The morning of April 18 came early (or late?) considering I was still on UK time. As disoriented as I was it started well enough. I got it together to leave the house and start off towards Lexington to do the Woodsongs Oldtime Radio Hour w/Michael Jonathan. It had been a number of years since doing it last time and I was looking forward to going up and just banging out a few tunes.
The day was less than ideal for driving/traveling, what with the rain and chill. But I had plenty of time to get to Lexington by 3p. The road from Johnson City to Lexington covered only a few miles of road that I had been on before. I headed towards Knoxville on I-81 and then turned right at Morristown and caught 25E north. The road wound round and round and up and down and considering it was wet and all new terrain I just slowed down a little. Apparently I was not going slow enough because around a turn at the bottom of a long hill coming in Tazewell I made a new friend in the form of a local cop who wrote me an “invitation” to come see the judge by May 25 (I opted to go online and donate a couple hundred bucks to the Tazewell County Clerk’s office). Still a long ways to go to get to Lexington yet, so onward through the fog.
I got into Lexington about 3p and unloaded myself and my poverty box and settled into a dressing room backstage in the old Lyric Theater. Michael came around after a while and said howdy and we caught up a bit. I met the other act on the show, Mr. Bruce Sudano, whom I knew very little about but it became obvious very soon that he was a major force in the music industry. I didn’t know he was married to the late Donna Summer for years and has been an active co-writer of songs with her plus a huge contributor of material on his own. A very down-to-earth human he is. The show started at 7p and went on for and hour (considering it’s called the “oldtime radio hour…”). Seems like the show was #1040 or so and it went smoothly due to everyone having done so many shows over the years. Michael kept the interview portions rolling along with pertinent questions. Once the show ended I gathered up everything I had come with and said goodnight instead of hanging around mingling and hit the road because it was a 4-hour drive back to Johnson City. By the time I got an hour’s drive from Johnson City I realized I was over tired and began to find myself waking up on the wrong side of the road or being woke up by the rumble strip and realized I’d overdone it, was too tired and was risking killing my fool self at this point. Note to self…”never again do this”. On the next day, Tuesday, I had four individual lessons at ETSU beginning at 10a and four individual private lessons once I got home beginning at 3:30p and going until 8:30p. It was all a blur. What was not a blur however was the thought I had in my mind of the dangerous situation I had put myself in the day before. It scared me to think of it. Never again…
The next day I had an oldtime band practice and 6 more lessons to do. Then packing for MCN (Mando Camp North) and bed. Thursday morning I had an early flight out of Johnson City (Tri-Cities airport) to Boston. Once I got to the airport and got parked it took me all of about 10 minutes to check in and get through security. There were about 2 dozen people in the main waiting area at the gates. This is my kind of airport scene. I caught a commuter flight to Charlotte and then a flight from there to Boston. I arrived Logan Int’l around 3:30p and crammed my way onto a commuter bus from there over to South Station for the subway and caught the Red Line going out towards Alewife and got off at Porter Square and hoofed it down to Garfield St and onto Dr. Richard S. Brown and Margaret Gertais’ front porch. It was good to be able to stop moving for the rest of the day and evening and catch up with Richie and Margaret whom I had not seen in the past two years. In the morning it was up to Charleton, MA for Mando Camp North and more reunions with more old friends and acquaintances. I found myself looking forward to it very much and felt gratitude and blessed that I was living a life filled with music. More in Part 3…
Life is good. MC