Lilly The Banjo Player

Last night, I left Cathedral Park and walked down Dauphin Street.
I soon heard the strains of a girl playing a banjo and singing.

...From Colorado

Lily Guthrie, The Banjo Player

There were a few men standing around her. They were throwing money (one dollar bills, I noticed) into her case.

I was amazed that on a Tuesday night, anyone could successfully busk in Mobile. I sure wasn't trying to. But, yet, she soon had a couple more men gathered around her.

She was wearing a hippie type dress with a tight fitting top with her bosoms half exposed.

She played the banjo, and she played it very simply; no picking at all, just lazy strumming (with her thumb, yikes!) and she sang songs that all had to do with the "traveling" life; the South; Mississippi -that type of thing....Cripple Creek comes to mind.

Well, she was very friendly. I wanted to talk to her a bit, because I thought that I perhaps recognize her from New Orleans, but her attention was being monopolized by two young men, one with dreadlocks, one without, who were saying that they were from Colorado ..."Oh, my God, I'm from Colorado too...Lovington, Colorado!!"

And so I went on to the beer store and hit them up before they were to close.

I thought about getting a beer for the girl with the banjo, but, it appeared that she had a good amount of money in her case. At least if all of them were one dollar bills; if a few of them were of greater value, then she didn't need anyone to buy her any beer at all.

Well, upon  returning it became apparent that the girl, whose name was Lilly, by the way, was into playing Grateful Dead music; and she had a style which featured her vocals, which were not bad; kind of loud; but not quite Leeanne Rhymes loud...

I was tempted to break out my guitar and play Grateful Dead songs with her, but I didn't.

The two guys from Colorado soon invited the girl to smoke a joint at their vehicle, which was just a block away, and they invited me along, probably just to give the girl the impression that they were all about smoking up any and all creatures great and small and that the fact that she was a 20 something hitch-hiking Rainbow Child with a low-cut shirt was not a factor at all. If they were to have excluded me, then it would have been suspicious.

There were a series of events that occurred, but I Will cut to the chase.

We got back to the parking lot that we had taken off from, to ride around.

Lilly, who had been very friendly and had asked me my name and shaken my hand and asked me if I wrote my own songs, to which I informed her that, yes I did. 

Well..it seemed that the two guys from Colorado had probably offered the girl a place to stay for the night, for, although she said that she wanted to hear me play, and despite the fact that I broke out my guitar and played my best Grateful Dead music; music that we had listened to while riding around; there seemed to be a sense of urgency about the three of them taking off and going somewhere, regardless of how cool the Grateful Dead tunes were that I was playing.

As I approached her, I recognized the song she was playing as "Mama Tried," by Merle Haggard.

Conclusion: She is a traveling kid who knows a few chords on the banjo and can sing in a very female-sounding voice (which attracts men like a mating call).

I actually had notions of us forming some kind of duo and going to New Orleans to play on Bourbon Street. I know what works; and the "older guy, who knows all the chords combined with the young female understudy" is pretty high up on the money list; even if most of the funds come from well heeled guys who are trying to demonstrate (to the girl, of course) what kind of resources  they have at their disposal.

The girl informed me, however, that she always makes more money by herself;, or with her friend, Haley ("Who's a female," she pointed out) which makes me pretty much convinced that she trades in the "pretty young female all alone and on the road who might; just might; consider taking them up on their offers to get her off the street because It's dangerous out here...." business.

I just wanted to throw that out there.