The Day After

Posted to OGR on 05/01/2011

Yesterday, Cassie Fox, DJ Glee and I spent 6 hours broadcasting live from the Rosewood Crawfish Festival in Columbia, SC. I want to thank CJ Horvatt, Dave Huffman and Trudie Harris for helping Gene and me set up and break down all the equipment necessary for the broadcast. You can see just how much equipment is necessary by visiting my Facebook page and checking out the Rosewood Crawfish Festival picture album. Much appreciation also goes out to Basil and his staff at the Rosewood Market for providing the space in their busy parking lot turned into a beautiful oasis full of people, music and good food. Finally; a big thank you goes out to Moe Baddurah the festival organizer for inviting us to be a part of this premiere event.

We had a blast playing the tunes and talking to the crowd on a perfect spring day. The day was warm with crystal blue skies. There were some light puffy clouds in the morning that gave way to what pilots are fond of calling “severe clear” weather conditions. Trudie Harris jumped in as the OGR “Roving Reporter” interviewing random fair-goers. Lots of folks enjoyed meeting her after hearing the tracks from her new CD, “Magic Sand.” The very large crowd, estimated at near 10,000 was walking around sampling the wares of the many vendors selling crawfish hats, blow up alien dolls and all kinds of great food and drink. Three stages joined our OGR speakers in filling the air with “feel good” music. There is nothing like the sounds and smells of a festival. These are the times that fill the halls of our memories.

Naturally, being at the fair, we had an opportunity to interview people as they came by. A couple of those interviews stand out. The first was the one that Cassie had with the legendary blues master, Drink Small. “The Blues Doctor” is a native of Bishopville, SC but lives in Columbia now and is still actively touring and recording at age 78. Everyone turned their heads to watch when they heard his deep bass voice. He was getting ready for yet another “gig” Later in the day. It was a real pleasure to see him again. I am glad that he took the time to visit us.

A short while later, a handsome man, dressed in a great looking blue shirt came by and started talking about the great crawfish he was enjoying.

I could tell from the gleam in his eye, that he was proud of those crawfish and after a little prodding, he confessed to being Jay Dardenne, the Lieutenant Governor of the state of Louisiana. At that point, the conversation turned into an on- the-air interview. Jay was in town for a wedding, heard about the festival and came on down to check it out. He pronounced the crawfish as being perfect and that South Carolina knew how to throw a party. He mentioned that one the crawfish cookers was from Louisiana. Jay was elected in a special election on November 2, 2010 to replace Mitch Landrieu, who was elected to the office of Mayor of New Orleans, so he was still new to the job and you could tell he enjoyed it. We talked briefly about the gulf oil spill and how well the Louisiana coast has recovered. He invited us all to come on down. Do I feel a road trip coming on? Oh MY!

Copyright 2011 Rick Wrigley