A Night to Remember!

It was an amazing performance in an amazing space. 

Mt. Lubentia

Last night I enjoyed a wonderful evening listening to my friend Brian Peters perform English folk music at a house concert at the home of Sondra and Andy Wallace in Upper Marlboro, MD.

The Wallaces are the only people I know who have their house listed in Wikipedia.  Their house, Mt. Lubentia, predates the American Revolution. I don’t know if George Washington slept here, but he and Martha were frequent visitors. I could go on and on about this space – there’s something about its elegant simplicity and high ceilings that makes a person feel a bit larger than life.

The performance space was at the bottom of a grand central staircase that just begged for Scarlett O’Hara or Carol Burnett — remember her hilarious “Gone With the Wind” sketch —  to come sweeping down.

Before the show started, I found that I knew just about everybody there so I had a good time connecting with old friends that I’d met at Vocal Week in Augusta.

English Folksinger extraordinaire Brian Peters

Brian Peters was phenomenal.  He combines a clear, compelling singing voice with immaculate diction, flawless musicianship on a variety of squeezeboxes and guitar, and deep, scholarly insight into his material.  He’s also tells some hilarious stories about the adventures of Cecil Sharp, Maude Karpeles and the other pioneers of British folksong collecting.  He sang some wonderful traditional ballads; some were unusual versions of very familiar songs such as “Barbara Allen” and “The Golden Vanity” with tunes that weren’t the standard folk revival ones. (Re: “The Golden Vanity,” Brian said that the ship’s name has been “folk processed” in a wide variety of ways, his favorite is “The Turkish Roving Canoe.”)

He played rousing dance tunes on the squeezeboxes and also sang some of Rudyard Kipling’s Barrack-room Ballads.  Brian held the audience for two hours and they begged him to keep going.  Finally he had to beg them to let him stop.

It was a rare night.  Seldom in life do you find such a perfect gathering!