Gary "Gaz" Davis

All right! We're back!

We missed reporting on the day of arrival, or even on Monday, so here we go, two days later.

Sunday afternoon everyone was getting settled in.
With everyone I mean musicians of all ages. We're not a just a bunch of old guys and gals digging the Blues.
As I was unpacking my bag, a bunch of youngsters poured out of a van, and made their way into the dormitory.

Holy smoke look at the great line-up of artist faculty members for the 2017 Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival! Good thing Mary Hilts Parry sent a program PDF ahead of time. Figuring out who you want to study with can be difficult, what with so many tempting workshops.
Often it's a toss up.

At dinner time I joined illustrious dames Maria Muldaur and Eleanore Ellis. The latter (among others) introduced me to Piedmont finger picking way back in 2008, my first time "at camp".
I told Maria I was looking forward to taking her workshop. Of course she thought that was a good idea.  She said something along the lines, that no matter how well you play guitar, it's your voice that tells the story.

As usual on the first evening the orientation session at the Wheeler Theater gave all the faculty members a chance to introduce themselves, and to show us their chops and let us hear their sound. After that I'm sure many stayed up for jamming, but I returned to my room for a good night of sleep.

Happy Traum

Come Monday morning I took a walk on the beach before breakfast. The first workshop  I took was with Happy Traum. Check out his bio on Centrum's Blues Fest faculty page.

If your not at the Blues fest, and want to study with him check out his Homespun page. My work schedule being erratic, I found studying with inspirational guitar masters I met in real life at Blues Fest via their DVDs works out really well.

John Maxwell, Ethan Leinwand, Steve Maxwell

I thought I might play a couple of tunes at the open mic after dinner, but I wound up jamming with (from left to right) John "Gray Hound" Maxwell, Ethan Leinwand and John's brother Steve. You can find bios of John and Ethan on the faculty page as well.