Singing on the bus

I've carried my guitar on the bus many times this year, but it was different on Friday.

As I stepped onto the 94, the driver grinned and said, "Free ride if you play something."

"Really," I said, but stuffed my ticket into the fare box anyway, and shuffled down the bus to an empty seat.

"You wouldn't be the first to take me up on it," he called after me. "Maybe a little something by Joan Baez."

"I don't think I have any of her music in my repertoire," I said.

"Well, something else then," he suggested. "Anything."

I sat there for a few minutes, thinking, my heart racing with mild anxiety. Should I or shouldn't I? An invitation like that doesn't come along every day. I could let it slide -- because no one really expects me to do it -- and just have a peaceful ride all the way to the university. Or I could do something extraordinary and accept a challenge, sing a song on the bus, get my voice warmed up, entertain people on a boring route, and have a good story to tell my family when I get home. But there's no place to manoeuvre my guitar case open...

The bus driver had given up on me and was carefully picking his way through a school zone when I moved my guitar case onto the countertop that sits over the passenger side front wheel. "Can I leave this here while I sing?" I asked.

"Sure," he laughed, clearly delighted. "What will you play?"

"An old folk song."

"Peter, Paul and Mary?"

"Older than that, I think."

I plunked myself down on the very first sidelong seat next to a kid listening to his iPod and reading a foreign author. He grinned at me and pulled out an earbud. "I can move if you need more room," he said, but I shook my head.

Looking at the dozen or so folks further down the bus who were all looking at me, I announced, "The driver has challenged me to sing you a song, so here we go. It has a chorus that goes like this, and I expect you all to help me."

After a quick run through of the chorus, away we all went with a tune I've known since I was a kid...

(1951 --  a while before I was born!)

My voice was a bit shaky with nerves, but people smiled, chuckled and listened, and a few voices actually joined mine on the chorus. Even the teen girls at the very back of the bus were grinning. At the end of the song, everyone clapped, including the kid sitting beside me, though I'm sure he preferred his iPod tunes.

"You can't quit now," said the driver as I put my guitar back into its case.

"If I didn't need my voice at the end of the route, I'd give you more," I said, "but I'll be hoarse if I sing like that for another thirty minutes."

"That's too bad," he said. "But that was great -- you made my day a little bit shorter."

The remaining twenty-five minutes of the ride went as usual -- people getting on, people getting off (three of them thanked me for singing). At one point the driver looked back at me in his rear view mirror and said, "It's too quiet now." But we were getting closer to the university, and the bus was too crowded for anyone to pull out a guitar. 

When I got off, I told the driver that if he was driving my bus home, I'd collect my free ride. Unfortunately, two hours later, it was a different driver...

But this Friday, I'll be catching the 94 again, same time, same place, likely with the same driver... and if he asks, maybe, just maybe, I'll sing another song for my free ticket.

The following week... I had a wicked head cold, and it was a different bus driver. But the young man with the earbuds who sat beside me while I sang the previous week grinned when I got on and said, "You're back!" I smiled at him and headed for the back of the bus... glad that I had taken the opportunity when it presented itself.

Sometimes you only get one chance.

There's just something about Bluegrass

I'm not quite sure what it is about Bluegrass that speaks to my soul, but I've always loved the sound of a bunch of percussive stringed instruments (usually guitar, banjo, mandolin, stringed bass and fiddle), not to mention the close vocal harmonies often found in the music that originates in the Southern States. There's none of that in my Russian German family background, to be sure. Maybe I like it so much because it's honest, unplugged music that gets feet thumping and hearts pumping. I can come up with no real explanation for my love of it, but somewhere along the line, I simply fell in love with old-style music, from Cape Breton-style fiddle reels and jigs to V'la l'Bon Vent (a great French Canadian tongue twister), and from The Cotton Patch Gospel to the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack.

Last night was another great live musical experience (two in one week has to be my record!) as my parents, sisters and I attended a concert featuring Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers. I first ran into them when my friend Charleen sent me a video which I immediately posted. (You can see The Atheist Song here). What it won't show you is how talented each of the fellows is with their instruments. I certainly didn't realize that, besides being a funny guy, Steve Martin is such a great banjo player!

The last piece of the show alone was worth the price of admission. The group played Auden's Train, which reminded me of the fiddle classic, The Orange Blossom Special -- with a twist. Nicky Sanders is The Steep Canyon Rangers' incredible fiddle player who somehow managed to evoke a train chugging along, interspersed with all sorts of classical pieces, and even O Canada at one point. Steve Martin is good, but for me, Nicky Sanders stole the show. Even so, I'm paying both of them homage today by posting two videos -- the first, a fun banjo song played and set to video by Steve Martin (who writes his own banjo music), and the second, a slightly shaky home video version of The Orange Blossom Special, featuring Nicky's amazing fiddle. If you can identify and name the classical pieces he slides in there, I'd love to know what they are. It took me a while to figure out that piece from the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations... enjoy! We certainly did!