THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS PRESENT: THE SUNNY SIDE OF MY STREET with THE "MIGHTY MEZ" - SONGS TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD - EPISODE #46: WAY DOWN THE OLD PLANK ROAD by Uncle Dave Macon (Vocalion, 1926)

DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS

The earth shifted for me when I heard Uncle Dave Macon for the first time. This was when the Harry Smith Anthology was released on CD in 1997. The energy of this man, swingin’ his claw hammer banjo and elating me with his infectious humor, brought the sepia-toned 19th century to boisterous life, and I was smitten.

I began listening to, and reading, as much as I could get my hands on, and although the “Dixie Dewdrop” died the year before I was born, he was kinetically alive for me, lifting me out of whatever funk I happened to have been in, into a realm of pure joy.

What an inspiration for an aging aspirant: He was discovered by accident by Marcus Loew of the Loews Theatre chain at the age of 50, and elevated to the heights of radio stardom on the Grand Old Opry, and national recording acclaim. How fortunate that these technologies, though in their infancy, were around to document the power of this entertainment fireball.

He was a beloved amateur (in the truest sense of the word), who had simply enjoyed entertaining customers along his freight hauling mule line. This exemplifies Joseph Campbell’s assertion that if you just follow your bliss, everything will flow from that. This was simply how he lived, and as one of his band members attested: “all day long, from morning til midnight, it was a show.” And, what a show it was!