Antrim County roots music

It is just too darned hot to write a long post. It is too darned hot to read one. I wish you had been there last night. You would have that memory to bring out whenever you really needed it.

You know how it is when you’re sitting around with a few friends telling stories, swapping true lies, laughing at the ruefulness of it all? Rhythm stirs underneath braided voices. A fiddle calls, a Dobro answers, summer rain falls from a hammered dulcimer. The notes fly up in mercy, and there is grace.

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The informal, ad hoc, purely serendipitous blending of musicians might be called the Back Porch Pickers: Mike Berst on dulcimer, Bob Thurston on fiddle, Robin Luce on guitar and harmonica, Pam Luce in fine voice, and Jeff Bender on Dobro. A little bluegrass, a little Johnny Cash, some Appalachian summer and a Celtic lament, sly humor and a deep well of that is life. Brought to you by the drumlins, the lakes, the north woods and the ribbon roads of Antrim County, right there in the Masonic Hall in the Village of Central Lake.

Look for these and other fine musicians at the Back Porch Coffeehouse at the Front Porch Cafe in Ellsworth come September.