"From a long way away I picked up a lot of buzz about you at the Hardly Strictly Festival. Sounds like I missed a great party. But what could be better than Chris O'Connell being back on stage? Well how about Blackie Farrell being back on stage and healthy? I hear he did great."  ~ Merle

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE:  BLACKIE FARRELL
AT HARDLY STRICTLY BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL, OCTOBER 6, 2012

Vans.  Golf carts.  People.  Did I say people?  The news said there were over a million people at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco over the first weekend in October.  Some of them loped along in front of the golf carts that took Bill Kirchen and Texicalli to their stage and to the respite of the backstage area.

Bobby Black:  Gearin' Up

There was the usual band banter taking place inside the dressing room and out.  Bobby Black predictably ferreted out the coffee; it seems not to matter to him what time of the day or night, or what question he’s pondering, but coffee is always the answer.  Every time I caught a glimpse of singer/songwriter/guitar player/raconteur/child care provider/old pal Blackie Farrell he seemed truly jazzed about this gig.  His wife, Vicky, was with him and his kids and grandkids were on their way to see him play on the big stage.  And the stage was truly big, with a whole mess o’ people down front, smoking dope, telling jokes, dancing and partying like it was 1967.  Most of them were like Blackie and me, and the rest of the band:  Senior Festivity Specialists.

Backstage, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
San Francisco, CA.  2012
(one of a half-dozen stages)

Our set was 35 minutes.  Maybe we went a little long, I don’t know, I don’t wear a watch anymore.  Blackie and I were the extra credit window dressing on this gig.  Bill has been recording Blackie’s songs for decades and has given him valued visibility in the swamped field of songwriters.  A supportive and esteemed friend for more than 40 years, a vivid storyteller whose most recognizable tunes, “Mama Hated Diesels” and “Sonora’s Death Row” are cult classics, Blackie has songs in his catalogue few people have ever heard.  I have old Blackie Farrell demos on cassettes that were sent to Asleep At The Wheel from Bug Music, the Nashville/L.A. publishing house that was absorbed by BMG/Chrysalis not long ago.  Over the years these cassettes accumulated in my apple crate of songwriter demos, and I still listen to them on my little Sony jambox.  It’s almost like a history lesson:  “Angie’s Arms”.  “Cold Country Blues”.  “Red Cajun Girl”.  “Another Go-Round To Go”.  "The Hobo Who's Holdin' Your Hand".  

Some of it is my history; I think back to when Blackie and LeRoy Preston would start knocking back shots of George Dickel in the middle of the day and go long into the night at LeRoy's house on Annie Street in South Austin, huddled up, playing, changing up lyrics, telling stories, then breaking into some Link Davis, Sr. thing like "Albuquerque" or "The Face In The Glass".  Oh, sure, some of us other folks were drinking, too, but we’d be out back of the house in the hideous white-hot, incinerating Texas sunshine, chain-smoking menthols to try to keep cool, playing with the rubber pop-gun and horsing around with the hunting dogs. (Jubilee was a Blue Tick sometimes chained to a toilet so she wouldn't run off; Face was a 16-year old pit who put his teeth through my foot just trying to play).  While the menfolk were creatin', LeRoy's wife Kathy and I were hosing out a shed in their backyard to make it habitable for another songwriter friend, Jon Emery.  This was the beginning of Jon's long-running saga known as "Back When I Was Livin With Sue".   We were productive, Kathy and I, but we weren't looking to create anything that would last any longer than a hangover.  The shed turned into a home for Jon, however, and Jubilee was found later that week roaming the neighborhood, grinding up the sidewalks, dragging the toilet behind her.  But I digress . . . 

Blackie Farrell and LeRoy Preston were a great team and still write together, but of course they each also write separately.  One after another, Blackie’s tunes conjure up more than just pictures of incidents.  He throws you into the middle of the action whether you want to go there or not, whether it’s safe or not, whether there’s a happy outcome or not.  One song he did at Hardly Strictly, Red Sovine's “Freightliner Fever”, really spells out a reality of the trucker life.  Ask any over-the-road driver, slipping through the woods to get around the scales, spinning his log books for the DOT, creating ways to get the load delivered on time without killing himself or somebody else.  “Freightliner Fever” should be in the DSM-IV-TR.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-IV_Codes  And Blackie, who has recently had health problems that would kick anybody else’s ass, was in fine form at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, smiling, joking, chatting with the peeps, having a blast, which was really great to witness for those of us who had been concerned about our pal and had been hoping he’d soon get to the other side of these problems.  So what did I do?  I caused him even more pain.  I strong-armed  him to play Bill's song, “One More Day”, in Eb.  

Nobody likes Eb. Because Bill wrote the song, and because I cut it in Eb for "Be Right Back!", Blackie was in a corner.  But he soldiered on, because there is no crying in Eb.          

"Please make Eb more like D or E.  Amen."

There's a difference between a big festival and a night club, between a dance all and a house concert:  the differences are in the ways the artist approaches the audience, and it has to do with intimacy and expectations on the part of the band and also on the part of the audience.  Outdoor audiences are definitely there to have a great time.  I like outdoor venues because the people are groovin no matter what the clock says.  It’s easy to gauge how the tunes are going over - audiences unabashedly provide that information with body language and laughter and whistles and fist-pumping.  The people at Hardly Strictly were definitely out there!  I hadn’t been around that much smoke since the 80s. Bill Kirchen and Texicalli sounded great, maybe even greater to those who were high, who knows?, and nobody lost their cool.  Maybe the concertgoers were experiencing some of their own brand of Freightliner Fever.  But I know there was one guy who gained a fair measure of cool in his family’s eyes, and who reminded all present that he remains a steady and enduring musical force:  Blackie Farrell was tremendous!

Blackie Farrell and Bill Kirchen Backstage, Hardly Strictly 2012

Thanks to all who organized this 
wonderful annual event, 

and thanks to Bill Kirchen for inviting me to 
come outside and play.  

From all of us, many thanks to Warren Hellman, 

Founder of San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival 

(July 25, 1934 - December 18, 2011).

Banjo Player and Billionaire
F. Warren Hellman

"What does move me is the philanthropic stuff," he told Forbes magazine in 2006. "Giving really does move me. Part of it is selfish. It's fun to be appreciated. But the other part is that good things really are growing."  He called the bluegrass festival "a selfish gift," one that he, the musicians and the community could all enjoy.  "How could you have more fun than that?  What the hell is money for if it isn't for something like that?"  

~ F. Warren Hellman