Pickin’ n Grinnin’

Making music with a little help from their friends


It’s hard to imagine a more pleasant setting, or better weather, for live music than the Hale Farm Homestead in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. This weekend was the 36th Annual Music in the Valley event. All acoustic, all traditional.
At this venue there’s no central stage where big-name performers do their latest hit from their latest CD. No flashing lights. No microphones. These are real people playing and singing real music. They’re accurately called, “parking-lot pickers.”
To say the event is informal is a bit of an overstatement. Essentially, the performers get in free, find a shady spot, snap open their instrument cases and make music. Friends and family join in. Even the audience joins in, assuming they brought an instrument along. Whenever someone wants to join a group, the circle just expands a bit. And yes, the circle remains unbroken.
Throughout the grounds of this 19th Century homestead bagpipes competed with banjos for listeners’ attention. A standup bass player lugged his monster fiddle into place, probably wishing he’d learned to play the piccolo instead. Guitars, dulcimers and more gorgeous banjos than I could count came to life with seemingly no prodding by talented players. Musicians moved from group to group, playing with friends, or making new acquaintances. Music was the common denominator.

Summer in Northeast Ohio at its best


Musical selections ran from Woody Guthrie’s, “Do Re Mi,” to Ry Cooder’s “Footprints in the Snow,” to the unknown composer who never earned a penny from a song, yet everyone seemed to know the chords. Of course, if you wrote a tune with the words, “It’s hard to be sad when your momma doesn’t die,” you might rather not be recognized.
Sitting in the shade, feeling the summer breeze rustle my hair, listening to traditional music got me to thinking about how much better it is to celebrate America in this fashion, than to celebrate wars and glorify killing, which we seen to do, most often. How much better it is to honor freedom by getting out to hear live music, see live birds or chase after live fish—all with free air conditioning.