AUGUSTA 2017 HIGHLIGHT REEL

(For free downloads of the Hot Plate! show, please email karlstraub@hotmail.com. He'll respond pret-ty quickly, unless he's in the shower or something. Even that loophole will close soon, as he's looking into a new app that allows extreme entrepreneurs to retain full phone functionality even in the shower.) 

Here I present my list of Augusta 2017 highlights, in order to try to create an impressionistic montage of my first year at this wonderful institution. 

  There were funny moments, poignant scenes, and surreal episodes. How could it be otherwise, in a week of collective life at a place and time dedicated to the real spirit of country music? Classic Country Week, which pops up out of the mist each year like Rigadoon, is a truly magical phenomenon for a real country fan. 

My Favorite Song That I Kept Hearing In My Head After It Was Performed: "Walkin, Talkin, Cryin, Barely Beatin' Broken Heart," sung by Emily Miller. 

I tracked down the Justin Tubb original, and good and classic though it was, I actually prefer the driving way Emily does it. (Note: Emily did something that people don't do enough, in my opinion-- she brought something personal to the old material without corrupting what's essential about it. In my opinion, that's what every important country musician has always done.) 

My Favorite Vocal Performance By Someone At A Jam Session: 

  I couldn't tell you the name of the song, or the singer, but at one of the mushroomlike cajun jams that sprouted up everywhere I went (at one point I couldn't remember how to get back to my dorm, and someone said when you hear the Cajun music, turn left), a blonde girl guitarist suddenly belted out some number in Cajun French and put the last hundred singers to shame. Big Joe Turner used to sing while tending bar, no microphone needed; if this girl had been around back then, people would be saying Can you please keep it down, I can't hear Joe Turner. 

My Favorite Student Question In Class: 

  In my How To Practice class, Genie said, Karl, how come at breakfast you were wearing the same clothes you wore at the performance last night? (My answer was drowned out by general hilarity, but the reason is that if I'd taken time to freshen up after my 45 minutes of sleep, I'd have been late for breakfast, and forbidden to enter the dining room. Again.) 

 My Favorite "Celebrity" Interaction: 

  Yvette Landry laughing at me when the shuttle was dropping me off somewhere, and I was walking away without my guitar. 

My Favorite Late Night Addled Conversation: 

  At five AM one morning, I realized that Arty Hill and I were the only ones still at the jam session. So we put our guitars away, and I told him my theory about why the chicken, against all odds, beats even cattle and hogs in our American diet. The Chicken Shouldn't Be A Comer Theory. He nodded and smiled, but I haven't seen him since. 

My Favorite Quiet Moment: 

  Lisaloette kindly tolerating my clumsy Cajun dancing. She was nice about it (and I'm repaying her by no doubt misspelling her name, which my own German heritage has somehow not prepared me for), but it reminded me of being a teenager and struggling to learn how to drive stick. At this point on the last night, my brain was too tired to follow chord changes anymore, so we just started dancing. Fortunately Miss Tess was sitting in on bass, making it easier for my to count the beats. On the other hand, the standup bass was another large obstacle to bump into. 

My Favorite Time I Almost Got In Trouble But Fortunately Karen Collins Was There To Bail Me Out:

  There were many to choose from in this category, but the ribbon goes to the time I was humbly posing for photographs, and also chatting with a student about my guitar playing and singing, all of which was happening at a time when I was supposed to be at a rehearsal Ginny was running two feet away. As my wife and current and former band mates can tell you, when someone's talking to me about how much they love my playing, it's hard for anyone else (even Ethel Merman) to get my attention about some chore I'm neglecting. Karen had to call my name (KARL!) with a voice you normally save for when your dog is humping the leg of the minister's wife. 

My Favorite Thing I Heard Anyone Say The Whole Week:

  Walter Mouton to petite singer Megan Brown, "In Lafayette, they built the sidewalk too close to your butt." 

My Favorite Compliment: 

  At four AM after the Honky Tonk Dance, I'd been jamming with the cajuns since midnight. Several different people sat next to me and explained the song structures into my ear while we played. (One person would get tired of doing this, and then a fresh new person would show up and spell them for a while.) To my shock and eternal gratitude, various and sundry cajuns kept egging me on to take guitar breaks, usually with a pithy "Eh, Karl." One of them, I think, was Blake Miller. 

  So, after taking a minute to lecture a young virtuoso about playing too many notes on accordion, Jimmy Breaux headed back to the dorm. He and I were walking back in the rain, with a few other wet stragglers, and he told me he really liked my Tele playing, and was also impressed at how well I'd been fitting in with the Cajun music. He said I did well with the rhythm, and played some nice "rides" too. (That's what they call instrumental breaks in Louisiana, apparently. ) I thanked him, and then he started talking to a woman, and I figured we were done. I sped up by 17%, because I'd had to pee for two hours but I'd been afraid to get up because it might break the spell, and he called out, hey, slow down, I'm still talking to you. That was like an Academy Award to me, so I slowed back down. 

  If Jimmy, or anyone who knows him, is reading this, please help me track down his contact info. I didn't really know who he was until I got home and had time to Google the great man, but at one point in the rain I suggested that I'd love to come to Louisiana and play with him sometime. He sounded like he thought that was a good idea, and I want to woodshed like a fiend for a while and then take him up on it.