Picking with Wayne Henderson

I made my first sojourn to Retrofret in Brooklyn this past Thursday night. The event was a House Concert by luthier and award winning guitar picker Wayne Henderson. Wayne is from Rugby, Virginia. I first met Wayne in the mid 90's at his yearly June festival in Mouth of Wilson, VA. It had started raining and I stupidly got under a propped up board with a heavy speaker on top of it. Wayne came under the speaker and suggested I pick a safer place to stay dry. A couple of years later, friend Scott Freeman took me to Wayne's shop. I have been on the waiting list for one of his guitars ever since.
As I have mentioned in previous postings, the Crooked Road musicians have made two trips to the northeast. Wayne is probably the best known of all the musicians but by no means the only musical virtuoso and luthier extraordinaire.
Wayne had asked that I bring along my banjo so that I might jam with him at the beginning of last week. In disbelief I treated myself, patient wife and inducible five month old son to two and half days of Wayne's CDs. I have about five and spent most of my time trying to figure out which songs he would pick. I should not have been so nervous. Wayne picked songs that we all knew: Leather Britches, Soldier's Joy, Mississippi Sawyer, Ragtime Annie. I even sang Eight More Miles to Louisville. It was a real thrill. The subway ride home was also extra special. Two new friends along, one of whom, Allen St John, wrote a book about Wayne.
The next musical project ahead is seeing if I can submit an MP3 of the Manhattan Valley Ramblers' singing for the national duet competition on Prairie Home Companion.