The Kerrville Folk Festival is a music festival held for 18 consecutive days in the late spring/early summer at Quiet Valley Ranch near Kerrville, Texas. The Kerrville Folk Festival was founded in 1972 by the husband-wife team of Rod Kennedy and Nancylee Davis. Much like the fabled Luckenbach Texas where “everybody is somebody,” the Kerrville festival is a gathering of singers, songwriters, musicians, and people who just love music. The last time I visited Luckenbach, there was not a lot going on, but it was amazing to watch the groups of people playing instruments and singing, moving from one group to another much like the murmurations of starlings. It was just so laid back and comfortable. It made me wish that I had some musical talent other than listening to and appreciating music.
The first time I went to the Kerrville festival, I missed an artist who would grow to be one of my most favorite songwriters and performers, Mary-Chapin Carpenter. I missed her performance by just one week. This was shortly before she would become the name that she is now. Both of these venues showcase amazing voices and wonderful storytellers. I think that is one thing that I need that makes me really appreciate a song or an artist. I want to hear the story. Much like a good book, the story carries the emotion of it for me.
I was listening to her music this morning as I made my way to work and one of her most haunting songs came into rotation: John Doe Number 24. Carpenter based this song on a true story. In the early hours of October 11, 1945, two police officers came across a scantily dressed black youth rummaging in an alleyway in Jacksonville, Illinois. He was believed to be mentally ill, and because of his bizarre behavior he was committed to an institution later that month where he became known as John Doe No. 2. In spite of attempts to trace his family, John Doe No. 2 - later John Doe No. 24 - was never positively identified, and he would spend the rest of his life being cared for by the state. He died November 28, 1993. Carpenter read his obituary in the New York Times while sitting in a Starbucks café in Washington, and wrote the song from his perspective.
The most poignant part of the story, at least to me, is the last stanza:
I'm wandering down to the banks of the great big muddy
Where the shotgun houses stand
I am seven years old and I feel my daddy
Reach out for my hand
While I drew breath no-one missed me
So they won't on the day that I cease
Put a sprig of crape jasmine with me
To remind me of New Orleans
There are a lot of words in this song that I am feeling lately. This last stanza is probably the strongest.
I wish you peace.
