rare bird alert
Flynn and I have an ongoing fantasy involving Bill Murray and Steve Martin – circumstance throws the four of us together and we live happily ever after on an island in the south pacific, eating cheese and drinking wine and spearing the occasional sailfish. That sort of thing.
On Tuesday I put on my traveling pants and headed to the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville to watch the very same Mr. Martin perform with the Steep Canyon Rangers. My sister went with me to do things like drive and keep me from becoming a groupie.
Our seats were better than we had hoped for (and not at all what we had purchased) and we spent the evening eyeball-to-eyeball with the man in white. That gorgeous head of hair, a Tom Wolfe suit, and the spotlight full force upon him, made Martin, more or less, a giant reflector. So the only image my point-and-shoot caught was a lovely ethereal glow situated somewhere between Nicky Sanders and Woody Platt.
Martin and the Rangers performed songs from Martin’s self-penned bluegrass album Rare Bird Alert including ‘The Great Remember (For Nancy)’ (one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard) and ‘King Tut’ (dance moves included). There was plenty of insightful comedy like “bad poetry makes good country songs” and “the pros and cons of having no drummer”. And then, of course, there was the music…Martin didn’t win a Grammy for nothing.
All the Rangers were fantastic, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Nicky Sanders. I come from bluegrass, and I know from breakdowns, but I’ve never seen anyone tear up a fiddle like this dude. Crazy.