ROBINSON’S RAMBLINGS

Stephen Andsager, Kyle Brown, Amy Toomsen Chellis and John Robinson. Photo by Vance Heflin.

Right Place/Wrong Time

WASHOUT AT THE BOONE COUNTY FAIR.

Sometimes a brush with greatness can be a glancing blow. You want things to go perfectly. An autograph for your son. A signed cookbook by Martha Stewart. Face time with Oprah.

But real life can get in the way. Snarled traffic. Scheduling conflicts. And Mother Nature’s favorite curveball: rain.

Rain can ruin a picnic. Or a day at the county fair. Or a concert.

You remember the big rainouts. A beautiful outdoor wedding. Drenched. Your child’s big ballgame. Washed out. A weekend at the lake, spent indoors with a hard rain drumming on your cabin roof.

The biggest washout of my life was a night at the Boone County Fair, when fair weather turned most foul. In the immortal words of Mac Rebbenack, “I Was in the Right Place, But It Musta Been the Wrong Time.”

It was three decades ago, but the memory burns as hot as a lightning bolt. The stage was set for a glorious Saturday night concert, the musical highlight of the fair. The event guaranteed to attract thousands of fans to drive several miles north of Columbia to the new Boone County Fairgrounds, which had just relocated from midtown Columbia to the spacious acreage near Prathersville. That night’s musical headliner, New Orleans blues legend Dr. John, was scheduled to play at 8 p.m. The opening act was a local band called The Mudbugs, purveyors of a self-described honky swamp swing. Infectious dancing music. It was a perfect fit to warm up the crowd

BY JOHN DRAKE ROBINSON

for the Doctor.

On that night I was the bass player for The Mudbugs. I even borrowed a historic old bass fiddle for the occasion. Columbia icon Forrest Rose, one of the original founders of The Mudbugs, loaned me a beautiful full-bodied fiddle named Blondie. You can still watch Blondie in her early days as the bass fiddle in old Bob Wills kinescope videos. History.

On the morning of the show, heavy rain set in early. It rained hard all day. By 3 p.m., fair officials had executed an alternative plan for the concert. Dr. John would perform at The Silver Bullet, a spacious music hall in Columbia. With a roof.

Meanwhile, out at the fairgrounds, already reeling from several inches of rain, the show must go on. To entertain diehard fairgoers, The Mudbugs were instructed to stay and play at the fair. We set up in a cinderblock building slightly bigger than a chicken coop. With broad smiles hiding our disappointment, we played for a crowd estimated at upwards of nine people, including our spouses and fair volunteers.

The gig went on without a hitch and we fulfilled our duty — two rollicking sets. Then we packed up and sped to the Silver Bullet to catch Dr. John’s show. From the back of a crowded bar, we danced to the Doctor’s cure-all combination of barrelhouse blues and New Orleans funk.

Near the end of Dr. John’s performance, a county fair official found us and ushered us backstage to visit the artist, born Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. He was gracious and down-to-earth, and in a c’est la vie manner we all toasted to the gods of wetness and shrugged off our rainy day luck.

As Dr. John sang ten thousand times before, “Such A Night!” John Drake Robinson is a former director of the Missouri Division of Tourism and has driven every mile of highway in the state. He was also the bass player for the Mudbugs.

FACE VALUE

Since you can’t add flavor to the center of a steak, the outside has to do all the work. A tip? Mix your salt and pepper together in a small bowl first, and be generous. Then, sprinkle the mixture from high above onto the face of the steak – gravity will help it fall in an even layer.

flavor

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54

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