On Wednesday the 14th we met at On the Border and then eased across the street to table 5 at Club Passim for a vegan dinner and then Jimmie Dale Gilmore and the Wronglers. We had never seen Jimmie Dale before and I would have loved to hear him play songs such as Santa Fe Thief, Dallas, and Goodbye Ol' Missoula but he's got a great thing going with The Wronglers and this was a delightful evening of American standards.
And by "American standards" I don't mean [the great!] songs a Billie Holiday or a Frank Sinatra would consider standards, I mean A.P. Carter, Bill Monroe, Tommy Duncan, et cetera ... the kind of stuff that rocks my world. Jimmie met up with a Harvard Bus grad named Warren Hellman who took up the banjo for a hobby and had the organizing moxie to put together a great band to play the old songs like they should be played: simple, short, and democratically. Several of them were just carried away by the Tea Party of Nate Levine on rhythm guitar and Colleen Browne on electric bass after the others had contributed their virtuoso licks.
Eight people were pried into the small Club Passim stage (including Krista Martin on fiddle and Bill Martin on Mandolin, Heidi Clare on fiddle and some incredible harmonies (either she was born to sing with Jimmie or vice versa), and stellar acoustic lead guitar and cheerleading from Robbie Gjersoe). Every song they sang I've heard innumerable times before and this time was the best: Time Changes Everything, Columbus Stockade Blues, Footprints In the Snow ... the hits did not stop. The killer for me and Sarah was when Warren Hellman sang Big Rock Candy Mountain, that Sarah's Dad used to sing to her as a child.
Had a great time and though it was a short show, this *was* a Wednesday night and we got back to the parking place I had found on Cambridge Common and got back home not too late.
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