Allan's not kidding - he was in top form, especially with the beautiful love song he sang at Sunday's concert.

Hmmm. Highlights? That implies LOWlights, of which I found none. Well, OK, the bathrooms were a challenge for grownups to fit it, but other than that….

A few things that will remain with me:

- Mick and Barry singing us a lullaby. They had to: we couldn't stop giggling. I didn't know I COULD giggle.

- The weirdness of brushing my teeth while listening to the sounds of mudcatters singing various things all over the cabins

- Folk1234 spins out some haunting songs. Gentle spirit and beautiful playing and singing

- The Friday night cabin jam. Roger's Marge had brought some moodlighting, and it was a cozy, safe, wonderful reason to be a 'catter.

- the Sunday night jam was a struggle for the soul. I've never heard a finer collection of salacious, gory, scary, funny, raunchy songs in my life. Or maybe it was just the singing. Even the gospel songs were a little too exciting.

- Pamela's Celtic and Scots mouth music. She shared something so foreign to many of us in a way that made if haunting and funny and very accessible. I want to know more!

- Lordy - between Mick's Songs of Struggle workshop and Sunday's concert, my heart was bruised and battered. Really. If part of the job of folk music is to carry on stories, then people, it's happening. There was Sandy's song (mentioned above), Rita's (mentioned also), Charlie Baum's at the concert, about the woman mistakenly imprisoned in the lunatic asylum, any of several songs Barry wrote and sang his heart out on, Judy's song about a woman finding her birth mother…

- Barry Finn's own songs are amazing. He writes these wise, hard-hitting things and then just flings them out of his soul into your face.

- Roger can just tickle you to the floor with his Biscuit Blues, Breakfast Blues, and others that he can just DEADPAN like crazy.

- I don't know about Max changing color, but I do know somebody's speaking through that guitar when he plays. Beautiful.

- You really might have mistaken Barry, Mick and Dan for the Shirelles. Watch out for three Irishmen with glints in their eyes and glasses in their hands…

- I loved ANYthing Lani Hermann sang, but her singing of "Teach Me to Waltz"(?) was so sad and so lovely all at the same time. Sheesh. I hope she'll forgive us for acting like a bunch of ninnies in the cabin!

- Blues Workshop. Wow. Dave Diamond is a hoot! What a treasure. His "Sushi Blues"? (or "California Roll"?) is too hot for prime time. And Dave Thorpe is one helluvan ambassador for the blues and a helluva singer to boot.

- A nice surprise: Jeri's fiddling is almost as lovely as her singing, but neither one is as wicked as her sense of humor.

OK - enough for now.

Dani