which includes one of my biggest! Regrets!!!!!!!!!!!
Though I don’t want to start with that.
For Americanafest 2019, I dreamt up an ode to Lawerence Welk, basically, and wanted to create a show that felt like the first heyday of music television. Dubbed “We’ve Only Just Begun”, it started as a tribute to The Carpenters & More, and ballooned to a set of almost 40 songs with only 5-6 being tunes by The Carpenters. I still cannot believe the incredible band and how amazing it sounded.
Music Director: Jordan Lehning
Acoustic Guitar: Jordan Lehning
Electric Guitar & Steel: Ellen Angelico
Keys Wiz: Thayer Sarrano
Bass: Kevin Black
Drums: Jon Radford
BGVS: Kate Bernhardt, Myself
Video Footage: Joshua Shoemaker
Sound Engineer: Buddy Hughen
Artwork by: Rachel Briggs
Everyone gave me “chillbumps” as my dad would say, but some highlights for me were John McCauley of Deertick singing his ass off on “Rugged Road” by Judee Sill, Natalie Prass + Lou Hayat singing “Close To You”, “This Masquerade” performed by Alex Caress, CARL ANDERSON singing “Something’s On Your Mind”.. GOT dayum, and Tristen singing “Wichita Lineman”.
rae-rae’s big regret: I forgot to confirm recording the audio of the show with Buddy. It would have been a whole different set-up and discussion, and my adhd or whatever you wanna call it just dropped the ball on it entirely. So Joshua Shoemaker filmed the whole thing and we were able to scrounge up some found audio from videos people took of the night. (If you see this, and you have some, maybe send it my way!)
It was such an incredible night, and I think it was probably some kind of lesson in impermanence. Or, more likely, a lesson for me to double check all parts of a project. So please enjoy this supercut with found audio, and thank you to everyone made this thing happen!
Mike McKaskle - “Tiny Bubbles”
Michaela Anne - “Someday Soon” - Judy Collins, Suzy Boggus
Nicole Atkins w/ Jordie Lane + Claire Reynolds - “Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore” Scott Walker
Charlie Whitten - “Operator” Jim Croce
Kristina Murray - Bread - “Make It With You”
Caitlin Rose- “Superstar” - The Carpenters
Tristen - “Wichita Lineman” - Glen Campbell
Carl Anderson - “Something’s On Your Mind” - Karen Dalton
Rachel Baiman - “So Far Away” Carole King
Darren Bradbury - “Don’t Mess Around With Jim” - Jim Croce
Leah Blevins - “Turn, Turn, Turn” The Byrds
John McCauley- “Rugged Road” - Judee Sill
And now for an intro to my sweet mom’s vast work. My dear friend Katie Shea saved a bank of links to many of her efforts. I scrolled back to the beginning of her Deep South Dharma podcast episodes, and noticed this one included a recap of her time at Americanafest. She volunteered there in exchange for a pass a couple years in a row. Love her. In thinking about it now, I feel like I hardly saw her that week which makes me sad. I was running around so much.
Here is that episode from September 15, 2019 entitled “The Best Of Love”:
Love you, Momma.
I think it’s time to do that show again!
Happy Saturday, yall<3
Erin
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