"Mysticism is the acceptance that everything cannot be logically explained."
- Frederick Lenz
We've been speaking of cover songs and I'll get to that momentarily.
When we moved back to Memphis in 2001, we lived down the street from St. Mary's Episcopal School for Girls. It's one of the finest academic K-12 schools in the nation. It has a 300-seat theatre called The Buckman Performing Arts Center. Cindi Younker is its director. She does a fantastic job filling the schedule with all kinds of performers, everything imaginable, from musicians of every genre to acrobats and dance troupes. The musicians, of course, are my interest.
Over the years I've enjoyed so many great performances in the small, intimate setting that is The Buckman. A few of the people I've seen there are: Loudon Wainwright III (twice), Iris DeMent (twice), Colin Hay, Elejandro Escovedo, Mindy Smith, Guy Davis, Leo Kottke (twice), Time for Three, Joan Osborne, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Sara Watkins, Ruthie Foster, Keller Williams, The Secret Sisters, Marc Cohn, The Milk Carton Kids, Johnnyswim, Rodney Crowell and several others. Amazing.
Of all of the memories I have of the place, I think one stands out. I had been a fan of the Canadian trio known as The Wailin' Jennys for some time time when I saw that they were coming to The Buckman. This would have been probably in 2006. Having shared their music with Kendra, she was familiar with them too. We'd never been to the Buckman; we didn't even know it existed, but when I saw that the Jennys were coming, I grabbed tickets.
That evening, we enjoyed the sea bass, a local favorite, at restaurant Tsunami in Midtown and then made our way to the theatre. You've had experiences, I know, that words fail to capture. The kind that's frustrating to even try and tell someone about. The performance the Jennys delivered that evening was, in a way, supernatural, so I can't come close to explaining it to you. The harmonies of those three women can only come from some other realm besides the one we all reside in. Spell-binding, captivating, bewitching…what terms do I use? None do it justice.
Kendra and I left after it was over and I'm not sure we spoke for a while. To this day we still speak of the experience in reverent tones. The only thing similar to it was the first time we saw Martin Sexton. That too had an element of the mystical.
Some years after that the Jennys did a cover of Tom Petty's Wildflowers. I include it below along with a couple of their other songs. Have you ever seen pictures of the Grand Canyon and then actually stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon. That's similar to hearing the recorded Jennys compared to what they sound like live. Both are good experiences, but in person is best.