I realized that in all my years of writing and journal keeping, I seldom, if ever, write about “The Inn,” which is and has been, the biggest and most enduring constant in my life for the past thirty plus years. Every Thursday night I load up my car, truck, bus or whatever I happen to be driving at the time with my guitar, amps and broken-down paraphernalia of a small-potato folksinger, and I head to The Colonial Inn in Concord MA and take up my stool in the corner of the Village Forge Pub, and I start to sing–sometimes non-stop for several hours and sometimes with long and friendly breaks thrown in to meet up with old friends or let someone else on stage–almost always some musician with better chops than mine. I can honestly say that have never had a bad night. I’ve had tough nights with indifferent crowds, no crowds or loud crowds, but something always happens to “redeem the night,” and I never drive home feeling eternity has in any sense been wounded by the night.
It is that redemption that gives me the energy, no matter what my energy really is. Music does not soothe the soul–it energizes life and gives a deeper substance that is as real as any seed planted in a welcome soil.
That soil is you, whoever “you” are.
You might be an old high school buddy who laughs and wonders when the hell I ever started playing guitar. You might be some snowbound or life-bound traveler spending a night at the inn. You might be a business- man or woman pouring over spreadsheets in the corner. You might be a friend or group of friends celebrating life or mourning a death or just reconnecting. You might be a lonely drunk or a bitter drunk or just a drunk searching for a better elixir to get you through the life you have or have created. You might be a family out for a burger and chicken fingers and a round of sodas. You might be my wife Denise who sees and senses and knows everything that is me. You might be one of my kids getting on stage to give the old man a break, or one of my students finally getting the courage to sing to a crowd. You might be the bartender: Joe, Subhas, Leslie, Garret, Nick or Patti and my only crowd.
In every case “you” make “me” possible. And, for the most part, I have stopped arguing with myself, and maybe that is why people keep coming by.
Some years ago a reporter from The Boston Globe asked me what I like to sing, and in a moment of profundity, I responded, “Anything that I know that someone wants to hear.” I have butchered many a song on stage, not because I do not know the song, but because I want to know the song; I want to give it a try, and I learned long ago that if I only sing what I know well, I would have a very short set-list. I’ve learned in the magical process of learning, butchering and relearning that my sets are a constantly evolving paradigm–a flow that emerges in a new way in each moment. Each night is a new night and a new way of seeing the world in front of me. I am blessed by the solipsism of a small bar in my hometown of Concord. It is, for those few hours, my universe, and I am pulled by the gravity of tradition to just keep singing.
Everything simply falls in place.
When I started back in the winter of 1983, I had dreams that this was only a beginning–a way to lay a foundation beneath a singer/songwriter destined for some broader fame. Now I am happy to settle for a larger fame, one that my youth could never dream. Tonight my stage will be as large as it ever was or needs to be. Seth and Hatrack might show–two of my oldest and best friends–and we will settle in with me in a crowded corner. Tom Sheppard might come by with his big bass. Keith might lug in his drum kit. You might even be there.
We will meet new people. We’ll sing and laugh and play and experiment and never imagine defaming the night with a list of songs. The true and palpable magic just happens.
It is a damn fine universe, and all I really need.
