When I saw him over in Albuquerque before I moved back to AZ, I smiled for two days.:smile:
Hey, when was that? I saw him in Albuquerque too, prolly in the early 90's or late 80's. It was in the downtown Convention Center as I recall.
I grew up in the Northern Appalachian Mts. and East and north of the town I lived in was all strip mined for coal. The mighty Susquehanna river ran a rust red when I was a kid from all the mine acid that was leaking into the river. I recall drag lines big enought to scoop up a small house and acres of barren moonscape. The nearby town of Centralia has underground coal mines that have been burning for prolly 50 years. The town had to be abandoned.
Daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenburg County,
Down by the Green River Where Paradise lay.
Sorry my son but you're too late in asking'
Mr. Peabodies coal train done hauled it away.
..Johns parents were natives of western Kentucky, and his extended family lived in the long shadows of the coal mining industry there. Though his parents had moved to Chicago to get away from that life (like mine, his dad was a union man, and a tool and die maker), John had spent many summers in the family seat, "a small postcard-perfect country town called Paradise". The lyric themes that would become the bedrock of his songs and style would also have there roots in Paradise.
It was 2002 I believe, and in a small venue that I've forgotten the name of. Yep, the same thing happened to me.