(I have a number of friends named J. I must point out that your collective - and inexplicable - fixation on the same letter of the alphabet makes my job as blogstress more challenging than it really ought to be. However, since I a benevolent blog goddess, and since I love you all, I shall not hold this against you. Hence... Miss JC!)
Miss JC is an absolute sweetheart. So is her husband P, who wants everyone to think he is a gruff ol' bear, but is really a pussycat underneath. I am proud to say I had his number the instant I met him over ten years ago - the first time my woman's intuition kicked in, in retrospect!
Anyway, Miss JC is easily the biggest music fan I have EVER met. Bar none. That is how we met, in fact, back in the day.
Even though we live in different parts of the country, we have been fortunate enough to see a number of wonderful shows together over the years.
There was one memorable weekend when the Boston area was hit with monsoon-like rains on a weekend when she had come up to attend three concerts in three days with myself and my friend M.
With the tunnel vision common to true obsessives, we viewed Biblical flooding as nothing more than a minor obstacle in a full weekend of music. This view somehow held sway even when the subway station for the first concert we were attending turned out to be six feet under water!
My strongest memory of that weekend - other than the rain - was when M, Miss JC, and I went to a terrific local used CD store. M and I leisurely perused the racks for no more than five minutes when Miss JC came up, concern etched on her face.
"I need your help - both of you," she said, her voice earnest. "I'm having some trouble narrowing down my choices."
We both said of course, and followed her to the back of the store. There was a small booth where the staff went to sort through CDs. There were two piles of approximately 20 CDs each stacked on the counter.
"So," M said, looking around, "what are your choices?"
"These, of course!" Miss JC said, gesturing to the two piles.
"But we've only been in here for five minutes," I said. "How the hell did you find 40 CDs you want that quickly? What did you do - smuggle these in here in your pocketbook as a joke?"
"That's plausible," said M. "You could fit a blunderbuss in that thing, and no one would ever know."
"Would you two stop it?!?" Miss JC said. "This is serious!"
"My advice? Buy the building," I said.
"I have to agree. In the long run, it would be cheaper," M said.
"Oh, you two are no help at all!" she wailed.
Having successfully goaded her into hysteria, M and I finally relented and agreed to help.
30 minutes later, Miss JC still had only narrowed down her list to a dozen.
"This must be what POWs felt like," M said after a ten minute discussion of the relative merits of a Jim Lauderdale acoustic set recorded as a radio station promo vs. Buddy Miller's solo debut.
"Except that they had some hope they might escape some day," I replied, rubbing my eyes.
Finally, at long last, exhaustion overtook even Miss JC. As we wearily headed to the register, we both sought to keep her distracted, lest some new nugget that had arrived in the interim catch her eye. Somehow we managed to escape with no further incident.
Until we got outside. Suddenly Miss JC stopped dead in her tracks.
"Oh, no! You know what I need to go look for in there - "
"NO!" said M and I simultaneously.
"Please," I said, my voice shaky, "Don't make us go in there again! I love music too... but enough!"
"Look - his eyelid is twitching again!" M said to her. "What are you, some kind of monster?"
"But they might have Bryndle's album!" she said, her eyes glassy. Clearly, some sort of mid-70s California soft-rock haze had clouded her usual good judgement.
M knew it was time to break out the big guns.
"OK," he said casually. "We can just skip the Chris Isaak show then, right?"
"Wait - what time is it?" she asked.
He glanced at his watch.
"Well, the show starts in five minutes," he said, gesturing to the theatre a block away. "But if your heart is set on what Wendy Waldman and Karla Bonoff are up to these days - "
"C'mon, you two - get moving!" she said, racing to the theatre. "We might miss him walking on stage!!!"
"Never fails," said M as she faded into the distance. "One look at him in his mirror suit and all women are goners for life."
As it turns out... he was right. :c)
***
OK, so I may have embellished just a bit there. But Miss JC really is the most passionate music fan I have ever met. It's a lot of fun to talk to someone who is so passionate about a subject you also love.
I always learn something new when I talk to her - just as I did tonight. Her latest favorite is the first duo album from the husband and wife team of Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis:
It is wonderful, as you can see. I will be picking it up forthwith. And so should you!
Here's an old favorite tune from Chris Issak's 1993 San Francisco Days album, my personal favorite of his:
So, so good.
And one more - a *great* performance on the Tonight Show of the haunting "Blue Spanish Sky," with a genuinely remarkable trumpet solo from Doc Severinsen:
Thank you for the wonderful conversation tonight, Miss JC! Love you!!!!
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