The Florida Folk Festival: future perfect.

Turned out, four times was the charm.

Craig and I (Hot Tamale) finally made it into the Florida Folk Festival. Through three years of rejection we imagined what it would be like–imagined and hankered.

Tomorrow it will become real. But until we roll into Stephen Foster State Park, our guitars in the back, the Florida Folk Festival will be…

 

three hazy humid days of old guys in plaid shirts picking with calloused fingers.

Young up-and-comers playing impossibly hot licks.

Banjos ringing, dulcimers thrumming.

The clack of spoons and bones.

Voices will breathe life into songs that traveled in steerage across the Atlantic, or wandered south from Appalachia along unpaved roads, and songs that were born in slave cabins accompanied on a washboard that still served its original purpose.

For sure someone will play Freight Train, and everyone will fall in, easy, remembering it as one of the first songs they played sometime back in high school.

Florida’s praises will be sung. All hail her citrus, her sunshine her springs and her oystermen.

Some will sing folk tomorrow’s songs–Craig and I will shoot for that and hope.

 

Bob Dylan will be there, Leadbelly, Pete Seeger,

Although they will wear different names.

We’ll recognize them only as we look back at the Flip camera footage and say we knew who they were.

We knew.

In the jam tent Craig will trade licks and I’ll harmonize with songs I know in my bones and songs I’ve never heard.

There will be dancing, swaying, toe tapping, finger popping and a great big heartbeat that can only come from a lot of folks making music together.

And the number of guitar cases gathered in one place will exceed the legal limit.

 

Although we expect to see family and friends when we play, as a kickoff act all three days Craig and I will sing our hearts out to mostly empty chairs.

And not care much at all because this year we’ll be there.

Four times is the charm.

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