Just a couple discs tonight but quite a bit of fun. The first is a live Old And In The Way recording called ‘Breakdown’ (which seems a little odd to me now, since I think all the Old And In The Way albums were live), and the other a disc of Schütz’s Italian Madrigals.

Old And In The Way was actually mostly some younger guys in the early 70s (including Jerry Garcia, David Grisman and Peter Rowan) and finally Vassar Clements who was a bit of a seasoned bluegrass veteran. The playing is great, and it is nice to hear Jerry Garcia playing banjo. Jerry Garcia playing banjo is kind of like Steve Martin playing banjo. You don’t hear it too often, but when you do you realize how good they are in their ‘second gigs’. The other surprising thing to me is how much I tend to like banjo once I start hearing some banjo playing. So listening to this disc today was lots of fun, and made me miss playing bluegrass. I wasn’t ever great at it, but I learned more about guitar playing while trying to play bluegrass then probably any other style.

The Schütz provided a different surprise to me tonight. I put it on while I was getting a little work done while Celia was playing in her room, and when she heard it she completely stopped what she was doing. I think it was the first time I have ever seen Celia completely distracted by music, and the moment made me very happy. She asked if I could make a disc of it for her to listen to tomorrow. I can’t wait.