and for the first time on this tour I did an entire opening set, which felt great playing for such an attentive crowd. Sue, a fiddler in one of the local acts, played a marvelous solo on the Pirate Song, graciously getting right up when I calle dher up from the crowd with no warning. She joined Phil and I again on Miller’s Mill Pond. Rob graciously slept in the van and Phil and I slept in a tiny but plush room above the pub. Phil swore that a mouse was stirring through the night, but I think it was the pills he was taking.


In the morning Rob fired up the Medicine Van stove, served up three hot cups of tea, and we were off on to London. Luckily Rob knows history, so the long drives nevr get dull. In London we went straight to Barry Everett’s House of Mercy radio show, where we were greeted by super cool Barry, his partner Beck (a great blues singer), and a still-drunk-from-the-night-before Tenessean Dale Reno of Hayseed Dixie, shortly followed by Carrie and Robbie, fresh off a train from Birmingham. Barry had the four of us stand around the mike and take turns playing songs. Phil or Carrie, we’re not sure which, invited Dale to play a little mandolin with us, which he gladly oblidged, though he was a bit more reluctant when we suggested that perhaps a tune might not be quite right for mandolin. From the upbeat bluegrass chucking on Phil’s tender “25 Mexicans” to the upbeat bluegrass chucking on my Latin flavored “Chano Pozo’s Shoes” to the upbeat bluegrass chucking on Carrie’s tunes, Dale knew just what he thought the songs needed, even in his inebriated state. Well, whatever WE thought it sounded like, Barry loved it and had us do another round of songs.

After the taping, we left London we drove two hours to Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey on the west coast, the mouth of the Thames. It’s a nice, unpretentious town pebble beaches, and sidewalks and bike paths that run the length of the levee, all the way down to the village of Minster. We went straight to a feast of Indian food, and then bunked down for some badly needed rest, Phil and I staying with Rob’s ex sister-in-law Tina and her daughter Holly, who’d been with us at Belladrum, and Rob, Robby, and Carrie staying with Rob’s brother Mark Dean Ellen.

Holly & Tina, our gracious hosts in Sheerness

The next morning Phil, Rob and I headed to London for the taping of Phil’s debut on the Bob Harris show on BBC 2, probably the biggest country show on British radio, and we had a great time. Though I knew Bob Harris had a great reputation, I’d forgotten that he’d been a host on the inflential music television show “The Old Grey Whistle Test”. He was great and very gracious, as was his producer Al, and Bob asked us about East Nashville, our home, which is getting a great reputation even outside of our neighborhood!


After the interview we went to our gig at the Green Note in Camden, with Robby, Carrie, and I doing short sets, followed by Phil’s set. The Green Note is a cool venue run by two women Raisa and Immy, who were involved in another London venue, The Borderline. It reminded me of a Greenwich Village folk club (the ones I used to play with Dave Van Ronk, Ian and Sylvia, and Bobby), and the show was fun, despite me having to look at Phil’s back the whole time (which may not be a bad thing.)

On Friday the five of us were off to play in Brighton, the lively seaside city on England’s south shore. Phil and I caught a cab downtown from the club, passing the incredible Turkish-style pavillion built by Prince Albert in the 19th Century, and by the turn of the century pier, lit up in amusement park grandeur. Downtown we went to Radio Reverb (radioreverb.com) for Del Day's show "Songs From The Ark", and had a fun interview, after which I handed Del my CD, which he swore would get played on his show frequently. Mike Lance (notnowfrank.com) had organized a show for us all in the upstairs of a hip pub called the Open House. Rob designated me emcee, and we had another fun show, at the end of which we bid adieu to our new family members Carrie and Robbie.

On Saturday, Phil and I played at a coffee shop called the Grub Café in East Grindstead, a lovely town in Sussex, and on Sunday we went to Tunbolt Wells for an appearance on BBC’s Radio Kent with Dave Cash. Dave Cash has a rich history in broadcasting was a DJ on pirate radio stations, rock and roll stations that would broadcast off ships to be out of the jurisdiction of the BBC and British regulations. When the BBC saw their popularity, they started a new station (Radio One) and hired some of the DJ’s. Dave has an extensive web site, and the first thing you see is pirates!

Phil Lee, Me, & Dave Cash @BBC Kent

Welcome to my blog. There’s a first time for everything! I’ll promise to fall behind, seeing as how I don't like to interrupt the here and now until it's the there and then, but I’m going to try to keep at the most a week behind on my travels. (Check the calendar to see where I actually am!)


The morning after Phil Lee’s record release party at Norm’s river roadhouse, Phil and I left Nashville for Edinburgh, via Washington and London. The flight to London was pleasant enough, with Phil losing and finding boarding passes, an I-pod and a phone, and turning on his charm with the English flight attendants, who threw packets of pretzels at us across the plane. In London we went through customs and must have looked like a pair of hobos in the standing in lines with dozens of Islamic families dressed in clean white robes. Even the children were immaculate, peaking out at us from behind their parents’ and grandparents’ legs.


In Edinburgh we were picked up by Phil’s partner Peter Barbour and his girlfriend Laurie, and were driven directly to an interview at Radio Leith with Kevin McEwen, which went surprisingly well considering how long we’d been up. After a meal at a sidewalk café on Rose Street we took the four-hour drive to Inverness and the Scottish Highlands, my head occasionally nodding off despite the increasingly breathtaking beauty of the Scottish countryside. We were even greeted by a rainbow just south of Inverness, as if the scenery wasn’t enough already to dispel any Brigadoon-inspired cynicism.


From Inverness we went to Dingwall in search of Rob Ellen, DJ, Medicine Show ringleader, promoter of good music, and at the moment, chauffer for a couple of American song-writing rounders. We finally caught up with him in Strathpeffer in Ross-shire in the Highlands, where we stayed for the following four nights at the MacKenzie house, run by the wonderful Steve and Clancy Macdonald and their son Angus, big music fans and owners of Square Wheels bike shop in Strathpeffer. In a successful attempt to avoid jet lag, we stayed up and went to a pub where we met the promoter Rob Ellen, his brother Mark, and two other musicians, Texan Tim Scott and Scot Matt Morrow, and their American friend Cassandra, who were also staying at the Mackenzie House.


On our second day we drove to Ullapool, a fishing village on Loch Broom the west coast of Scotland reminiscent of the film “Local Hero”. We stopped for a drink at the Argyle Hotel and took in the view of the harbor, and then had an interview on Rob’s Medicine Show program on Loch Broom FM. Rob played “The World is Drunk”, (its first performance on radio!), and then it was off and running with a crazy Phil Lee interview. After the interview we stepped outside and saw another Scottish rainbow and walked down to the Argyle for a fine meal of locally caught sea bream before our performance with local band The Confederates and Mark Dean Ellen (No Comebacks).


On Wednesday I went with Peter Barbour and Laurie to Culloden battlefield, the site of the last battle fought on British soil, in 1745. Bonnie Prince Charlie returned from exile in France to re-take the throne of Scotland from the British, but was defeated. It’s great museum, laid out with information, artifacts, and recorded recitations of the two factions on opposing walls. While I was there a storyteller gave a presentation on the aftermath of the war, the devastation and the complete suppression of Scottish culture. (Their music couldn’t be played, their language spoken, and even kilts were outlawed until the reign of Queen Victoria.)

Near Culloden is Clava Cairns a cemetary built between three and four thousand years ago, circles of stone surrounded by monoliths, with single corridors aimed at the direction of the sun on the day of the summer solstice. It’s funny how much more in touch with the earth and seasons they were than us in the “information age”.


On Wednesday night we played at Hootenanny’s in Inverness as a part of the Belladrum Fringe Festival, with three floors of acts coming to the weekend festival. Phil and I played on the main stage on the ground floor, on a stage big enough to handle our dance moves. The crowd dug Phil. An hour later I did a solo set on the third floor in a great room filled with comfortable people on couches, and the crowd was great singing along on the sing-alongs, and Glaswegian Matt Morrow got up to play with me for the last two songs, without a moment’s warning. That evening I also got a taste of some music from new friends the Cross-Eyed gals, 32 Miles to Breakfast, and Mark Dean Ellen.

Our time in Strathpeffer was a perfect introduction to the Highlands. There are biking and hiking trails through the hills surrounding the town, which the Macdonalds have helped develop. One day I took a long hike up through the forests and to a lookout point that looked over thousands of acres of undeveloped mountains and forest, a gorgeous sight to behold, and then down an ever-narrowing path surrounded by raspberry bushes. I gorged, and then cut through a golf course (Scotland!) and a forest.