Tonight I was backstage at the Down From The Mountain Tour here in Cincinnati, Ohio. For now, the best I can do is keep it simple.
Mike Compton, of John Hartfords band and now of the Nashville Bluegrass Band. Good man, great to hang with him, does his scales and such before the show, really preps himself to play. Heck of a mandolin player.
Stewart Duncan, great fiddle player, smart guy, likes to have fun.
Emmylou Harris, what a sweetheart, true fan of baseball, still has the voice from heaven. She was real nice and sounded great.
Alison Krauss, The real thing, had her kids and family there, as did a bunch of the performers. As sweet backstage as on. Great talking with her. Sounded wonderful. Crowd loved her.
Jerry Douglas, good to see him and Jill again, cool as always. Good to see him play some tunes with the Whites, whom he played with for over 6 years way back. His solo pieces were of the usual brilliance that we have come to expect. The song that Jerry and the Whites did with guest Emmylou Harris was one of the highlights of the night. And, of course, he sounded great with Union Station.
Dr. Ralph Stanley, good to meet him again. I gave him a copy of GRITZ magazine that had my article of him in it. Minutes later I see him reading it, man was I nervous, but he said he liked it and appreciated it much. That is nerve racking, but very rewarding.Great guy. Anyone that can, at the end of the show, get 7000 people to sing "Amazing Grace", willingly and enthusiastically, is unreal. He was in good spirits. The real thing.
Patty Loveless, what a dollbaby. Again, the real thing. She is from Pikeville, near Ashland, KY, so her upcoming show in Ashland should be great. A real homecoming. A pleasure.
The Whites, Buck, Sharon, and Cheryl, God Bless them after what they have been thru recently. But they were there and played great. Wonderful.
Ricky Skaggs and Paul Brewster and the rest of Kentucky Thunder, down to earth and good to us at GRITZ. Always good to see them, appreciate the whole bunch. Rocked the house. Audience loved them.
Chris Thomas King, saw him in April at Jazzfest in New Orleans, does the blues tunes from "O Brother" superbly. Got a great response from the crowd. Good man.
Del McCoury, Rob and Ron and the rest of the guys, great people, played "Vincent" and "All Aboard". Rocked the house.
Norman and Nancy Blake, great hanging backstage with those guys , picking their brains on all the old time tunes they know.They played the whole time they were backstage, More than entertaining, they were truly interesting folk.
This tour is on fire and evolving as it goes along. One of the bus drivers this night had a friend that he knew here in Cincinnati. That friend of his had another friend that was a boy named Cody Mayo. Cody has cancer real bad and was in Childrens Hospital there in Cincinnati fighting for his life at 11 years of age. The bus driver found out that Cody , as a lot of kids do, loved the music from "O Brother". It was simply his favorite CD of all time. The bus driver called Cody at the hospital, and then Alison talked to him, Emmylou talked to him, Norman sang "Big Rock Candy Mountain" to him over the phone, and a bunch of people signed stuff for Cody. Then Emmylou and Alison said that he should be at the show, period. Although he was on Chemo they called the doctors and convinced them that Cody should come over to the concert. They then instructed one of the buses to go and get him and his family that was there, and they brought Cody to the show e!
ven though he could only be gone for 3 hours away from the machines he was hooked up to. They set up chairs for him and his family, and during the break they took him backstage and I took some pictures of Cody with Alison and Emmylou and many others. Because of the time limit he could not see the whole show. But he did see a lot. The look on his face was priceless. As he made his way backstage during intermission he approached the guard, and when the guard saw the press-pass that the DFTM people made for him that was around his neck and waved him through he felt important and thrilled and he lit up like a light bulb. It was obvious looking at him that the future was going to be very tough for him, in a big way. But that night, out of the blue, his dream came true. He was 5 rows from the stage, he was backstage meeting his heroes, and there was so much prayer sent his way it was unreal. Before he had to leave Rodney Crowell, the host of the evening, talked about and !
mentioned Cody to the audience from the podium, thanking him for being there. I really can't explain it more than that without it getting to dramatic. But, yet, it was. When kids go down to something like that it sucks. For one night, however, Cody's dreams came true, on Big Rock Candy Mountain. DH
Derek Halsey
GRITZ MAGAZINE
1114 Imprint lane
Cincinnati, Ohio 45240
513-476-2305
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