Report: Cayamo Cruise 2010 (Day 2)

For Monday, Feb. 22,, we grill the musical luminaries and take in scintillating sets from Buddy Miller, the WPA and Emmylou Harris.

By Lee Zimmerman / Photos by Will Byington

Ed. note: This week BLURT contributor Lee Zimmerman is on the annual Cayamo Cruise, which as you'll read below boasts a who's-who of roots and Americana artists playing for (and mingling with) fans traveling on a five-day cruise through the Caribbean. Fittingly enough, the event's called Caribbean on Cayamo 2010: A Journey Through Song. Internet connection willing, Zimmerman will be filing a report each day, so keep checking back to find out who was twanging the loudest, who was singing the sweetest - and who Zimmerman was rubbing shoulders with the hardest. Go here to read his report from Day 1. Incidentally, you can also read his report from last year's Cruise elsewhere at the BLURT site.

Okay, so I'm exhausted.

For good reason too. Day Two of Cayamo has consisted of both a frantic afternoon and evening. Sure, this is a plum assignment, but being onboard a luxury cruise liner, stuffing oneself in the buffet line and then attempting to muster up the dexterity to dash back and forth between shows in various venues can be demanding. For all Cayamo offers - and trust me, it provides an abundance of riches for the true music enthusiast - it is not all that relaxing.  Taking advantage of all the music requires a great deal of planning and strategizing in order to catch every performer that's worth seeing - and frankly, that's the great majority of them. Consequently, the exertion in terms of sheer brainpower - something yours truly isn't always adept at - is enough to send one's energy level into overdrive.

Trust me on this too - providing these daily blogs means a certain dedication to a strict work ethic, all in the name of reporting an accurate assessment of the day's activities. So the first order of business this morning is meeting with our press rep/camp counselor/sometime baby sitter, Becki Carr, who does a fantastic job of steering half a dozen befuddled journalists through a course of action. For example, were it not for Becki and my wife, Alisa, these blogs might not even get posted. There are technical difficulties galore when it comes to trying to get an email connection from a ship, including all kinds of limitations that I couldn't begin to explain... except to say one when one forgets his user name on his personal email account, all the miracles of cyberspace suddenly fall by the wayside.

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The first music of the day comes courtesy of a special "alumni show" featuring a one-off duo acoustic performance with Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt. While the two trade songs back and forth, it's their natural rapport that strikes the most distinctive chord. As someone would say later, the two may have invented an entirely new entertainment genre called "sit-down comedy."  It goes something like this:

Hiatt: "We don't know what we're going to play."
Lovett: "I was trying to guess what you were going to play. I've guessed, but I won't be able to tell you if I'm right until later."

Okay, maybe you had to be there.

Nevertheless, the patter isn't preplanned, although having just returned from a joint European tour the two mean have apparently sharpened their skills when it comes to trading zingers... and complements.

Hiatt: "Did you have a good time?"
Lovett: "I had a good time because of you. You're a very nice fellow!"

Suffice it to say, the deadpan sentiment likens the duo to a kind of accidental Smothers Brothers. Consequently, as the crowd files out of the theater, most declare it to be one of the best showcases of the cruise thus far.

The afternoon is dedicated to getting up close and personal with several of the headliners via World Café sessions that are being taped for replay in early April, followed by mini press conferences attended by the artists and the small contingent of journalists onboard. They provide not only an ideal opportunity to ask probing questions like "So, Emmylou Harris, what is your favorite item in the buffet line?" or, "Hey, John Hiatt, did you ever get so seasick you actually barfed from the pool deck?"  I'm joking of course... it was Hiatt who was asked the first question and Emmylou the second...

Nah, fooled ya again!  Blurt would never give me this big-time assignment if they had to worry about the kind of questions I was going to ask the headliners. Then again, my editor probably figured I'd be able to remember my user name too. 

Consequently, what follows are some of the more memorable random comments of the afternoon:

 Alisa (Lee's wife): "I'm feeling woozy... I have to get some fresh air."

Me: "Damn it... I could swear I knew my user name!"
Alisa: "Gurgle, blurp, garoosh, blech... I may be dying here, but you're an idiot!"

Oops, I guess I turned my digital recorder on too soon.

Fast forward to some of the observations of the artists involved:

Robert Earl Keen: "Coming from Austin, I had a fear of Nashville. But what I am today is a direct result of the experience I gained there."

John Hiatt: "I don't write specifically for other people.  I don't know how. When I'm asked, I always end up doing poor imitations of other people's songs."

Emmylou Harris: "I love Cayamo.  It's such a great opportunity to sit in with friends. It's kind of like a cross between a festival and a prison break."

Buddy Miller: "I met my wife Julie when I was auditioning for a band in Austin. She said, ‘Don't hire that guy,' but they hired me anyway."

Keen: "I don't mind doing other people's songs. After all, I didn't invent songwriting.  And I'm sure not the only guy that's doing this thing.  I just want to do material I feel really good about."

Hiatt: "Bring The Family was a turning point for me. I finally had begun to get sober. I stopped drinking, I stopped doing drugs and all of a sudden I had a lot of time on my hands. I got out of my own way. Before, I had zigged when I should have zagged. So I figured I'd use all that extra time to create."

Harris: "I finally gave myself a raise a few years. It meant that I could work less and spend more time at home with my dogs."

Keen: "My favorite writers? Richard Thompson, Loudon Wainwright, Nick Lowe... I'd have to throw Norman Blake in there too.  And there's a new guy I think is really good named Adam Carroll."

Hiatt: "It's my nature to get restless. I have the billy-goat syndrome. I always want to know what's on the other side of the fence."

Miller: "What makes an album a Buddy record rather than a Buddy and Julie or simply a Julie album? The fact is, Julie's slow.  This last record started out as her record, then it was my record, and then ultimately it became both of our record."

Harris: It's hard for me to write. I have a terrible fear of the blank page, but I know I have to get past it."

Keen: "I think it was Emerson who once said, ‘Imitation is suicide, but self-imitation is worse."

Harris: "When I write a song, it has to pass the truth test. If I'm writing from personal experience, it has to encompass a situation that everyone can relate to. The lyrics have to have that truth to it."

Of course, insight is one thing, but the music also has to speak for itself. 

The three shows we saw later that evening provided proof of that point. Buddy Miller with Emmylou Harris as a special guest, proved that the man had lost none of his instrumental dexterity despite being sidelined by a heart attack and his subsequent triple bypass surgery. "I had no idea what it involved," Miller remarked at one point. "I told the doctors, ‘Fine, I'll have the surgery, but I have to be back on the bus when it leaves in the morning.'" Clearly a crowd favorite, Miller swayed the audience's emotions, not only through a superb performance, but also in giving them the joy of welcoming him back to Cayamo after last year's unfortunate absence. The show was further stoked by a surprise guest appearance from Shawn Colvin, a featured performer from last year's cruise who wasn't booked for any appearances this year. Nevertheless, by gracing the stage unexpectedly with Miller and Harris, the Three Girls and Their Buddy amalgam came just short of a complete reunion.

WPA's performance followed Miller and company in the Spinnaker Lounge, and the sight of the seven members onstage, including the Watkins duo, Sara and Sean, and steel guitar player Greg Leisz, elevated Glen Phillips' already amiable presence to new heights.  The band's mix of pop, roots and bluegrass makes for a remarkably seamless set and yields one sure standard - "Always Have My Love."  It's already a song on which they could rest their reputation.

Finally, we capped our evening with Emmylou Harris' headlining gig in the Stardust Theater. The ever-faithful Buddy Miller provided an ethereal ambiance, with songs such as "Pancho and Lefty," "Red Dirt Girl," and "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight" generally enhancing the sleepy haze we were quickly falling victim to.  Emmylou was superb, of course, but at the end of a hectic, action-packed day, the mellow vibe was kind of akin to the evening's last lullaby. Encore over, we headed straight for bed.