January 20, 2002

Billed as “The Son O’ Pop’n Jam” and as “an evening of music and popcorn”, the jam session on January 19 was an attempt to discover if there’s local interest in having a coffee house type evening in Happy Camp. I could not resist the opportunity to see who might show up and with what. My curiosity was not disappointed.

Wandering into the Family Resource Center an hour after the jam began, I found Robert Goodwin at the mike, playing his acoustic guitar and singing with a friend. About twenty people sat in the darkened back room, listening; the only light came from the stage where a drum set, keyboard, amps, mikes, and electric guitars were set up. Goodwin’s final tune was one he had written himself, and I heard Coreen Davis say it was the best song he had sung that evening. I agreed - it was awesome and heartfelt. It seems that the songs best suited for our voices are often the ones we write ourselves.

Next Coreen and her husband, Scott Hampson, played with a friend, Denise, on guitar, Scott on banjo. They did a few blue-grass mountain-folk tunes.. very entertaining. I had to leave about then, but later in the evening returned to find a group of about ten musicians still at it. There were several electric guitars, drums, two keyboards, and a bass guitar. The music was loud! We heard Dylan’s tune, All Along the Watchtower, in the Hendrix style, and something that sounded like Pink Floyd. Some of the musicians are very talented and some are beginners, but everyone was having a good time groovin’ with the music, deep into the night.