Don, any time you make it to the west coast, let me know. We (the Jammers and I) are members of a large, invitation only jam that meets every Monday night at the home of one of our three original members (I'm one of the three). Last night's regular jam was our annual Memorial Day party, so we started with drinks and snacks at 5:00, got great Chicago style pizza and other foods at about 6:30, started making music soon after 7:00, and played until 10:00, finishing about an hour earlier than usual, thanks to the early start. In all, there were about 12 of our regular members plus family members and guests. I wish I had learned your Memorial Day song for the occasion, but it'll take a bit longer than that. All the jammers except Clark, our mandolin player, were there, plus Walter on fiddle and piano, his wife Milly, on piano, Charlie on guitar and Sally on autoharp--the other two original members, Josh--a multi-instrumentalist on banjo and guitar, Karl--another multi-instrumentalist who learned banjo 50 years ago from Pete Seeger--on mandolin and banjo, Nancy on vocals and spoons, and jammer bassist Michael's wife Gini on vocals (she does a dynamite version of "Our Town."

The only song we did from the album was "Beware, Oh Take Care," but I introduced something I'm working on for the next album, my setting of the Robert W. Service poem
"The Cremation of Sam McGee." For the intro, I sang only the first two verses--I have slightly different melodies for them, something I will continue for each pair of verses through the poem. I can imagine the fun it will be recording it, getting Courtney to make her breaks creepier and creepier as the recording progresses. Once I get the others strong on the melody, I might play only harmonica in the recording, so Courtney and I can try to outdo each other with the increasingly insane breaks. Courtney and I--and Walter, our other fiddler--play great duet and trio breaks together.

Anyway, you have a standing invitation to join the group (and I hope in the next few weeks to learn at least "Lightning Road" and "Katie's Song" and possibly "Appalachia" and who knows what else, and teach them to the others by the time you make it out...and if you should make it out on a weekend, you might find us working on the next album and you could join us in that and the following Monday group jam.

Charles