A Last Concert for 2017
The Long Grove Arts and Music Council held it’s last free concert for 2017. I joined the townspeople on Towner Green Sunday afternoon to hear Scott Ainslie and Reggie Harris. These artists carry the song and story telling heritage of our country, especially of the ante bellum South. Indeed the story of humanity is one of shared work and suffering. That is what we all have in common. Life means that one works and one suffers. That is no more evident than in the songs coming from the black families and individuals brought to America enslaved in the early years, until the conclusion of the Civil War. Ainslie and Harris also included songs from a later generation of freedom riders who insisted that civil rights justly applied to people of color.
Reggie Harris is a superb story teller. He told of researching his family history. The inquiry ultimately resulted in walking the plantation grounds of his ancestor along with a white relative. Reggie then sang a song that he has written about the meaning of that experience. The tears came as I listened.
4 thoughts on “A Last Concert for 2017”
Everyone who writes, who acts, who paints or creates is a storyteller, as are you my friend. Thanks for this post.
We live through the stories. It is our duty to pass on the stories that we have received.
In my mind, there are many types of stories.
Those that teach, those that preach.
Some explain, others entertain.
A few spread fright while most shed light
History expounds while fantasy abounds.
But most of all the truth must be told,
for without the truth our souls will be sold.
Nice lines. Who is the poet?