30 Apr 04 - 05:05 PM (#1175311)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mooshatanio (Jimmy Driftwood)
From: GUEST,jhess@dhh.la.gov
I've been semi-pro musicalioso since age 9. Ain't no big timer, but have a lot of great memories .... and someone out there may appreciate my relating this one. A new friend of mine had the album with Mushatanio on it. He loaned it to me after hearing me at a coffee shop, thinking that I might appreciate it. Boy is that an understatement. I was into country blues fingerpicking, could hold a tune, and sang songs in the style of Leon Redbone, Doc, Merle, Norman Blake, etc. sprinkled with a few cowboy thangs .... anyway, I fell head over heels for those songs of Mr. Driftwood's, and learned everyone of em ... couldn't help it. Even sang em on a radio/tv broadcast down here around new orleans. Years later, I accidentally ended up in Mountain View ... didn't even know jimmie lived there. I had been working on Kottke fingerpicking, and ragtime/blues for the previous ten years ... but those pioneer songs of jimmies were always deep in my heart, and every now and then one would rise to the top during a performance ..... I'd come out with it, no matter what style of audience, and the response was always positive. Anyway, when in Mountainview, I was lucky enough to get Mrs. Cleta on the phone, and told her how honored I'd be to meet Jimmie. She was very, very kind, and to make a long story short, I had a memorable visit with him that day before a show at the barn. We sang almost every song on that record ... I would ask him something about a particular lyric ...... and man, off we'd go, singing the whole darned thang. He and Mrs. Cleta invited me to sing on the show, later that night. I did, and you coulda cut my leg off without me knowin ... I was in heaven. He seemed such a here and now, strongly positive soul. This occurred about two years before he moved on, he was ninety, I believe ...... and still sharp and singing. I've played in Shad and Molly Hellers vaudeville show, back in '67 and '68, around Branson, the Piney Woods Opry, in Abita Springs, La., the new orleans jazz fest, and rubbed elbows with a couple of bigtimers, but the pinnacle of my music career occurred in a barn, singing pioneer songs with Mr.Jimmie Driftwood.
|