In 1971 after I got out of the Army, I drove out to Trinidad, Colorado to visit my brother, Chuck. He was living with a couple of his friends in a geodesic dome house that they built themselves. After I had been there a couple of days, Chuck said, "Tomorrow is Saturday so we need to check out Boogie in Walsenburg. It's only about 40 miles north of here"
Apparently there was a commune of hippy musicians living in the hills outside Walsenburg, Colorado. They would come to town on Saturday evening to play music in one of the bars there.
We arrived at the bar where the music was supposed to happen at about 8:30. It was a long older building that was fairly narrow with high ceilings, wooden floors, and several neon Coors signs decorating the walls. Six slowing turning ceiling fans made a valiant attempt to keep the place cool. A long bar, well worn from many years of supporting elbows, lined the first third of one wall. In the back of the room there was an old, slightly out of tune, upright piano.
Around 9 pm the hippy musicians started arriving. They moved some tables out of the way to make room for their instruments, speakers, and amplifiers and moved enough tables to make a small dance floor. While they were setting up and getting tuned up, the customers started wandering in. A little before 10 pm when they were ready to start playing, there must have been about 70 people in that bar.
They started out playing Jimi Hendrix's "Red House" followed by numbers from Pink Floyd, Cream, some old blues standards and a couple of their original songs. They did an expecially nice version of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb".
After about an hour of playing they stopped to have a beer and take a break. While they were taking a break, a middle aged woman with grey hair sat down at the piano. She started playing a really smokin' 12 bar piano boogie. The guys in the band put down their beers and joined in.
People in the bar moved some tables out of the way so there was more room for dancing and for the next 15 minutes, that place really rocked! When they finally stopped, the woman playing the piano, the guys in the band, and those dancing all broke out in raucous laughter.
The band good naturedly took requests from the people there and managed to play every request well. One middle-aged woman whose father had recently died, went up to the band and asked if they could play "Amazing Grace" for her. A woman standing near her offered to do the singing.
The woman singing was apparently part of a local church choir and had an amazing contralto voice. I've heard "Amazing Grace" many times before and since, but never like the way it was done that night. By the time they finished I don't think there was a dry eye in the place. The woman who requested the song went up to the band with tears streaming down her face and thanked them from the bottom of her heart.
Later in the evening, a man about 70 years old walked up to the band carrying a violin case and asked if he could join in. The guys in the band said, "Sure, just start playing whatever you like and we'll join in." What followed was about 30 minutes of great blue grass music with a killer fiddle player.
That night I heard everything from blues to blue grass. I'll always be grateful to my brother for introducing me to Boogie in Walsenburg. It was America at its most tolerant, inclusive best.
