Loose Leaf Notes

“I want to see them at the Grammys next year or at least on the main stage at Floydfest,” I said to my neighbor Bob Grubel about the Flying A’s who were in town from Austin, Texas for some gigs and a house concert.

It was an iconic summer evening of food cooked over a grill, good beer and conversation, and some thoroughly entertaining music performed on Bob and Sandy’s front porch at Zephyr Farm.   Flying A’s Hillary and Stuart Adamson jammed with Bob and other Floyd musicians who came by. Honky tonk, foot stomp and folksongs, original and covers.  From my front row lawn chair, I’m sipping a microbrew and thinking, ‘how lucky can you get?’

After seeing Ziggy Marley locally at Radford University and the Indigo girls at nearby Virginia Tech more than a decade ago, I thought, ‘why go anywhere to hear good music, let the music come to us.’  And it does.  Richie Havens and Leon Russell performed on the Sun Hall stage in Floyd, and now we have Floydfest every summer, four days of non-stop top quality music on more than 8 stages, six miles up the Parkway from where I live.

As writer, I’m particularly impressed by good songwriting and Hillary and Stuart had that covered. Their voices compliment each other, whether belted out or poured sweet like honey.  I enjoyed seeing their interactions (with each other and with the other musicians) and hearing the stories that went with their songs.   Stuart asked Hillary to do the first song he heard her sing. They played the honeymoon song that they wrote together and one by Stuart that Hillary referred to as “the heated debate.” That one turned out to be my favorite (coming soon to their next CD).

Yes, good music comes to us and now it’s coming closer, just a country walk from my Parkway log cabin to my neighbor Bob’s front porch.

Note: Watch videos of the evening’s entertainment HERE, HERE, and HERE.