Great Weekend for Music

As some of you reading this may already know (and some probably don’t, or don’t much care), I’m out of commission for playing the fiddle for a while. The result of some messed up muscles in my shoulder is making holding the fiddle is pretty painful. My doctor and physical therapist have recommended I lay off of it for a while. I’m not, of course, obeying the medical establishment completely; still playing at the Hartford Coffee Company on alternate Sundays and when I have a previously scheduled job with the Baloney Boys. But mostly, I’m being good.

In the meantime, I’m getting out and hearing music.

This weekend I got over to The Folk School of St. Louis on Friday evening to hear Skip Gorman play a concert of cowboy songs and fiddle tunes. He was in town to do some school programs, mandolin and fiddle workshops, and this concert. Much thanks to Colleen, Don, and Ellen over at the school for putting this weekend of events together.

I wasn’t familiar with Skip before Friday night, but was glad I heard him. He played and sang for a couple of hours and it couldn’t have been nicer. The Folk School is a small, intimate space for a concert. I hope the shows there are successful enough to continue since it’s such a good place for this kind of music. The space comfortably holds about 50 people. No sound equipment needed, so no microphones to get between the singer and the audience.

Skip’s a fine fiddle player and played some fine tunes, even getting guitarist Jim Nelson up out of the audience to back him on a few of them including a pretty rendition of “Midnight on the Water” as a last waltz for the evening. His singing of cowboy songs is just right. Among the songs were a few I hadn’t heard in a long time; “Blue Mountain”, "Tom Sherman’s Bar Room”, “Spanish is the Loving Tongue” and others. All of them sung with a smooth style, good humor, and an obvious love and knowledge of the songs, history, and life.

Then Sunday afternoon I headed over to the The Schlafly Tap Room where a benefit for two local musicians was held. Both Fred Gumaer and Bob Breidenbach lost their wives in the last several months and the St. Louis music community came together Sunday to raise money to help them out with medical and other exepenses. It was so good to see so many people crammed into the room to support these guys. Some of the best musicians and bands in town all performing short sets and some of the best music fans in the world there to enjoy it all. I’m sure that a fair amount of money was raised. But even better was the amount of good will that was contained in that upstairs room at the St. Louis Brewery. It’s a great thing to know that I belong to this musical community that is so talented and so generous.