Jam With Sam

Yep. They do grow like weeds. And, with any luck... they pick up some of the good qualities of those who surround them. In this case, I am proud to brag about a brief jam session that my daughter Samantha and I had just before she headed back to Northern California. She's come a long way from when she used to run circles around me with an egg shaker at my coffeehouse appearances in the mid 90s. Apparently she's picked up the keyboard talents that my mom was blessed with, which gave me a nice opportunity to mix in my acoustic guitar and voice for a good old-fashioned family musical revival.

Among the tunes we ran through: "Heart And Soul", "Amazing Grace", "Silver Wings" (the Merle Haggard tune), and John Denver's very own "Take Me Home Country Road". Yep, there were good times to be had. Thank goodness the video camera was running. She may need this session for her own box set decades down the road. ;-)

On a side note, Samantha was picked to sing the national anthem at her school's graduation ceremony in June. My pride and joy.

Things Looking Up Outside the Cave

Celebrated a nice pre "4th" visit by my California-to-Arizona transplant buddy, Mark Mason. It has been a while since we had seen each other, but we have stayed in close contact with each other regarding music and other pitfalls in life. Mark and I have never played together, but he's been known to cover a couple of my songs before. Soon it will be my turn (to cover his, that is) as he is collecting others' recordings of his tunes. Who knows, maybe he'll revive his podcast (Live From The Mason Cave) if he likes what he hears.

Anyway, Mark and I briefly discussed plans to put together some kind of PIT show in Arizona during my next visit. When, you ask? That's an excellent question. Let me get back to you all on that one. In the meantime, you can check out Mark's web site for possible updates that I might not bring to light in a more timely fashion.

Dave Rayburn on DVD

That's right, if you look closely during John Doe's performance of "Back Room" on the new Hootenanny V.1 DVD, you will see me in the crowd, singing along. Well, I wasn't mic'd too well, so you can't really hear my slick harmony vocal. Nonetheless, this marks my official debut on a commercially released DVD (not counting Oliver Stone's The Doors movie... which, as an extra, I never really found myself in the crowd during the Miami concert scene). Just a bit of useless Rayburn trivia to kick off your day. Enjoy!