S&UP

reunion

Take a good look at the faces on this stage; it’s 1990, Alpine Valley, and the players will be reunited again and again…all but one, since this is the final appearance of Stevie Ray Vaughan who died in a helicopter crash after departing the venue within hours of this take. The Earth shuttered with a groan, and the tears still flow freely.

Warfare is the celebration of death while music is the celebration of life; put the two together and we have celebrity - the idolization of normal human beings.

Eric Clapton shares the same common thread that ties these communities; tragedy and addiction.

2004 was my introduction to Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival to benefit Crossroads Centre Antigua, the rehabilitation center for chemically dependent people founded by Mr. Clapton in the Caribbean. A random choice that changed my life by giving me an intimate view of these people whose dedication to music is surpassed only by their zest for living fully. Add the ingredients of life and death and the cake becomes The Blues; the importance of the guitar can never be overstated; it becomes more than an inanimate object - it becomes a lifeline; the stage becomes a tabernacle.

Performance is an activity requiring absolute focus when the ego is lost and the body a vehicle, the Self breaks from its mortal bonds and we are elevated, it can be addictive. When the mortal body resumes the normal world, it can seem quaint and uneventful creating a desire to remain in a heightened state; we never want to leave the tabernacle. So it leads to alternative addictions and dangerous behaviors, the crossroads of living and dying become a thin veil.

The Crossroads series are a foundation for coming back to the music and celebrating life with a community that supports it, along with reuniting; with friends in the here and now as well as those who have gone before.

It’s about the music.

I binged that DVD until every photon refused to be read because of close up views of the players movements across the fretboard and the music itself; the total absence of time and space displayed by the faces of the players. They became my friends along with my six string as I played along with them.

And while temporal time moves on, my friends grow older, and one by one they march along, some go to be reunited once again.

I saw BB King in the Harrisburg Forum Theatre for a solo performance; a small venue where he played for us just as though we were in his living room, an intimate evening with a lovely man.

Saw Vince Gill at an outdoor venue in The Poconos (America’s fastest growing mountain chain). A pocketknife carried for years was confiscated at the gate because I inadvertently failed to leave it in the car causing me to ruin the show for my girlfriend and brother while I threw a temper tantrum. Regret that. My respect for Mr. Gill is still growing. Also in this performance is the legendary James Burton along with more friends. If you don’t know who these people are…best get with the program.

The ghost of Stevie Ray making another rare appearance.

I’ll be honest, I teared up all the way through the making of this post, life is so ephemeral.

I hope you’ll take the time to spend here with me and my friends and maybe explore more of this historic series.

A fleeting moment in time.

Worship the Lord with strings. That passage is on the letterhead of Bob Tice, my luthier of 35 plus years. There’s something going on here deep within the human psyche.