FOLLIES NIGHT: Community of Writers at Squaw Valley | August 2007
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Watch the 2007 Friday Night Follies at Squaw Valley Community of Writers
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While Caridwen Spatz and Mark (Crazy in Alabama) Childress drain their hearts into Hank Williams‘ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” novelist and bassist James D. Houston chokes back tears. Off camera, Gregory Spatz, Caridwen’s writer-fiddler husband, is probably tearful, too.
Al Young and Jim Houston (the only two members of their Granite Chief Quartet who ever bother to show up for gigs) re-enact the back-story to Louis Jordan‘s perennially popular “Is You Is, Or Is You Ain’t My Baby?”
Now Al and Jim chomp down hard on the bittersweet nougat of this bluesy lament. Just about to blow some blues on the edge of his his credit card, Al sings: “I’m gonna walk up to her gate/And see if we can’t get it straight./’Cause I love her,/I’m gonna ask her … “
Photos: Cynthia Christian
Barbara Hall asks Al what he’s been up to since the Governor appointed him California Poet Laureate. Al listens for a hint. That’s husband Oakley Hall (1920-2008) at the left in shorts with his back to us.
Photo: Brett Hall Jones
Swann Li, a writing student from China, and workshop leader Al Young during the August 2007 Community of Writers at Squaw Valley fiction week in the Sierras. Above them hangs a gallery of writers photographed by Barbara Hall.
