SceneInTown at the earlier Kerrville Festivals

Mary Jane Farmer

This could go into the Sherman Herald Democrat, also, as a Good Morning, but I’m eager to share all this with my Scene In Town friends. NOTE: Anyone else out there who wants to have photos included, contact me at MJFarmerHD@Gmail.com — you can attach those photos or we can figure out how to get them included.

With all the technology out today, printed photographs are becoming more rare. True, photographs can be sorted and stored online, and it seems a safe place. But, as one of my granddaughters found out, those Websites can become corrupted and disappear. Or become obsolete — think of all the photos on My Space which, for many people, can’t even be accessed any more, now that Facebook surged ahead in the social media race. The pictures are gone. (I, by the way, keep all my photographs on CDs, with an Excel spreadsheet keeping track of the CD’s numbers and what is included on each one, whether it is music, or family, or anything else.)

Whenever the family comes to my house, They always pick up the photo albums, just to see themselves again in Jasmine Halloween costumes and baseball uniforms. And so I know that’s where true wealth really is.

David Amaram

I have begun an in-reverse project with photos. I’m putting them on the Web. Eons ago, I was assistant to the producer of the Kerrville Festivals, and loved every field-hippie minute of it. My stacks of those photographs, though, are wasting, much like the cedar chest full of LP albums. So, I’ve begun to scan the pictures in and include them on my Facebook page, in a special photo album “Kerrville Festivals over past years.” This album is open to the public, as are all those placed on the Scene In Town Facebook page.

Response from my friends of yore has been incredible, and it makes me glad I’m doing this.

As I thumb through the 4×6’s, I realize how many of those performers and old friends have passed away. I went on YouTube, found the late Stan Rogers, and listened to his “Barrett’s Privateers” while scanning his photos in. Stan played the festival in 1983. His plane crashed on his way back home, and he heroically helped other passengers get safely out before smoke overtook him. He sang his newest song, still being written, to me the night before.

Nancylee and Rod Kennedy

Townes Van Zandt, Allen Wayne Damron, Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman, Robert Shaw, Rick Cardwell, and more, all incredible musicians, songwriters, and legends now gone from us.

Then there’s those still going strong. David Amram, now 81, who just this week played WoodyFest in Okemah, on the date of his old friend Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday. And Happy Traum from New York City, glad to be a Texan for a few days. Bob Livingston, an old Lost Gonzo, and Josh White Jr., and Santiago Jiminez Jr. with his conjunto accordion. I’m adding about 6 or 8 pictures nearly every day.

It’s just fun. ‘nuf said.

Link to the photo album

Category: *- Features