Ashby Frank
Mandolinist, Singer, Songwriter

Mashville on Tuesday… Bean Blossom, Indiana for two days… Arlington Heights, Illinois… Collinsville, Illinois yesterday, now I’m home. Whew.

I get a few days off now before we head out to South Dakota. Tis the season, I guess!

Just so yall know, the Mashville Brigade Studio Special that we recorded a few weeks ago is airing this week on XM Track 14 Bluegrass Junction. You can check out the Bluegrass Blog to find out some more info and show times by clicking here.

I also found out some good news about the Mashville album’s chart action this week. I’ll have to post about that later.

Hope yall are doin well. Time for a nap.

I made it back from Texas. It was a long and hot weekend, though.

I get today off, Mashville tomorrow night and then we’ll drive to Bean Blossom through the night. Such fun. haha. I love the performing and seeing new and old friends. The driving and riding gets old.

The good news today is that my buddies Junior Sisk and Ramblers Choice have a new CD that you can buy, and it’s awesome. The album was produced by one of my favorite singers, writers,  and people, Ronnie Bowman.
I got my copy in the mail yesterday, and it’s really great. I was lucky enough to have Junior and the guys record a song that I wrote on the new CD… quite an honor, but that’s not why I’m telling you to buy it (although I do appreciate the 9 cents, thank you).
I’ve known Junior and his wife Susan for a number of years and they’re some of the best folks you’d ever want to be around. If you’re a fan of any form of traditional Bluegrass music, I really recommend that you order this CD today. Junior and his cousin Tim Massey are singing as soulfully and true as ever. After just a few songs, you’ll feel like you’re in the mountains.

Support the band and order the album directly from them. You can find out how by clicking here.

Tell ‘em Ashby said hey!

Not much time to say anything meaningful (I don’t know if I ever do on here)… it’s time to go to Texas once again. This time it’s for the Overton Bluegrass Festival.

Let’s all hope and pray that one of us doesn’t go nuts at the diesel pump and hurt someone. $4.999 last week in Indiana.

This past weekend we had a light schedule.

Just drive up to Niles, Michigan for a Sunday show and come on back. Well, it got a little complicated.

We made it up I-65 through Louisville, and then started seeing the signs about how the Interstate was closed because of the flooding. So we get a few miles closer towards Indianapolis, and saw the dreaded detour sign.

Here we go! A parade of traffic down a two lane road ran us right into Columbus, IN. We were pretty hungry and tired from the parade so we decided to stop for some grub at the Chili’s. Some of you Bluegrass folks make know Columbus as the town on I-65 that you exit at to get to Bean Blossom (One of the big Bluegrass festivals).

When we turned into the parking lot, we noticed that there was a lot of standing and running water in the ditches and drains nearby and that the river that ran on the other side of the road was very high, but we had no idea how bad it really was.

After we were seated and made our order, the waiter apologized for his not being very happy. He explained to us that he just found out that his house was flooded and everything he owned was ruined. Pretty shocking, but I guess he couldn’t do anything other than keep working. He told us that the whole town was about to shut down and all the roads going North were closed.

That didn’t make us feel very good… because it didn’t take us very long to figure out that Michigan is NORTH of Indiana… we’re just smart like that. We figured we were stuck some place in this town, but we didn’t know exactly where to go, so we decided to go ahead and eat and see what happened.

As soon as we got our food, some sort of frantic call came in to the Chili’s that told them to close, and that all the dams and a bridge had collapsed and that the restaurant would probably be flooded by the morning. So we got our food boxed up and headed out to the parking lot to see if we could at least get out.

This is what we saw:

Needless to say, it was getting bad pretty quickly.

So we took off, and decided to try and go East and go around town. There were quite a few houses that were flooded that I saw, and that was pretty rough. I’ve never seen anything like that before and I sure hate it for those families that live there.

After seeing many streets closed and roadblocks everywhere, we made it out on a road going east and traffic seemed to be moving along just fine. Then we kinda got into a spot.

There was some water in the road. We debated turning around, but we saw quite a few cars make it across, and surveyed the situation around us and saw that there was no way that we were turning around.

So Justin guided the ol’ Turtle Top (we’re now calling it a Duck) through the water. Yes, I know you’re not supposed to drive through water, but we really had no choice. It was pretty exciting actually. Kind of like we were in some movie. We made it through! That’s all that matters, right? haha

Anyway, after that whole ordeal, we were glad to get back to the Interstate. We found a hotel, slept
some, and made it to the show in time in Michigan. Even though there was a Tornado warning and the show almost got canceled as we all ran to cover, it all cleared up and we got to pick! Here’s a couple of pictures I snapped at the venue:

I got home early this morning, and man is it HOT here or what? Hope everyone’s dry and cool.

Mashville tomorrow will be the regular band again for the first time in a few weeks! That’d be Darrell, Randy, Aaron, Jim, and myself.

Maybe I’ll see you there!

http://gregboyd.com/instrument_detail.html?instrument_key=513

Woohoo! Thank you Costco.

Hopefully now I’ll be able to take more pictures, if I remember to start bringing it again!

For all of you folks heading to Mashville tomorrow, the current lineup is: Brandon Rickman, Aaron McDaris, Randy Barnes, Jim VanCleve, and me… CARD SUBJECT TO CHANGE! hahaha

I’ve enjoyed my week off, but I’m ready to hit the road again. Sure was a nice week to have off with the nice hot weather. Hope yall had a good one too!