an aside –

The Portland experience was a less than pleasant one all the way around, except in one respect. When you’re ill and you still have to get up and go to work, you call on resources that are rarely taxed. Those resources, when they must drive a performance, are sometimes prone to speaking in a very different voice than the one most people would expect. I don’t know for sure, since I don’t simultaneously sing and critique the performance, but Sarah tells me I sang from a very different, much deeper and more soulful place than happens on an ordinary day. It wasn’t intentional. I just used what I had, because the only other choice would have been to not perform at all. It was not a choice I was willing to make. We are out here on the road together, and we came here to play. It was that simple. The road can be a frightening place even for people as mature and some would say world-weary as we. But when resources are summoned, we know how to deliver them, and we just do it. It’s the hillbilly way, actually.