A Bluz Weekend Wuz Had By All

The 13th Annual Blues Festival – Simply put, a party that lasted all weekend. Great performers! Good crowd all out for a good time. Terrific junk – or should I say – carnival food. The best kettle corn we’ve ever had – you know it must be good for someone who grew up next to Coney Island to say that. And fire-roasted corn-on-the-cob, roasted in the husk and soaked with sweet butter and salt. There was also bar-b-q that was so good it was almost illegal, or so said the side of the cooker where we bought it, and the Texas burgers with chile bar-b-q sauce and the Mexican dish made with corn…I don’t know what they were, but they were good.

And the blues unite! We know this is a diverse community. Yet, I’ve observed that many of the activities we attend – Western Institute of Lifelong Learning, the performances at the university’s theatre, other musical events – don’t draw a diverse group. Almost everyone in those venues looks like me. The blues brought us all out, and all together. There were families, singles, couples, mashed groups, young and old, no-gray and white-haired, 60’s hippies, university hippie kids, anglo, Latino, African-American, Native American, clean-cut veterans, long-haired harley-ridin’ veterans, just-plain-old harley riders (must have been over 100 motorcycles parked, including some really amazing custom bikes and trikes), new high-school grads, basket-ball-playing young black, mexican-american and white men and skate-board-riding kids, men with flags in their headbands, men with feathers in their hair, men with knives on their belts, women with kids on their hip, women with tank tops, women with pink hats, women with parasols, and those who cannot be described or categorized.

Friday night we went to the Buffalo Dance Hall for the first group, the Jump Back Brothers. They had the hall rockin’ and everyone on the dance floor till the lights went up and the last guitar lick died away. Saturday morning it rained and we did Saturday chores, so didn’t get there until about 4 pm. Stayed until the last performer in the park, Coco Montoya. He didn’t have a roof to raise, but the air vibrated and the bandstand all but levitated with his hot, contemporary blues, with a few oldies thrown in for good measure. His guitar moaned, sang, crooned, cried and wailed, and the crowd right along with it. We didn’t think he could be topped. But we went back Sunday to see ‘em try. We were there all day, from 12:30 for the first performer and with the intention of staying until the last performer, Ruthie Foster, the main headliner for the day. And the day started just fine – warm, bright, sunny. We carefully chose our spot to sit, where the shade from a tall tree would catch up with us about mid-afternoon. Until then, we had hats and umbrellas to shade us. So did a lot of other people – here’s what it looked like in the early afternoon.

And then the clouds came up. With heavy, gray bottoms that were dragged across the sky by our ever-present spring winds. When the bottoms opened up, the umbrellas served their more natural purpose! Some families went home, since it was almost the end of the day. Another large number gathered under the pavilion to wait out the rain. The festival decided to move down to the Buffalo for Ruthie’s performance though, so those of us left – and of age to get in – gathered up wet chairs, wet bags, wet umbrellas and everything, loaded ourselves into our cars and moved downtown, which is all of a few blocks. Urban legend had it that this was the second time the festival had been rained out – and the last time was just before Ruthie’s performance, again the last performance of the festival. She declared herself Silver City’s official rain-maker. And then she sang. And my god, can she sing. She’s southern black roots, gospel and juke-joint acoustic bluz. People may have taken seats in the Buff, but by her second song, few of those seats were occupied. Rather, almost the entire crowd was on the dance floor, but they weren’t dancin’. They were faced to the stage, hands in the air, swaying and moving – just like an old-time revival meeting. You’ll notice I’m saying ‘they,’ because by now, after dancing for two days and two nights, we didn’t have much dancing left in us, and I think maybe there’s a possibility of a chance that Nick ate too much good junky food!

Take a look at my 2009 Blues Festival album here, as well as two little videos of sunny bluz and rainy blues. We’ll be hummin’ till next year. Sonnie