The True Vine

It must have been in the summer, about 1979. Or, I guess I should say, a long time ago. I was at the University of Illinois pursuing a doctorate in chemistry. At the same time, all of my ghosts were in rapid pursuit of what was left of me. I had pretty much lost interest in most everything because I was drunk or stoned all the time. My lab group got together and presented me with a guitar on my birthday the previous winter. By that summer, I used to sit out on the Quad and play the few chords I knew aimlessly. A young woman walked by and dropped a note into my case inviting me to a "music party". I showed up with my guitar, and realized that I was looking into a subculture infinitely below the radar, but at the same time, grounded in an undeniable reality so intense that it was like a neutron bomb going off in my head.

New Lost City Ramblers
Robert Johnson
Utah Phillips
John and Alan Lomax and 78 rpm records
Holy Modal Rounders

et cetera

I told my demons to get lost, stopped ingesting chemicals, (managed to get my Ph.D.), departed the world that everyone is familiar with, and joined... Wow, that is hard to describe. I would advise you to see the movie "Ghost World", read Bill Morrissey's book "Edson", and spend a week at the Clifftop old-time music Festival in West Virginia.

Here are some tracks from the vault, ca. early 1990s.

http://home.comcast.net/~steventrish/Track2.mp3

http://home.comcast.net/~steventrish/Track3.mp3

http://home.comcast.net/~steventrish/Track5.mp3


I became a blues singer and banjo player.