Jill Thomas is a rambler, traveler, and storyteller with a big laugh who thinks its funny how life leads you right where you need to be, however the roundabout path.
Yesterday, we rambled on our beach cruising bikes to attend the Pensacola Beach Songwriters Festival, one of my favorite weekends on the beach. Our goal was to see a local band called Sugar Cane Jane.
If you're ever around these parts, I recommend checking out their schedule and catching a show. They often play at Gulf Coast festivals and venues in Northwest Florida and southern Alabama, and Mississippi.
Sugarcane Jane is a musical duo (Anthony Crawford and Savana Lee) from Loxley, Alabama. Anthony played in Neil Young’s band for over a decade and has also played with many other notable bands, including Steve Winwood, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Oakridge Boys, Dwight Yoakam, and many more. For me, their sweet, soulful harmonies sound like the South.
The first time I saw Sugarcane Jane play was in a bar in Mississippi. This was over a decade ago now, and I was still new to the South and was just getting to know my gregariously friendly neighbors.
My next-door neighbor, Becky Mason, had a good friend who was a Sugarcane Jane fan, so we drove 1.5 hours through Alabama to Pascagoula, Mississippi, from Pensacola, Florida, rented a hotel and had a night out.
What I remember most from that wild night was being enraptured by the music. I was in heaven, swaying on the dancefloor, as close as I could get to the band through every set.
As I listened, it fully sank in for the first time that the music I’ve inexplicably adored my entire life was born in Mississippi. My affection for twangy music from the American South is not often appreciated in Canada’s Pacific Northwest, with my hubby Stormy affectionately referring to it as Jill’s “plonkety plonk.”
A man in the bar was painting an image of the scene that night, which Becky bought for me on the way out the door. Now, it hangs in my front hall. Several people have called this painting ugly, but I love the memory it invokes. It will be one of the few things I take with me when we leave this place.
Stormy’s stand-out memory from that night is the bartender telling him that two of the men we arrived with (whom we have not seen since) were drunk and brawling in the parking lot with hopes that Stormy might intervene. He replied, “I don’t know them well enough to get shot breaking up a fight in Mississippi,” and ordered another drink.
On the way home, six of us crammed into a taxi. It was decided that the Canadians must be introduced to Krystal Burgers, so we strong-armed our taxi driver into the drive-through. Krystal Burgers are served by the sack, each containing a dozen salty burgers the size of cookies on soft white steamed buns, nestled in undersized french-fry-style cardboard boxes.
Elvis (who was born in Tupelo, Mississippi) loved Krystal Burgers and was known to order them by the hundreds. I felt like Elvis the next morning, waking up after a night of great music in a hotel room littered with Krystal Burger wrappers.
READ MORE > JT'S Tales From the Trail, Rambler Cafe Blog
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