What a beautiful Saturday today was/is!! It's in the mid 70's, sunny, breezy, and was filled with lovely women playing music at a winery. Today in Ukiah at the Nelson Family Vineyards was the Local Womens Music Festival. I went because a fellow AmeriCorps colleague was playing her very first show at the festival. It was a small affair, but still totally amazing. Although, there were also a few musicians who played, where you really wish they hadn't... not quite so musically talented. In any case, to my surprise there was an old celebrity there! I had no idea who she was until I googled her after they announced that she used to sing with Pete Seeger... Now after being home and googeling her some more and watching some old youtube videos, she was quite an amazing singer back in the day! Can you guess who the celebrity was?? It was Ronnie Gilbert!! She is now about 85 years old, and can't quite sing like she used to, but still I loved hearing her speak. She is writing a memoir which I hope will come out soon, because from what she read of it, I want to hear more of her stories!
She read for about 20 minutes, with a few songs in between of some old campaign songs. Then she ended with a song which apparently she sang quite a lot of back in the day. She sang "Goodnight Irene" (click on that to see a great old video of her singing it with The Weavers) which we all joined in on singing with her, it was very cool indeed.
The festival continued on, with some nice singers, and a few not so great singers, then my favorite of the day were these two girls who called themselves "The Plain Jane Society", they both were in two separate groups who toured around together, then they joined together and recently started their own group, and they were totally awesome!! Really wish they had a CD but they said in the near future they will have one. Their voices together really meshed very well.
Then finally came time for Katrina to perform, my fellow AmeriCorps buddy! It was just herself and her guitar, she was quite good for it being her first time performing, I certainly could never do that, unless it was dancing of course. But I was glad I was there to cheer her on, no other AmeriCorps people came, so it was just myself and Katrina's girlfriend as her cheering section, and the rest of the audience made quite the applause when she was done.
As you can see I am getting better about bringing my camera with me when I go to various fun things now! I had my camera with me last weekend, but forgot to use it!! Oh well...
Oh and HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH!!!!!
Wow, you saw Ronnie Gilbert! She is an icon!!! An amazing woman. And it looks like her performance was so up close and intimate. Lucky, lucky you.
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