and in closing (shutting this blog down).

What was this blog? It was intimidating as hell at first but I just kept telling myself it was a personal journal and that and encouragement from Dennis and Vicki (sis and bro-in-law) the first week or two, then close friends Austen Adams and Leann Phelan helping hugely by saying that it was not so bad (also giving me helpful tips along the way) got the ball rolling. I'm not a writer and because of that it usually took me close to 3 hours per paragraph to do and amateur-ish as it would end up sounding it still took that long.... For example, I've re-written this dang thing at least 4 times now.
The blog and trip did a good thing for me. It taught me an old lesson that I've forgotten many times now which is that if I go the hell out there and do something JUST based on a "gut feeling" which is what it was, that it'd push me in the right direction. The quote ("learn to love music again") was kind of an excuse and something to stand on or hid behind at the time cause when it came down to it, I just needed some time to build back a little confidence in myself again. I was in a "bad spot".
 This blog and the people reading it pushed me along everyday to get up, get out, meet people and see and experience things...and I did that. I met some REALLY amazing people. People that I will never, NEVER forget and memories that I'll take to my grave with a smile. Listening to Walt Wilkins's "I Chose This Road" as my soundtrack, I met a beautiful, beautiful "Cowboy poet"/friend (Walt Perryman), Tony ~a fascinating ex-marine who bartend-ed~, a coupla really kind west Texas oil workers, an amazing hall of fame writer (Sonny Throckmorton), a great new friend in Jim Lane, a brilliant kid who writes and sings his ass off through the eyes of the disabled (Chris Hendricks), another new friend Rita Ballou (a kind, sweet person though she'd HATE me writing this sweet stuff about her), Lee a fellow "tent" camper (while in Lafayette,LA) who's goal was to "motorcycle" around the world (Godspeed if you ever read this :)), The Paulin Brothers, an amazing man and "wall builder" for the right reasons Tom Hendrix.  Hell, me and Jim Lane met a another truck "head-on" at 60MPH and I also met a SWAT team at my motel room door in Spartenburg, SC.
 I really loved every mile that I traveled. In Texas (outside of the cities) there was not one part that I did not love entirely. West Texas for some indescribable reason was my favorite looking back. The swamps of Louisiana, the flat freshly plowed fields of the Mississippi delta, the hill country of upper Alabama. Georgia, from the mountains to Thomasville to Savannah. "The Piedmont" that runs all the way from Western Alabama to Virginia. Virginia from the "Library of Congress"(close enough) all the way down to the "The Carter Fold".
 Thanks to all of the people who've kept up with me and given me their financial and emotional support. I hope some of you have found a little joy, some music, a laugh or if nothin else a "where's Waldo" moment during a break in your day. I expected to "endure" large parts of the trip but that just never happened. I never "hit the wall" thankfully. Paul Kennerley told me from the beginning that the driving would do me some good. It did. This trip also helped me get closer to my family which  I'm SO grateful for. Their e-mails and texts on the road really helped me.
Nashville became a dark cloud to me that I couldn't get out from under. Publishing and record companies and peripheral businesses (as we know it) all "going to hell in a hand basket". Finding SO much good music, good music people and music business going on "outside of the bubble" made me feel SO much better about the business and "brightened my skies".
I'll close this last blog with an e-mail from a great friend and brilliant writer. I get this e-mail one day while I was out driving between one dry, flat place and another. THESE are the things that kept me going sometimes:

....But, beyond it all I have always hoped that you find the peace, the meaning you seem to be searching for.

I hope you don’t over look the little things- because that is always what all of the big things are hiding behind.

I hope you turn a corner and get a little lost in the eyes of some poor unfortunate girl that has as little regard for hats as you do.

I hope you find that this town with all of it's frustrations and blindness is still an amazing place where dreams can come true.

I hope you remember that you are never too old to dream.

I hope you stumble across the notion that maybe it's only going to make as much sense as you care to give it.

I hope you stumble and curse and mistake and cry and do something crazy.....

I hope you accidentally mutter a prayer one night and find a great big God hiding behind a little answer.

 love you, buddy


Thank you Craig and EVERY one-a-ya' :), ~"Onward and upward"~ S


P.S. thanks also to Jennifer Carrington, Jenny Bohler, Mike Provencher, Reid Scelza for their input and help with this. I'm grateful for your help.
P.P.S.S.  Thanks again Steve and Sarah :)

My "best of"...

Or Fav's...
*Songwriter Bars: Evening Mews (Charlotte, North Carolina), The Mucky Duck (Houston, TX), Casbah (Durham, NC) & Cheatham Street Warehouse (San Marcos,TX), Eddie's Attic (Atl., GA)
*Greatest drinking bars: Devil's Backbone Tavern (closest to New Braunfels, TX), Arkey Blue's Silver Dollar Saloon (Bandera,TX), Under The Hill Saloon (Natchez,MS)
*Most pretentious bar (to be in the middle of nowhere): Padre's in Marfa,TX. I was nowhere NEAR cool enough and there wasn't 50 people in the whole damn town and they were all dressed up like they were on South Congress in Austin,TX or somethin. It just felt weird. Went there twice (to make sure) and then got my happy ass back to my lil' tent.
*Cheapest beer: PBR. Damn, they need to start making cars that can burn THAT shit!
*Best Margarita: Guero's (Austin,TX). You ONLY get a shot glassed sized but it's still my fav!
*Best Beer: Capital Ale House (Richmond,VA). They EVEN had a "frosted rail" to sit your glass! "Starr Hill Amber" was my favorite! Rich, malty but without the bitter after/shit-taste of PBR.
*Dance Hall: Anhalt Hall (Spring Branch,TX). No question, my favorite and seemed surreal from the time I walked in there. 2nd: Quihi Gun Club (closest to Dunlay,TX)
*Favorite "Old School" Texas Dance Hall band: Billy Mata & The Texas Tradition
*Favorite happy hour "hangs": Luckenbach, TX (Luckenbach), Napoleon House (New Orleans, LA)
*Worst bar: Potbelly's (Tallahassee, FL). I'm STILL sticky from that damn place!
*Worst restrooms: Arkey Blue's Silver Dollar Saloon (it's like peeing in Satan's urinal. Really!.... O.K. I'm just guessing)
*Best bathrooms (by state): TEXAS! They consistently put "beer holders" above the urinals! I'd bet the quote of "God Bless Texas" came while a man was standing at a urinal looking for a place to sit his beer (somewhere in Texas!). Amen, brother. Come ON Amurica, catch up!!!
*Best songwriters per sq. mile: North Carolina.
*State with LEAST amount of female artists: Texas. In 9 weeks of trouncing around Texas, I don't think I saw 3. Bri Bagwell was my favorite female country artist (of my whole trip, actually).
*Best Music Scenes: 1st: Texas (original music stations, online music communities and fan interactions, 100's of original music clubs around the state, etc...). Texan's damn near demand it. In Austin on a Saturday night I heard THREE stations playing original music! Distant 2nd: Louisiana & North Carolina.
*Most disappointing music scene: my home state of Georgia. Hey, I even tried HARDER looking here than  in the other states :(
*Dancers (not as in "pole"): 1.Texas 2. Lafayette, LA.
*...As IN "pole", I'll have to guess at these #1-Atlanta,GA (it's a "gut" call) #2 guess- Greenville, Ms #3 Marfa,TX.
* Favorite bands to watch and "get all caught up in": Terry and the Bayou Bad Boys (Lafayette, LA) & Yojimbo (New Orleans, LA). Smiled the whole time watching both.
*Bravest band (by FAR): "Folk Soul Revival" playing 2 weeks after one of their lead singers had died. RIP Allun Cormier.
*Fav new songwriters (that I'd never known before): Chris Hendricks, Lizzy Ross
*"Ready for Nashville" (or not): Cody Johnson (Hunt,TX), Folk Soul Revival (Wise,VA)
*Most facial hair: #1 STILL reigning champ (until he shaves that shit) is Anders OOOOOOsborne! #2 Levi Lowrey (but he's half Quaker, so he gets a penalty from having a genetic "leg up") and a close 3rd (because of the penalty) is Ferd from the "Hackensack Boys"! Congrats fellas I'm sure your womenfolk are proud of ya!
*Best 2 hours of drinking: "Drinking 40's" on the sidewalk with the "Paulin Brothers" in New Orleans.
*Best drives: Marfa, TX to and around Fort Davis, TX. Hwy 61 ("The Blues Highway") from Vicksburg,MS to Clarkesdale, MS. Avery Island,LA (Tobasco tour ain't worth it but this drive IS!)
LEAST fav. drives: Nelson Street (Greenville, MS) & Young Street (Greenwood, MS). Both are good places (if there are) to buy drugs though.
*Best food: Opie's (Spicewood, TX), Prejeans (it's touristy but DAMN great!-Lafayette,LA) or Mulate's (Breaux Bridge,LA)

*Fav campground: Guadalupe River (don't remember the damn name but it's the locale). The one on the Mississippi "River View RV Park" in Videlia, LA was beautiful, as well. I mean it's the damn mighty Mississippi River that you're looking across!

*Worst Motel. Motel 6 ,Richmond (VA) Airport. ONLY place that I "bailed from" after 1 of 2 nights.

*Best Hotels (for price). Priceline does it every time but IGNORE their "suggested" bidding prices (cut it in half at least): Courtyard by Marriott-New Braunfels,TX  and the St. Louis Hotel in New Orleans BOTH for $45 "bids" a night (and usually you can add an extra night for the same price EVEN after staying the first night)

*Best "day spent": Festivals Acadiens (Cajun music festival) in Lafayette, LA. Indescribable atmosphere.
*Prettiest Women: Texas-good GOD, there's 25 mill to choose from, it'd better have the prettiest.
*Scariest moment: Eatin' Domino's pizza, watching "Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer" with a loaded  9MM on my T.V. tray (thanks Bart) as a SWAT team ran around outside my broken dead-bolted hotel room door (as if it really mattered at that point).
*Best last 6 months: Me :)

The Carter Fold and my LAST show!

Pleasant Hill band 

Great little store on the wind-y road to "The Fold"

"The Fold" filling up

John Harvey singing "Rain Please Go Away"

Better than Starbucks prices but no free wifi

Janette's Bible opened to Psalms 23

 Being the last night of what turned out to be a six month musical journey, I thought a good place to end it would be in another of music's sacred grounds or "birthplaces" seeing as I'd already been to the birthplace of jazz and the blues along my journey. The Carter Fold is the land from which in 1927, in a neighbor's borrowed car, A.P., Sara and Maybelle would make the trip from into Bristol,Tn to make the legendary 1st recordings of which some people say were the first "Modern Country Music" recordings (along with Jimmie Rodgers a few days later). This place was built and started based on a promise that Janette made to A.P. (her dad) that "she'd keep the music alive". It started in A. P.'s store next door but got too big for that really fast! Thanks to Dan Keen a few years back, we came to this special place and visited with Janette before she passed. At the time I asked her (not knowing) if she’d gone into town with the family for the recordings. From what best I can recall she said that she remembered that day clear as a bell "jumpin up and down, holdin on to that wooden gate", crying her eyes out because they wouldn't let her go into town with ‘em. I think she was only 4 years old at the time. “The Carter Fold” would also end up being the place and last concert Johnny Cash  would ever perform, 2 months before his death and not even 2 months after June had died (there's some really sad youtubes of that night: last performances). He's one of the few artists who they allowed to play electric instruments on stage.

Rita Forrester (Janette's daughter) has taken over hosting duties. (Rita clip interview) The band playing on Saturday night was the Pleasant Hill Band from Unicoi,Tennessee. They played a lot of music that the crowd could dance to like "Wildwood Flower" and "Sweet Georgia Brown". I put up JUST a little clip, cuzz you're not suppose to video there. Cloggin' clip. They all had tap's I'd guess you'd call it on their shoes that gave off a really loud "clattering" sound. Think it's called "Appalachian style clogging" or "Flat-footin'" one or the other. At the fold they play mostly "old time" country, folk and bluegrass music and MOSTLY up-tempos. It's been updated since the first time I visited. Other than the dance floor and stage staying pretty much the same, it was dirt floors with old high school bus seats of all different colors for the bleachers. Really was colorful. There's no drinking or smoking allowed and it was kinda like going to a church social. I really think that the first time I came here Janette had ONLY allowed UPtempo's but I may be wrong about that. Anyways, the crowd being mostly families went from the pretty old to the pretty young. Reminded me of the atmosphere of some of the "family" Dance Halls back in Texas like the Quihi Gun Club. The band was nothing incredible but they were solid and reminded me of a family band. Really sweet and unassuming people. Beverly playing "upright" bass would say stuff like "I want this floored filled up with every one-a-ya!" and it usually ended up being that way. There was another thing that really struck me that night, John Harvey was a innocent and sweet looking, clean cut, well dressed little 11 year boy old who played along all night and sang. Before he sang the song "Rain Please Go Away", Beverly (band leader) told the crowd that John's mother was diagnosed with cancer back in June and had since passed away just this past Christmas eve. He played right on.... and did a really great job. I guess it just hit me because I kinda traveled down a road like that of my own at 12.

I also spoke with the sweetest and really pretty lady running the merchandise stand, Flo (Nancy "Flo" Millard Wolfe). She's the oldest granddaughter of Sara and A.P.'s. She had a mischievous look when she says to me "you can remember my name by remembering F for fat, L for Lazy and O for old. She's just one of those people that that has a spark in her eyes. Here is a GREAT, GREAT clip I found online with her talking about cooking! Flo clip!
There was also a bible of Janette's laid open on a little stand to the left of the stage. The Bible was opened to Psalms 23. They say she always wanted it there. You know, there was just a LOT more there than I really have the time or ability to describe so I'll just say that it should be a pilgrimage if you love learning about the south and if you like visiting Country Music Landmarks. It's as good as they get. "Ground Zero" to some. They also have A.P.'s store and his old cabin (link) right next door and open to the public.

So there it is, I'm finished up. I'll wrap it all up this week once I can get my head around it all. Thanks again for taking the time to read my ramblings on music and other things. It was a special experience for me.