Goose Pond 2004

Goose Pond
Originally published 5/24/2004

Spoonman and I have a gig at a place called Goose Pond, a hunting lodge in Money, Mississippi. It’s an engagement party on a Saturday night. Like Greenwood isn’t a small enough town – I have to find gigs 20 miles out. And this isn’t even in Money proper, it’s way out in the woods.

I drive north out of Greenwood, across the two bridges and onto Money Road. Past Little Zion Church, where Robert Johnson is buried. Past a tiny concrete-block building with an enormous transmitter, a radio station out in the middle of cottonfields. Through the few buildings that make up Money, including the falling-down grocery store where the unfortunate young Emmett Till had his fatal encounter with a white woman.

Take the second right after Money. Go across the tracks. Stay on the pavement when the road splits. Go a couple miles, cross over the McIntyre Lake bridge. At the next split in the road take a right, onto the unpaved road. You should see the Goose Pond sign. Oh yes, there it is. And a bunch of torches set up along the road, I guess this must be it. There’s a two-story building near a pond. Men drinking and socializing out front. I pull right up near the stairs, since it looks like the main action is upstairs. A half-drunk is tapping on my window before I get out of the car. If I didn’t have a gig here, I’d turn around and leave now. I roll the window down and he asks me to move the car. I’ll be happy to do that after I unload my stuff, I tell him. He does not offer to help.
I carry the guitars and other gear up the stairs. Spoonman and Jackie are already there. They’ve set up the PA in an alcove, behind a half-wall with a stuffed bobcat on it. I pet the bobcat and look around. There are deer heads all over the walls, mounted fish and birds too. We’re at one end of a big room. At the other end is a kitchen, where all the women are, working and talking. They’re all dressed sharp.

Spoonman is wearing overalls, as usual. Jackie is wearing a T-shirt and jeans. “Didn’t Bob tell you this was ‘Delta formal’?” I ask her. “He asked me what kind of party this was going to be so I emailed him that info. I don’t know why he asked, he’d wear overalls no matter what.”

“I thought it was a party at a hunting camp,” she says. “He just showed me your email while we were driving up here.”

We start playing at the time we’re scheduled to. Sounds good in that big room. But hardly anybody’s there. All the parent-age men and all the young people are outside, downstairs by the beer, which is in an ice-filled boat. Some of the parent-age women are in here setting out food, along with other women who come in to talk to them, and occasionally a man who comes in for a snack or a young person who comes in to use the bathroom. Everyone who does hear us gets a charge out of it, stands and listens for awhile and smiles. The hostess assures us that people will come in later. We don’t really care either way, this is a fun gig.

As we stop for our first break, it starts raining hard, so everyone does come in. I walk around and snack and get compliments and a few hugs. When we go back up to play, we’ve got an audience, and we’re warmed up. Spoonman does his walking-out-into-the-crowd routine, playing spoons on their bodies. People are utterly amazed by that and about every song we play. I don’t know what they were expecting, but they are loving this. Guess I didn’t charge nearly enough.

The hostess is delighted too. At the end of the evening, she gives us a tip and a few beers to take home. She says everyone loved it and she’s sure we’ll get some more work out of it. But you know, not one person asked us about playing another event, and no one bought a CD. Maybe they were awestruck. Maybe they’ll call the hostess later and ask how to get hold of us. Maybe not. Maybe we gave them so much that they don’t need any more.
Spoonman, Jackie and I stand outside by the pond afterward, relaxing and receiving well-wishes and congrats from people as they leave. Spoonman comments that it’s only in the Mississippi Delta that you get such a strong reaction to blues from well-off, older white people. Even in Jackson it’s not like this, he says.

It’s true. There are blues fans all over the world. But here they have lifelong connections to it. They remember hearing their servants sing it, it reminds them of what they heard coming from a little church they used to walk by, their daddy had a bunch of old 78s, things like that. They might not have heard blues in 30 years, but then when they do they feel it deep.

It’s very dark on the way back, and the roads are muddy but somehow I manage to find my way back to the main road and head back home.