There's nothing like meeting the family at a performance of a favorite band! And that's what happened to me last night at the Fox Theater in Oakland. We'd found ourselves a good spot in the standing room only floor up by the balcony at the back, by the bar. Great view, not too crowded. The Avett Brothers were energetically strutting their fabulously original folk, country, bluegrass, rock and pop stuff, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
"Have you seen this band before?" asked a white-haired guy in a blue denim shirt. "Yes," I replied. "I have, have you?"
"Oh yes, my dear," he said. "I'm their Dad."
We had a lovely 10 minute chat in which his pride was clearly fit to burst, despite being clearly accustomed to the huge and now well established successes of his prolific songwriter, musician sons.
Retired from the navy, welding and social work, Jim Avett's now in his 60s, with a mellow country music career of his own on the back burner at the farm in North Carolina.
Jim Avett showed me photos from his wallet of the family as kids. He gave me sage advice for my own musician son.
Not surprisingly, Jim own father Clegg had been a Methodist Minister - music and song being the soul of generations of Avett men.
The show was superb. As we'd expected it to be. But meeting Mr. Avett was the highlight. "If fame comes your way, you have to be ready for it," he'd said. "Right then, or it passes by."
I aksed him if he'd taught them all they knew. "I did," he said. "Until they knew more than me, then I sent them to a friend."