Date: May 27 & 28, 2000

Santa Cruz Blues Festival - 2000!

The good folks at Moe's Alley & Coco Montoya invited me to the festival to perform a special portion of Coco's set with him. A week later, but 3,000 miles from Chesapeake Bay, the setting is the Santa Cruz mountains, and the weather is sunny and hot! I forgot how tan some people can really get! After some burning sets by Lonnie Brooks and Tommy Castro, Coco took the stage with longtime band mate, Benny Yee on keyboards, and a new rhythm section - definitely his best band yet, and soared through a soulful and kickin' batch of tunes from his latest Alligator release, "Suspicion". He then called me to the stage where we warmed up on a funk jam and then did one of our duets together "Nothing In The Streets," a Sam Taylor tune that appears on Coco's debut album "Gotta Mind To Travel." (Blind Pig). We hadn't done it together in a while but it came off without a hitch and Benny added a third harmony voice! After a couple more Coco tunes, being the gracious master of ceremonies that he can be, Coco called up James Armstrong on guitar and we blew licks back and forth, egging each other on! Next, Coco calls up none other than Chris Cain on guitar, but Chris, the casual blues man that he is, clad in signature overalls and t-shirt, didn't even have a guitar on him! So I said "Chris, your penalty for not bringing your own guitar is, you have to play mine" (my shell-'pink' strat.) He's such a good egg, just strapped it on and blew some amazing Chris licks. This was my chance to switch gears and try and get some pix of what was slowly becoming a "guitar army" cuz now Coco calls up Corby Yates, the local teen blues sensation, and man can he play! I took back my strat for the encore and standing next to James had one more opportunity to marvel at his feel, chops and tone! The man has the blues so deep he puts a permanent smile on my heart! Love ya James!

And hey... there should be more of this on stage-jamming at festivals - it's the best feeling in the world; the fellowship and the camaraderie. Thanks Coco, for being who you are! And thanks again to Phil, Bill, and David at Moe's!