BOBBY AND WE

The rolling-back of the cloud-curtain which has covered us for so long is sending great gleams of sunshine down the stairs as I write, with the big panes of the storm-door admitting more light than has entered these premises in months, it seems.

I’d thought this was just another of the darkling mornings, but happy tidings of sun brought us gladdened hearts and renewed energy today.
Yesterday was not half bad, either, though it stayed dampy cold and dim all day. We started the day with a rousing jam session---Sweetpea and Ganner and I, when I checked in on Beverly’s How Sweet the Sound.
She’d featured my favorite Janis Joplin number---Bobby McGee---I’ve always wondered how it must feel to be the Piano Guy on that one---WOW! And if Kris Kristofferson never did another thing in his life---writing this one song would be enough---sheer poetry.

It just got us dancing and jumping and making all sorts of music. As I turned it on, I picked up her little floor tomtom and one of the soft-tipped sticks;
Ganner reached for the little tambourine, and we got the music going.

Sweetpea was still drowsing a bit from the before-daylight arrival, and then we could see one little foot keeping time, then a quick emergence from the blanket, to drag and wave it about like the napkins we all grab when we dance in the kitchen.

Boy, did that get the circulation moving!! She danced and danced, and we were moving pretty good for old folks, as well. She eagerly requested, “Play it AGAIN!!” and we did, feeling all energized and smiling. Then “Let’s do it AGAIN!” and after the second encore, we were so revved up, we could have taken on hordes of barbarians.

We enjoyed a single playing of it again this morning, getting all BRIGHT before the sun started streaming in, with her Daddy on tambourine today, me on the floor tom again, every so often being handed the little toy baby drum,

depending on her whim as she danced past, and Ganner strumming on the big old Granddaddy Dobro. And the addition of a brand-new instrument, which I picked up on my own whim: The rickey-tick of the drumstick on the Jello-Bean mold,

 

scritched with one of her kid-sized Pro-Marks---that one could just turn out to be the latest edition of the Bluegrass washboard. Upside down, the tray is a treasure-trove of little protruding bellies, ripe for clickety scratching, and I predict that Jello-Zydeco may be the next Craze.

Do try a Jam Session of your own---I recommend it.

". . . the most staggering leading woman in rock... she slinks like tar, scowls like war... clutching the knees of a final stanza, begging it not to leave... Janis Joplin can sing the chic off any listener." Goldstein of Vogue magazine