‍ ‍“Sometimes it’s heaven and sometimes it’s hell,
‍ ‍And sometimes I don’t even know,
‍ ‍Sometimes I take it as far as I can, 
‍ ‍And sometimes I don’t even go”
- Willie Nelson

Sunday morning I’m driving into town with my girlfriend Trisha and we’re listening to “Heaven and Hell” on 939 The River. This Willie Nelson waltz suits me to a T. After stage managing for the Backporch Festival Friday night and all day Saturday I am feeling wiped out and filled up, tired and replenished.
2024 marks the tenth year for the Backporch Festival produced by Jim Olsen and his Signature Sounds crew. The event has gradually grown to sixty shows at ten venues around Northampton, Massachusetts over three days. For the last two years people can buy a Ramble button for $40 and wander from show to show all weekend. It’s kind of like an Americana First Night. The smorgasbord approach works well at a discovery festival like this where the bands are carefully curated but mostly unknown to the audience. The Ramble buttons are sold out for the weekend.
Friday I was the volunteer stage manager at the Hotel Northampton where the first act was The Mammals, who are relatively well-known. This folk-rock quintet is led by Mike Merenda and Ruthy Ungar, a couple who used to live around here until they moved to the Hudson River Valley decades ago. Their 12 year old daughter was running the merch table which included homemade tinctures made by the band. CDs are a tough sell these days but the tinctures were going like hotcakes! 
The hotel ballroom has chandeliers and wall-to-wall carpeting with a capacity of 250. Rows of chairs were set up in two-thirds of the available space and they were filling fast for the Mammals show which started at 6:00. Gray-haired baby boomers poured in looking for seats. As stage manager I leapt into action and got Mark, the helpful hotel guy to break out more chairs from his secret cache. 
The Mammals delivered a professional show. Their set was well-modulated. They rocked out, they brought it down to one mike, they got the audience singing. The highlight for me was a performance of “Ashokan Farewell,” an instrumental song written by Ruthy’s father Jay Ungar and featured in Ken Burns’s Civil War documentary. 
I know “Ashokan Farewell” on mandolin because earlier this year I was part of a quartet playing at a memorial concert for our friend Louise Law, who died much too young. When the Mammals played that tender waltz it resonated with the memory of Louise and of my wife Andrea, who was a great friend of Louise’s, and who also died too young.
So many people were coming to see The Mammals that we reached capacity in the ballroom and had to close the doors. Only when people exited could we let more in from the line that was now filling the hotel lobby. Jim Olsen, the festival head honcho, showed up and was not pleased that the extra chairs we added had reduced the standing room capacity in the ballroom.
I can’t help it. I believe in seating people. We host a lot of big gatherings at my house and I am always grabbing desk chairs from bedrooms so that people can sit down. I feel like it’s the least you can do.
For the next set, featuring a Cajun band called Rose and the Bros, we got rid of all the chairs on one side. After taking off the velcroed cushions, we stacked the chairs in the sun porch area next to the ballroom. That turned out well. If you wanted to sit down there was no one blocking your view and if you wanted to dance to the Cajun trance there was plenty of space. 
The next day I was back at the hotel at noon for a long day of stage-managing. Big Yellow Taxi, a Joni Mitchell tribute band that I know well, was the opening act at 1:45 in the afternoon. I helped this sextet get their very first gig. The bass player, Rich Cahillane is a close friend. The drummer Joe Fitzpatrick gave my son lessons. I know all these people. 
The volunteers helping out on this shift were Corey and his precocious fifth-grade daughter Sophie. “I’ve never seen a hotel with a ballroom like this,” said Sophie, as if she’d seen a lot of hotels. Maybe she has. 
Sophie and I were stationed on either side of the entrance to the ballroom when a guy walked in and gave me a big, lopsided hello. “Johnny!” The hippest looking dude all weekend, in a relaxed gray suit and stylish winter cap, he had a familiar face but I couldn’t place him. When he hugged me I got a solid whiff of weed. 
Clearly a friend of the band and probably lacking a ticket, he strolled right in to grab a seat. Later I realized this guy was an old acquaintance I haven’t seen for 35 years. He used to come to parties on Graves Avenue where I lived in the late ‘80s. Correct me if I’m hallucinating, but I remember one time he somehow climbed into the freezer compartment of our refrigerator with his whole body. Things like that happened in that house. Back to the hotel ballroom.

‍ ‍“But now old friends are acting strange.
‍ ‍They shake their heads and tell me that I’ve changed,
‍ ‍Well, something’s lost and something’s gained,
‍ ‍In living every day.” - Joni Mitchell

As Big Yellow Taxi was finishing their set with “Both Sides Now” I walked up to the stage to bring the band off and saw my long lost friend from Graves Avenue sitting in the front row, eyes brimming with tears. Music can do that to you. Led by fabulous lead singer Teresa Lorenco, this band served up those complicated Joni songs on a silver platter. To see that transcendent music come to life in front of your eyes was something like a miracle. 
Coming up next I was excited to see the Tarbox Ramblers, a roots rock band from Boston led by Michael Tarbox on vocals and electric guitar. After twenty years the original quartet has reunited, including Dan Kellar on fiddle and Johnny Sciascia (pronounced “Shah-Shah”) on upright bass. Before their set I was talking with Mr. Tarbox about the time he played on my radio show back in the 1990s when WRSI was still in Greenfield. 
“I’m psyched about getting the old band back together,” said Micheal, sporting black rimmed glasses under a white cowboy hat. “This is only our third show. We’re a little rusty.”
And then he added with a smile, “But, you know…rust becomes us.”
So true. Rust becomes us.
Rust becomes me.
At the age of 69 my ears have gotten rusty. Last week I went to the audiologist and was told that I have lost a large swath of the high notes, the high frequencies. I knew this was the case before they gave me a battery of tests but it is sobering to hear it officially from a doctor. 
At least I think I heard it. Anyway, I am getting a professional ear protection ear piece fabricated that I can wear when I go to concerts or family reunions. In the meantime I wear foam plugs that I buy at the hardware store. I have some in my pants pockets at the hotel ballroom.
As stage manager my pockets were full of stuff- reading glasses, laminated volunteer passes, drink tickets for the bands, hotel key cards for the green room, mini posters to my band’s upcoming show at the American Legion. At some point I reached into that jumble looking for my glasses but they were MIA. I looked around and discovered them on the floor in three pieces. In all that fishing around in my jam packed pockets they must have fallen out. 
The front section of my glasses were intact but the temple sections that go over your ear have broken off. Holding the lenses on my nose with one hand and trying to work an iPhone with the other was ridiculous. Luckily, I ran into Mark Wagner who happened to be performing at the Parlor Room that night as part of Heather Maloney’s songwriting class. I tell Mark my sad story and he hands me a pair of reading glasses out of his coat pocket. “They’re 1.75. You can have them. I’ve got extras.” You are a lifesaver, Mr. Wagner.
At this point in the schedule the Tarbox Ramblers have played their lively gutbucket stomp, the Misty Blues band from Berkshire County have unleashed their crowd-pleasing guitar heroics, and a dance party has started with a local eight-piece called the Soul Magnets.
Unfortunately, the bouncy acoustics in the ballroom were problematic for this funky big band. They had too much sound for a space full of French doors and hard surfaces. People were dancing but I have heard this group sound way better.
Cornered by a persistent audience member complaining about it being too loud, I ask our soundman, one of the Valley’s best, if he can lower the volume. “It’s not going to help,” he said. “If I bring it down it’s going to echo even more and sound worse.”
After the show I was back at the house with Trisha and four friends from Boston who were here for the weekend, David and Silvana, Diane and Paul. We gathered around the dining room table for a nightcap and a recap. The evening is winding down when we hear Paul playing ukulele softly in the first floor bedroom. “Paul, come out here and play,” we say. Soon we are singing along to “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” the old chestnut that George Harrison liked to do. I get out another uke and a guitar and we strum a few more tunes before we turn out the lights.
Sunday morning comes fast. It’s March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day. By the time Trisha and I make it down to the live radio broadcast at Progression Brewery, the Deep River Ramblers have finished their set of Willie Nelson tunes. They were the anchor band for the big Willie tribute show Friday night at the Academy of Music. Up next on the broadcast Jim Olsen is interviewing Steve Poltz who opened for the Preservation Hall Jazz Band Saturday night at the Academy. Trisha and I enter Progression quietly so as not to disturb the broadcast in progress.
Steve Poltz is the talk of the festival, one of those performers that you have to see live. Easy to characterize as the nutty hippie with the stringy, gray hair hanging down from his baseball cap, he’s also a zen humanist, deep as well as hilarious. Introducing a song called “The Medical Career” about how his childhood ambition was to be a singing doctor, Steve Poltz said, “Here’s to achieving 50% of your dreams.”
That tender song was perfect for this scene. Sun streaming in the big picture windows of Progression Brewery, sixty people in the audience, broadcast rig set up by the small stage, the vibe mellow but buzzy. It’s old school radio. The performers are top notch, the sets are short, the sound is excellent. Everyone is half awake but happy to be there. Unguarded. 
I get to be part of these broadcasts because I am the fill-in host for the Backporch radio show whenever Jim Olsen goes on vacation.
After Steve Poltz bolts I interview singer-songwriter Laura Cantrell and her friend, Mimi Roman, an 89 year old rockabilly singer who Laura lured out of retirement. Among the many amazing facts about Mimi Roman’s life is that she dated Elvis Presley in 1956 when he came to New York City for the Ed Sullivan Show. 
“He was a very nice young man,” said Mimi decisively. “It’s terrible what they did to him.”
Known as the “Original Brooklyn Cowgirl,” Mimi met a lot of people in Nashville. I asked her about Johnny Cash.
“I opened for Johnny Cash,” she said, laughing. “My claim to fame.” 
“That’s one of them,” I said. 
“Very nice guy,” said Mimi. “He was with the Tennessee Two. I tried to bum a ride back to Nashville and they didn’t take me because I forgot that two rows in the front and one slept in the back so if they had taken me somebody wouldn’t have a chance to sleep. I forgave him.”
“The Everly Brothers, you were friends with them, right?” I asked
“I tried to be one of the Everlys and they didn’t want me either. I had a lifetime of being turned down,” said Mimi, with a bittersweet chuckle.
“You found a home now,” I said, gesturing towards Laura Cantrell.
“I did,” said Mimi. “I finally found somebody who cares about me.”
“I can’t take all the credit,” said Laura. “Mimi is actually going to performing on her 90th birthday at a big rockabilly festival in Las Vegas with Deke Dickerson.”
“Let’s here it for that,” I say to the audience who applaud, as well they should.
“There is life after 80,” says Mimi. “It’s actually more fun than I’ve had since I was in my twenties. It was a long wait. I don’t suggest waiting this long.” The audience laughs. Mimi says, “Don’t give up. Never give up.” 

Later in the show I interview Rachel Baiman who is one busy singer-songwriter. This afternoon she will headline at the Parlor Room and then come back to Progression as part of a St. Pat’s tribute to Sinead O’Connor and Shane MacGowan. Then tonight she opens for Richard Thompson at the Academy of Music at 8 pm. Those big-time, night-time shows at the Academy of Music are a separate ticket, above and beyond a Ramble button. I talk to Rachel about Folk Fights Back, the series she did teaming up with local non-profits in the wake of Trump’s election in 2016. 

After the broadcast Trisha and I head to the downtown condo that my sister B.Z. and my brother-in-law Eric have been lent for the weekend. What a sweet location. You can see the Woodstar Cafe from the condo’s front steps and that’s where we get sandwiches for lunch. 

The festival is still going strong but Trisha and I head back to my house in Florence. We pull the porch furniture out of the shed and set it up on the deck. Sitting outside with a glass of wine and some tortilla chips we bask and then bundle up, back and forth. The day is warm then chilly, sunny and cloudy, calm then breezy. It’s both. It’s March.