bluegrass and boxcars, baby!

This photo, from the website for the Savannah Music Festival, has one inaccuracy. See the guy in the tan coat? He's no longer with the band. Completing the five-man bluegrass sound is a young (only 21!) dobro player.
I met the boys in the band at today's noon-thirty concert!
Yep, the Savannah Music Festival is in town!!!
They're the only ones who give us noon-thirty events. I've enjoyed those ever since their instigation some few years ago.
This year, I'm volunteering with the SMF and this was my first event. Many thanks to 4-year veteran Franci - she took me under her wing and made sure I knew where to be and what to do. Plus, she and I had fun together! We both worked the door, tearing tickets and smiling and joking with the patrons, until it was time to close the door and enjoy the show.
And that we did! I stood over to the side and danced almost the entire show, of course! I tried to be discreet - no large moves, up against a dark wall, that sort of thing - but definitely dancing! I even had some folks come up to me afterward and thank me for dancing. Woohoo!!!
What a treat to hear some bluegrass! I couldn't help but recall my old boyfriend, Pete Derby, the one who introduced me to this type of music. That was in Okinawa, of all places! We were both Navy, stationed at the now-disappeared NSGA Hanza.
Thanks to him, I knew about fiddles and banjos and mandolins. But a dobro? Not until today! Gary Hultman, the youngest member of The Boxcars, was playing what looked like a guitar, but on its side, like it had a keyboard on it. Very interesting to watch!
He was a recent student of the award-winning banjo strummer, Adam Steffey, a vocalist with The Boxcars. When their fiddle player left for the ministry, Adam knew just the person to bring into the Grammy-nominated band: his talented student, a former alumnus of the SMF's Acoustic Music Seminar. What a grand return to Savannah for that young man!
Oh, and that's Adam on the far right in the photo. You might recognize him from his seven years with Alison Krauss' band, Union Station. Nice, right?
Ron Stewart, the man who can play nearly anything with strings, also writes some of their songs. He's wearing the untucked black shirt, on the left, in the above photo. Just give him a banjo, fiddle, or violin, and he'll teach you to play it.
Harold "Luscious" Nixon is the bass player. I promise you, that's how Adam introduced him on stage at the Morris Center! He's standing dead center in the photo, smiling as he did for the entire concert.
Then there's Keith Garrett, primary song writer. As Adam says, all of his songs have depressing subjects, but are so good you just have to listen! I especially liked "Hurtin' Inside" - I felt he wrote that for me. Adam billed it as his "most uplifting sad song". In the photo, Keith's on the far left.



The Savannah Music Festival really does us proud!
I am so very excited about the operas tonight!!!