Choo Choo Charlie

Need a color theme here. Pre-digital film. Mid- to late-1990s. I sat in a bowling alley parking lot, waiting for coworkers and their family to join me for the annual Junior Achievement Bowl-a-thon. Just off Memorial Parkway. Plamor. When cigarette smoke held up the ten-pin drunks like a London fog carries off chaps leaving the pub.

On the radio, a new tune by a fresh voice, clear as the afternoon sunlight streaming through a piece of Waterford crystal in my great aunt's parlor. "Alabama State of Mind" by Claire Lynch and the Front Porch String Band. Or was it "If Wishes Were Horses"? Maybe both. I was transfixed.

Years pass. I find a note in the back pocket of an old pair of pants. "Claire Lynch. Bluegrass." Like running into a former lover, trying to remember your favorite song or your first kiss. What have you been doing with yourself? You still look the same. Maybe better.

Finally a live set, backdrop of the twinkling lights of Rocket City, framed by the Burritt gazebo. A new band backing her up, husband's off on other projects.

Life goes on. She's raising a daughter, no time for producers and their micromanaging.

Calendars tossed aside, years forgotten. Once again, she's taking the stage, the memories more hers than mine, a coed all over again, debuting at Grissom High School. Daughter's 17 by now, grown up enough for Momma to hit the road. Another mosaic of bluegrass performers, trying each other out like shoppers at a Macy's sale, no list of encore songs stacked up for curtain calls.

Tonight, she's young again. Like an old friend. Merrimack Hall the picture frame this evening. Bright, happy lady in bright, happy clothes. Like a surprise wrapped in a Good & Plenty candy box. Brunette with blonde hair. Face renewed. As a matter of fact, you do look better than you used to!

Familiar face, familiar sound - Jim Hurst and the "Mando Bounce." A hint of Jim's talent that many of us already know. Good thing he shows his finger-picking goods to us all later on.

Better yet, take the "Highway," song due to arrive on 15th September CD release, tying ribbons, silk and asphalt, "rolling from sea to sea." Jim's guitar like a pear cut in half, filling our ears with vitastrummed strings. Irene Kelly getting a nod at co-authorship.

Mandolin. What's a bluegrass band without a mandolin player? The Doc Watson lookalike contest winner, Jason Thomas, not letting grass grow under his blue chorded frets.

His compadre, wearing a hat sort of African, sort of Confederate, a federale from a Spanish resistance force, mischievous eyes flaring and staring, Mark Schatz, taking his shot at bass fiddle one song, hamming up his hambone in another, dancing an Irish jig, and not still content, almost feeling underemployed, picking his clawhammer composition, making Bela Fleck look like an apprentice on jazz banjo. Not bad for a boy from Massachusetts. You got him. Rhonda and Alison should be jealous.

You mind your mother's advice when it suits you. "Never follow kids, dogs or cloggers." Tap-dancing bass players don't count!

Many a tune for our light, polite, applause - "Leaving on an evening train"; a tribute to Flatt on the day he died, you folks the second generation to carry the standard; "Face to Face"; another tribute, to your grandmother in-law in Walker County, Sipsey country, "where the birds still have room for their wings," an Alabama river full of blue tears. Reminds me of a moonlit hike in the Sipsey wilderness area through fallen pines cut down by a crimson tide tornado, hand-in-hand with the one I love.

You're showing your age in awards, though - inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, including a citation from the governor. Anyone got a donation to pay Mr. Riley? Maybe Kyle's playtime on XM 14 and Sirius 65 will do. Isn't there a track-to-track on 23rd September that'll pay some dues?

"This Must Be Love." You said it, gal, all shiny and pretty in your pink sweater and bright flowered dress, like an inverted ice cream cone on a set of smooth legs tucked into high-heeled sandals. How can you have a daughter in college who'd do 79 in a 55 zone? Are you old enough to drive?

Maybe you're "Wednesday's Child," a song from "Silver and Gold" I hadn't heard in a while. Just as fun to watch Mark's face, tells a tale I see but don't want to write about.

First leg of this trip's almost over. Let's pull into the station with "Freight Train Boogie." Whoo-hoo.

Intermission. Another crowd of unknowns once again. Another night for gray-haired culture hogs feeding at the concert trough. At least the buffet's good tonight. Appetizing. Variety of tastes. Bluegrass is perennial but not always in season. Gotta get T-Bone B on your menu - that's your meal ticket - maybe facebook and twitter, too. Think you could get a gig on "So You Think You Can Dance?"

All aboard. Jim looks like Wilford Brimley, "Up the Hill and Down" again. Swinging into "Who knows what tomorrow will bring?" Then Jimmy Martin's "Hey Lonesome." Is there a theme here, Claire?

Guess not. Let Jim bring out a classic from a "Box of Chocolate," heavy as a "Nine Pound Hammer". Thank goodness he has fingers of steel!

Why do I like you, Claire? Cause of the way you sing "Thibodeaux," though Jason's Cajun fiddle needs a little more twang.

'S okay. Your story about your mother in-law and the Richard Harris movie, "Abraham," make "A Lick and a Promise" worth going along with you even if it seems you don't know where you are going. Perhaps a grain of sand is all you need, too.

Surrounded by your guys, shirts untucked, dark-toned clothes. Talented in their own light but the headline and the spotlight's on you.

Your tone of voice says something's missing from tonight's anniversary song, "Silver and Gold." You took "Train Long Gone" on "New Day" to Number One and maybe there's a reason not laid out in the lyrics. Tens of dollars later and here you are. Maybe the stage's not lit right. Something is bluer than blue. Maybe it's you. Maybe not. Not my night to find out.

Get us back on the "Wabash Cannonball," solo features all around, Jason making up for his bland Cajun seasoning by giving the best progression on the Wabash theme, better than the rest, but they had their peak moments so we're back together just in time.

Never enough encores but one will do. "Stranger Things Have Happened," you could fall in love with me. Or so the song goes, Titanic, Patty Hearst and Coke jokes notwithstanding.

We'll always have Huntsville. For some, native land. Others, natives. You can't go home again so where do you stop to call home? That's the secret to true bluegrass very few know, isn't it, Claire? Let the music flow. The tears will come later, followed by accolades worth retiring to. Keep your chin up, kiddo. It's gonna be all right.

"In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines, and shivered when the cold wind blows..." Swing it up a little, a snappy beat, a hint of hop, and next thing you know, kids are searching iTunes for this brand-new song. It's in you - I heard it tonight. You're on the way again. Funny how these things happen, old becomes new over and over? See you again soon. We love you, babe. Time to stop wandering in the desert and get back to your winning ways. See if Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton want to sing three-part harmony with their favorite Hazel Green gal. If the folks in this town can shoot for the moon, so can you!