For the past couple years, a friend1 from high school has invited me to periodic, deliberately informal “Music Nights” at his house, approximately 8 minutes away from mine, 9 minutes if you sit in your car for a minute revving up the courage to go in. The basic ethos as I understood it was: everybody sits in John’s living room and plays songs on whatever instrument they feel inclined to bring. It’s not a songwriter round (where everybody takes turns playing an original song while the others listen, jealously or otherwise) or a guitar pull (same thing, just Nashvillian). Just people playing songs they love. Together. I think some people might call it a hootenanny?
For the majority of those two years, things just legitimately came up. The first time, I was in South Carolina, to see my sister-in-law get remarried. The next time, watching a niece get married in Nevada. At that point, I’m sure John began to wonder if “wedding” was just my code for “no, thanks.” Luckily, my next declined invitation was because I had a show of my own.
Last weekend, at long last, my guitar and I made it to Music Night, all 8 grueling minutes in my car away. Having never been to John’s house before and being of a naturally nervous disposition, I wasn’t sure whether to knock or let myself in. I knocked quietly. No answer. So I leaned on the door handle and eased the door open. From the other room, I heard some men’s voices singing harmony on a song I wasn’t familiar with. I also heard, unexpectedly, some quiet-but-electric-sounding drums, attempting to keep the group on time. Nobody had said anything about percussion.
I tip-toed down the hallway until it opened up into a larger living room. Five guys sat on couches—except the electric drummer, who had his own little station set up—singing up a storm. Some just sang. Some played guitar too. John’s teenage son strummed a mandolin. In my typical Don’t Want To Call Too Much Attention To Myself Yet Actually End Up Calling More Attention To Myself fashion, I situated myself on the periphery, sitting down on the edge of the hearth (rather than in the thick of the couches and chairs). Immediately, the weirdness of me sitting out of the way like I did was called out.
Still, I didn’t move. Stubborn and on-brand, as always.
The song they’d be singing was by 90’s folk singer/songwriter David Wilcox2. And they all knew every word as well as harmonies and little vocal trills. They were surprised I didn’t know it, since we all came from basically the same neighborhood and socioeconomic background and they knew I had some folkie leanings3.
It dawned on me that everyone has their own canon, their own songbook so to speak. I was first introduced to this concept in my teens when it seemed like everyone at the Bennion Teton Boys Ranch knew every word to some John Prine (more on him in a bit) songs I’d never even heard. Later in the night, these guys would call out some Grateful Dead song that I’d never even heard and they’d all sing every last word, every last semi-in-tune (true to the Dead) harmony. I consider myself a Dead fan, but now have to admit that I’m basically a Diet Dead fan at best4. Similar things would happen with my circle of friends—we’d all know the words to some deep cut by The National or Bon Iver (ok, not Bon Iver, I don’t think even Justin Vernon knows the words to Bon Iver songs sometimes) or whoever. Anyway, it’s eye-opening to be with people whose lives have been affected and enriched by songs that you’ve never heard even once. These songs are embedded in their fabric and yet mean nothing to me. Zero. And it got me thinking about empathy and life experience and the importance of seeing what matters to others, not just focusing on what matters to you. Not to get too deep in my first 6 minutes sitting awkwardly on the hearth edge.
I eventually, carefully edged my way into the songs, mostly absorbing at first, trying to read the room and not overstep or overplay or oversing. As the songs wound by, I found a rhythm, a current, and stepped in and we all played songs til, what, 11:30 at night?
Someone would call out a song. Others would pull up the lyrics and chords on their iPhones or iPads. We’d come to a consensus on a key. And the song would start. Like an old car. Sometimes right off, sometimes with sputters.
Someone called out the Dead. We strummed through Fire on The Mountain and Franklin’s Tower and Friend of the Devil and China Doll and the Dead songs I admitted above that I’d never heard. (They played an iconic song from this album, with its Worst Album Cover In The Dead Catalog status, I’ll never turn down an excuse to post it:
It happened to be George Harrison’s birthday, so we played All Things Must Pass and then hit a nice vein of Beatles’ tunes. Here Comes The Sun. Mother Nature’s Son. Two of Us. I’ve Just Seen A Face.
John’s son ducked out. A couple other guys showed up with their acoustic guitars. John’s son ducked back in.
Someone called out John Prine. We played Angel From Montgomery and Speed of the Sound of Loneliness and Souvenirs and Paradise5.
We sang Easy by The Commodores. People Get Ready by Curtis Mayfield. Blues Run The Game. Gentle On My Mind. Pancho & Lefty.
There was an undeniable sweetness to sit there, with a bunch of 40-something men, harmonizing. Especially in an era of insecure toxic masculinity and an era when we’re learning that men in their 40s are lonely and losing friendships6. There was a genuine purity to it, with no external-approval motivation involved. Just making music because it felt good and they like the sound of their voices combining in air7. No audience. No pretense. No posturing or virtuosic showboating. No need for applause. I don’t play music without a specific end goal—rehearsing for an upcoming gig, learning a new cover for my hotel gig, prepping for the Lower Lights Christmas concerts, learning all the songs from Neil Young’s Harvest for the Neil Young tribute, etc—very often, if ever. So if this wasn’t a revelation necessarily, it was definitely a reminder.
We sang Crosby, Stills, & Nash’s “Helplessly Hoping” two times, about an hour and a half apart, because someone else showed up who really wanted in on the harmony action. And because it just felt and sounded good, emulating that iconic three-part.
Nobody clapped or hooted or hollered. There was no check cut after the show. No write-up in the local rag. It was just music for music’s sake.
We ran out of gas (or songs) and called it a night. Eight minutes later I was in my driveway.
As the Townes Van Zandt song goes, “Lefty, he can't sing the blues / All night long like he used to.”
John & I have a musical history stretching back to him auditioning to be lead singer (we had a hard time keeping a singer; like the Spinal Tap of lead singers for a while there) in my high school band, The Spiders, by singing (I believe) “Take The Money And Run” by The Steve Miller Band. The two of us later sang Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound”, with homemade lyrics about wishing we were going to Vegas to see the Grateful Dead, in sixth period for an English assignment, though I can’t remember at all how it was applicable to whatever we were studying. And then we were both in the mighty East High School Barbershop (John a tenor, me a baritone) where we sang all kinds of songs together—Greased Lightning, Morning Has Broken, Behind Blue Eyes, That Lonesome Road, Hard Times Come Again No More, a metric ton of Christmas songs, and more—in performances throughout our senior year. To this day, I still occasionally have nightmares about being in our final Barbershop concert and somehow not knowing any of the songs or choreography but nonetheless trying to fake it and keep up. And failing horrifically. Good times.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Wilcox in concert twice? The first was a show in the old Tower Theater (a movie theater where I’d also seen A Christmas Story, the original Footloose, Hoop Dreams) in the 90’s—I tagged along with some actual Wilcox fans. And the second was at Folks Fest in Colorado one year, after attending Planet Bluegrass’ Song School where Wilcox had been a guest instructor.
In my many many trips to record stores in the 90’s, I recall picking up Wilcox’s 1994 album Big Horizon a few different times, but never pulling the trigger. I knew his folkie/singer/songwriter thing was supposed to be in my wheelhouse, but it never actually got in the wheelhouse, I guess.
I have some controversial Dead takes, the one that gets me into the hottest water being: swap out fan-beloved bassist Phil Lesh for a bassist who’s interested in, you know, actually playing the bass and creating grooves—imagine The Band’s Rick Danko or legend James Jamerson, for instance— rather than just artsy, off-center, ultra-busy noodling and the band a) would’ve been better, and b) might’ve had some hits with songs like Franklin’s Tower or Fire On The Mountain. I’m in the minority (maybe not even a minority; what’s smaller than a minority?) of Dead fans who could take or leave Lesh. I acknowledge that his noodly, improvisational, unorthodox approach to bass-playing and his unique tone are a massive draw for many Deadheads and have likely garnered them a DEEPER fandom (as opposed to BROADER fandom), which resulted in longevity and cult status that makes the Dead THE DEAD. So I suppose my theory really is only that their commercial peak could have been higher and that I personally would have enjoyed them more. Because, honestly, you can’t really argue that a band that sells out multiple nights at, like, Soldier Field in Chicago is living below their potential. Like I said, I’m Diet Dead at best.
For years, I was under the impression that this song was called “Muhlenberg County.” I had only ever heard it, speaking of personal canons, as sung soulfully by my Sanpete County friends at the Bennion Boys Ranch and “Muhlenberg County” seemed like the obvious title from the chorus. So I occasionally found myself at a CD store, browsing John Prine albums, wondering why none of them had that one song that all the Sanpete folks knew by heart. Little did I know the title was actually “Paradise.”
I’ve always been fond of the Tom Waits quote: 'Songs are really just interesting things to be doing with the air.”