I'm writing this from Boston, where I came over for work this week. I landed on Sunday afternoon, and as soon as my luggage was laid down at the hotel, I jumped in a cab to the New School of Music in Cambridge, where Session Americana was playing.
Session Americana is one of the bands in which the amazing Jim Fitting of Treat Her Right fame officiates as a harp player and singer. It was an incredibly fun gig with a really cool atmosphere, and it's not that often that you hear musicians playing unamplified to an audience (although there was a vocal microphone at the center of the round table).
In their normal concerts (this one was unusual, in a very small room in a music school), the round table that they're all sitting under has a microphone for each musician just under the table and the central mic for the vocalist. Thankfully, the small room helped with a (mostly) unamplified sound.
Last night I shared a few beers with Jim and we talked shop, and also discussed Morphine and Mark Sandman. Jim is a harp player I really like, he's got a sober quality that is not the best shared skill amongst harp players, pro or otherwise, and there's always something really interesting and different about his bands.
In addition, it's very humbling to talk to a guy who played with one of my musical heroes for so long. Jim mentioned that Dana Colley and Jerome Dupree of Morphine were playing that evening with a slide player, but I stupidly didn't write down the name of the club and subsequently couldn't find it... Oh well, I guess that'll be for my next Boston trip!
I took some photos and shot a few videos on Sunday, including the following song called Coal Oil Johnny:
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