Occasionally we have those days that are so exceedingly memorable that they become milestones or at least touchstones in our lives.
I had one such day in November of 2000. I was at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium to watch OU defeat their hated rival Nebraska. They went on to win the National Championship that year. Immediately after that game I jumped in my vehicle and high-tailed it to Dallas to see Tina Turner and Joe Cocker in concert. It was Tina’s farewell concert tour and the lady still absolutely killed them.
I introduced my girlfriend to one of my all time favorite artists, Jimmy LaFave, so we have been listening to him quite a bit of late. I own every CD he has put out so we had a good selection of tunes. She wanted to see him live and the closest he was going to get was The Blue Door in Oklahoma City on October 24th. I bought some tickets online. Shortly after that my brother Jeff called saying that Garrison Keller with the Prairie Home Companion gang were going to be in Tulsa October 25th. We had seen them in St. Louis and really enjoyed the show. I thought why not, I am going to be in the direction anyway. It would make for a fun, full weekend.
I maintain a website for The Farm Couple (since defunct) Monica has recently branched out on her on and I have been working developing her website MonicaTaylorMusic She had told me that Folk Salad a program on the local NPR station in Tulsa had submitted her name as a possible local talent selection to Prairie Home Companion. That was the last I heard of it.
Robin and I drove to Norman Friday. That evening I discovered that Prairie Home Companion had called Monica at the last minute to be on the show Saturday. We were all running around Mike’s house, high fiving, as we love her music and it is always nice when a fellow Okie does something special.
I had seen Jimmy LaFave live twice before, once outdoors, and once in a large venue. The Blue Door in Oklahoma City is a small venue devoted to listening to music. It is an old house, and they can pack maybe a 150 folks in there…if that many. Somehow or the other Robin and I ended up on the front row. There are not really any words to describe what happened for the next two hours. It was a transcendent experience. It was absolutely one of the top two or three concerts I have every attended in my life. I really felt like after the concert I should just lay down and die as it would never get any better than that. And no, since drugs are not my thing, I was not high. Jimmy LaFave has a unique voice that just grabs the primordial portions of your brain and will not let go. He has a guitarist playing with him, John Inmon. I say playing; I really think he is channeling some musical muse from another dimension. I’m not sure I have ever seen someone play with such an urgent need to get what was inside him out into the strings of his guitar. Robin being a musician noticed first that he was playing the guitar much like a cello or violin. He was getting sounds out of the guitar I never heard come from one before. He as a CD out Songs for Heavy Traffic. It is totally mellow, and totally wonderful.
If you ever get a chance to see Jimmy LaFave and his band play in small venue you have to go. Quit your job, sell your kids, do whatever it is you need to do, but go.
That was really enough weekend for me right there. As I said if I died right then I would have died a happy man.
I went over to a client I am doing a website for, and took some pictures of him in his studio Saturday morning. We then drove to Owasso and piled up in J & J’s jeep and went to see Prairie Home Companion.
I’ve been listening to The Farm Couple since the late nineties when I first saw them at The River’s Edge in Tulsa. I just absolutely love their music and their harmony together. Monica has a very special voice and can sing a wide range of styles musically, but concentrates on the red dirt genre.
Garrison Keller was extremely generous with the time he gave her on the show. The audience was initially a little unsure of who she was even thought she has been playing in the Oklahoma area for years. By the end of the show they had really warmed up to her. She sang one her songs, “Young Mother”, which won a prize at the Woody Festival in Okemah. Later in the show she sang a song that I had not heard before that she and Patrick wrote, “Hello, Goodbye, I’m Gone”. It sent chills up my spine.
Part of me wanted to cry, part of me had my chest puffed out like a proud parent. I guess I felt a little more involved than most folks as I have been working on her website all these years. There are a ton of talented folks that never make the “big time”, whatever that is. I just thought The Farm Couple and/or Monica deserved to be one of those that broke out. The fact that she was so professional on the show and absolutely nailed her performance was the icing on this cake.
I had to check my lotto numbers to see if I won. That was the only way that weekend was going to get any better. It will definitely be a touchstone to remember in my life.
If you want to see some pictures of Monica on Prairie Home Companion or listen to her you can go to this link http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2008/10/25/ It is the Prairie Home Companion Archives for October 25, 2008.
Back to reality.