http://portland.thephoenix.com/music/157960-remembering-dave-lamb-of-brown-bird/
On Tuesday night at the Columbus Theater, Dave's good friend and collaborator/tour partner, Joe Fletcher, led a string of artists paying tribute to Dave, accompanied by MorganEve.
Joe Fletcher, Low Anthem, and MorganEve
doing BB's Mabel Grey:
http://vimeo.com/91561509
and covering Tom Waits' Come on up to the House
http://vimeo.com/91607042
A beautiful tribute to David Lamb by Joe Fletcher
I was driving down Wickendon Street in Providence when I first heard Dave Lamb's voice. It was August 2007. He was being interviewed on a Boston radio station to promote a show brown bird was playing that weekend at PA's Lounge in Somerville, MA. At the end of the interview, the band played a live-in-the-studio version of a song they'd yet to record. It was called "Wrong Black Mare" and it hit me like a freight train. I had an overwhelming feeling from that one song that this was a man that I had to get to know. This song achieved everything that I had been after for a few years now. It was haunting and completely timeless. It told a brand new story that would have fit neatly anywhere in The Anthology of American Folk Music.
Needless to say, I made my way to PA's Lounge a few days later and saw Brown Bird for the first time. I saw Dave leading a small, strange trio replete with banjo and cello and I knew I'd struck gold. I introduced myself after the show and told him I would be in touch. Three months later our bands shared a bill for the first time in the very same club where we met.
Our friendship grew over the next year and, by the summer of 2008, we were planning our first week-long northeast tour. It was going to be just me and Dave, each playing solo... until...
He called me about a week before the first show to tell me that he'd met a fiddler a few days before. That fiddler was a lady. And would there be room in my truck to bring this lady fiddler along?
He told me her name was MorganEve. I said "That's odd. I've played several shows with a lady fiddler from the east coast named MorganEve. Do you think it could be the same girl?"
It wasn't an hour into the first drive that I realized they were already falling in love. They were trying to be professional. They were trying to hide it. But their love was quick and it was great.
As odd as it was to be this third wheel, I am forever grateful that I had this bird's eye view of these two, so truly meant to be, getting to know each other and, day by day, completing one another.
Over the past six years, Dave and MorganEve have become two of my closest friends and greatest supporters. We've all travelled the country widely, separately and together, slowly figuring out exactly who it is we are. We've celebrated each other's successes as though they were our own and we've helped open doors for one another wherever possible.
Shortly after our last tour together early last year, Dave got sick. As sad and frightened as I was, it was always Dave who put me at ease. He never seemed to ask why. He just marched directly towards the next challenge. When he had the strength he was writing and singing and playing and planning to record the next Brown Bird album. I have never known an artist that showed Dave's work ethic under any circumstance.
Most recently, we'd been emailing our latest recordings back and forth to one another. Dave's new songs are deep and rich and tackle his last year with an insight and poetry and perspective that I believe only a true artistic genius could achieve.
I do believe we've been cheated. Cheated out of watching what this man was capable of creating over the next fifty years or so. I've been cheated out of growing old with that rare friend who with one glance can let you know that he feels your pain or your triumph as thoroughly as you do.
But as so many of us are, I am trying to focus on how incredibly lucky I am to have crossed Dave Lamb's path when I did. To have gotten to know him as well as I did. To have seen so much of the country with him. And to meet all the incredible people he attracted over the course of his life so well lived.
Just this week I met so much of his extended family from the various lives he lived over the past 36 years. I'd like to thank both the Lamb and Swain families for allowing me to stand beside them and cry and comfort each other through what has been a most unthinkable week.
Long before Dave got sick, he became not only a friend but a role model. An example of how to live with with integrity, grace, hard work, and good humor through an often puzzling existence.
He touched me so deeply that I know in my heart that our friendship will last forever. He will continue to make me laugh, give me advice, and push me through the difficult days.
Thank you, David Lamb, for taking the time to show me what a true friend could be. You have long been and will forever remain in the very best part of my heart. I love you dearly, brother
