Lucky Southern

Tonight we were back at Moody Brews. Maybe the best-attended night yet. New faces everywhere. Families, neighbors, people who found their way to the courtyard and just stayed. Perfect weather. Good food. The kind of crowd that shows up for the vibe and ends up becoming part of it.

Trey sat in on bass again.

We played three or four tunes he'd never even heard before, and he played them like he'd known them for years. His ears are that fast. That present. That ready.

I keep a list called Trey's Tunes on my phone. Tonight he added a few more to it. The first tune I ever called with Trey at Moody Brews was Lucky Southern. I counted it off without thinking too much about it. It's a tune I know well, one I've played probably hundreds of times. Comfortable territory. I wasn't sure what to expect from him. He’d told me he knew my tunes, but I took that to mean he’d heard me play them before. What I wasn't ready for was what happened after the opening vamp.

He jumped in on the melody.

My first thought was is he playing the melody? Then should I get out of the way and let him take it? Then I realized, he's playing it just like me! Not just the notes, but the inflections. The timing. The specific way I lean into certain phrases. He hadn't just learned the tune. He'd been listening to me play it, close enough and long enough that he absorbed it. It was all there. Every little detail. He really feels this piece. It was all I could do to hold it together.

I stayed with him through the melody the first time and when we repeated, he made a decision. No cue from me, no plan we'd discussed. He just slid down to the bass line and let the song fill out naturally around him. Melody to foundation, right on time, exactly what the music needed.

I've wondered what my role is supposed to be in all of this. Whether I guide him, or mostly stay out of the way, or some combination of both that I'm still figuring out. That night I think I found a piece of the answer. I counted it off. I played alongside him and when he was ready to take it somewhere, he did.
He didn't need me to show him what to do.

I keep a list called Trey's Tunes on my phone, but I think what I'm really keeping track of is something harder to put into words. A record of a musician finding his voice. A father trying to stay present enough to witness it without getting in the way.

Lucky Southern was just the beginning.

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