Young at Heart

Late Sunday night at the Fair, something shifted. It’s hard to describe. Something about the musicians’ relationship with the audience became deeper, truer, more raw and revealed. For instance: wild man accordionist Jason Webley spent most of the weekend playing raucous covers of bad 80s pop tunes called out at random from the audience. He is as much a comedian as a musician and he's hilarious. Late Sunday night, he started a set with his usual silly cheer, but then, apropos of nothing, he started telling these dark, personal stories about his recent unnerving encounters with strangers. He would find himself in irritating situations revolving around bad weather, cancelled flights, missed connections, that kind of thing. You know those days, right? There he'd be, bemoaning his fate, feeling like a victim. Right at that moment, the universe would conspire to put him next to someone who was truly a victim – a woman escaping a violent boyfriend, a man visiting his dying son. I think he was trying to say something about how we choose to perceive ourselves and our reality, but his tales were dark, unresolved and didn't conclude with some pat uplifting message. He interspersed these stories with quiet, sad, personal songs, the antithesis of the crazy, upbeat pop covers he had played all weekend. It was a palpable shift in tone and it happened in the middle of the set, and atleast 100 people sat listening, rapt, enthralled.

Later on, I passed an old hippie guy playing with some young guns in the path. I walked up expecting to hear folk music or Dead covers; instead he and his cohorts were playing deep, hypnotic dub, and playing it damn well. He sang in a soft, ragged, strangely compelling voice and his lyrics were angry, political, incisive. He had drawn a crowd that almost blocked the path and they were listening silently, deeply and intently. It stopped me in my tracks. I stood swaying with this crowd, breathing in rhythm, breathing a background harmony. It was eerie.

I got back to the meadow where Trashcan Joe and the Saloon Ensemble were tearing it up unamplified. I joined the crowd dancing in front of them and realized that we were all singing along in harmony. I heard the trumpet player do a lovely version of the Frank Sinatra song Young At Heart several times over the weekend and he pulled it out again that night. This time, the crowd sang behind him like we were his back-up Boswell Sisters. Close to 100 people, in tune, in time, and singing sweetly. I’d never heard anything quite like it.

And, there was my voice, shining out from the tribe, laying on complex jazz harmonies, a 6th here, a diminished 9th there. Because I can. Because that's what I do. Because that's who I am.

It’s hard to describe and I’m not sure what it meant, but that evening touched me deeply.



Young at Heart
Fairy tales can come true,
it can happen to you
If you're young at heart
For it's hard, you will find,
to be narrow of mind
If you're young at heart

You can go to extremes with impossible schemes
You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams
And life gets more exciting with each passing day
And love is either in your heart or on it's way

Don't you know that it's worth every treasure on earth
To be young at heart
For as rich as you are it's much better by far
To be young at heart

And if you should survive to 105
Look at all you'll derive out of being alive
Then here is the best part, you have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart

And if you should survive to 105
Look at all you'll derive out of being alive
Then here is the best part, you have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart