Our last hurrah in Memphis...

We had a great time on Saturday. The finals were at 2pm for the bands, and at 7:30pm for the solo/duo performers. We chose to skip going to the band finals, but we went to the solo/duo competition to support our friends in the Juke Joint Devils. They did a REALLY great performance, and in my humble opinion, they should have taken first or second prize... but the German duo won. Coincidentally there is going to be the first International Blues Challenge in Germany next year...

Completely aside from the music, in the afternoon on Saturday, we were "walking in Memphis"... on Beale Street, and decided to go to the King's Palace to see if they had replenished their stock of the fabulous chocolate layer cake with raisins (we shared a couple pieces between 7 of us the other night... it was heavenly...) We asked the hostess to see if there was any more of the cake, and she told us that the girl who makes that cake was the waitress, so she asked her directly. Nope - none of THAT cake, but they had the voodoo chocolate layer cake -- chocolate is chocolate, right? NOT. It was good, but not "heavenly" like hers... We complimented her cake and told her that she needs to go into business for herself -- she has a gift for it. Her eyes welled up; apparently we were meant to tell her that message. Apparently she has been contemplating this decision for quite some time. Her birthday is today. She was feeling sad because she's "getting old"... she turns 42 today. HA! "old.." She told us with tears in her eyes that when she is baking, creating lovin' from her oven, there is nothing like the feeling that she gets from creating her culinary sweet treats. I understand this feeling -- it's the feeling that I get from making music. When something you do makes other people happy or touches another in some way, it makes us "connected" and that good energy grows exponentially. I truly hope she follows her passion. Ask any of the cake-lovers who had even just a little bite of her cake. She has a gift!

I took a nice nap in the afternoon, so that I would be able to stay up 'till the wee hours. Gotta recharge sometimes... We went to the Rum Boogie Cafe for Bob Margolin's jam later. Many of our Boston friends were there. Rosy Rosenblatt was playing harmonica in the house band, Erin Harpe and the Delta Swingers got up and did a couple songs, Cindy Daley and Satch Romano got up there...and Bob called up some really fun performers. Then, he did something sorta strange. Rather than have a list of musicians for jammin', he had interludes when he opened the stage, and the first musicians to get there became a band and went with it. I was fortunately sitting at stage left, in front, and Timo was at the front, stage right, so we were able to get on stage together at the first jammin' opportunity. Thanks to Lydia Warren for the little video clip on my facebook! Lydia got up a little later and made us proud! I'm looking forward to performing in the Ladies in the Blues concert in May at the Bull Run in Shirley.

Later in the evening, another call for a free-for-all. The only rule was, you couldn't go up again if you had just gone up the prior song. I watched and waited... drummer, bass, guitar, harmonica... didn't seem to be a singer up there, so I politely asked if I could sing. The response was, "You're up here, sure you can." So - another song with strangers makin' music together. And, I was offered a gig in Minneapolis! (we'll figure that out later...)

We're on our way back home soon... We might have to wait a while to see what good ultimately comes of this trip, but I know something good is on the horizon. We don't need anyone to tell us that we're better than another band. We know that what we do comes from the depths of our soul, and we know that it touches people, and THAT's why we do it.

Thank you for your support!!!