My friend Charlie comes up from New Jersey to visit me every summer, and we go on a music tour of Ulster County. Last Friday we saw Paul McMahon play at the Rosendale Café. His tickling puns, leaps of faith, double entendres, visionary cries, self-deprecating asides, avowals of love — plus fine fingerpicking — spun the late-night crowd.
The next night, at Maverick, Bar Scott sang "There’s A Place for Us" — it was a Leonard Bernstein tribute — with majestic stillness.
Then Charlie and I ate at Wok & Roll as Blue Food played at The Harmony Café: congratulatory dance happiness, with the soloists investigating curious corners of the grand Mansion of Funk!
Thank you, Woodstock song-creators!