Southern Hospitality. (Knoxville, Tennessee)

Well, we just had a nice big heaping helping of Southern hospitality. Holy guacamole (and fried chicken and sweet potatoes). We set up a house concert in Knoxville, Tennessee through a longtime friend of mine. The funny thing is, I’d never actually met her in person, nor had ever spoken to her. We met online through some music industry connections about 6 years ago and stayed in touch via email and IM over the years, but never had opportunity to meet. When we looked at our tour schedule and routing for this trip, I realized that Knoxville was nicely situated between our Virginia and Missouri shows, so we connected and she invited us to come play a house concert at her place. We pulled the van and trailer into her backyard, expecting to set up and play for a few people, visit, and then continue on westward. Instead, we walked into the house to find a spread of food, drinks, and overall love and friendship that blew our minds and left us wanting to stay the week! What incredible people. The hosts, Lila and Julie, had invited family and friends, and put together a potluck-style gathering with lawn chairs and blankets spread out under beautiful tall old trees, and plenty of room for our gear. The neighborhood kids came running over to listen, and even hopped on our instruments for a bit to make some sounds of their own.

We played an hour long set, with old tunes and new, and even got a congo line going around the yard during “Story Of…” They put a basket on the ground in front of my piano and proceeded to put way more money in it than we probably deserved. We had a great singalong with “Nightlite Jesus,” and played “ZED” as the requested encore at the end of the set. We visited for quite a while after that, and then as we prepared to leave, Julie and Lila filled our cooler to the brim with fried chicken, dumplings, sweet potatoes glazed in honey, potato salad, chips, hummus, candies, bread, drinks, and more. They sent us off with such a great feeling of friendship… we couldn’t say “thank you” enough times. We can’t wait to come back through here in the spring if our schedule allows. We’re now driving to Nashville where we’ll stay for the night. More later…