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What’s up Sorry State readers? I hope everyone is having a nice week and is ready for Record Store Day this Saturday. We’ve been gearing up for it here at Sorry State. There are a lot of great titles coming out this year. I’m personally most excited about the Dolly Parton record coming out, a compilation of her early work (‘64 -’68) on Monument Records. This past week I traveled home to Memphis to visit my mom. We decided to go on a road trip for a couple of days around Mississippi and Alabama and catch some Billy String shows. It was such a fun few days just hanging out with my mom and driving around and hanging out in Mobile. The Airbnb we stayed at also happened to coincidentally be less than a mile away from the old shack my great-grandparents lived in when they first got married, so we went by and checked it out. (I can’t believe it was still standing.) It was cool to see where they started from when they were probably about my age. I never met them, but it made me feel a little bit more of a connection to them to see that in person. The older I get, the more I appreciate learning about family history and stories from it. Anyways, I was a little curious about how much my mom would enjoy the shows. I knew she would have fun cause she loves live music, but Billy shows can get a little out there sometimes and usually go for about three hours. I got us tickets for both nights but I was kinda half expecting to only go to the first night. I wasn’t gonna drag her back for a second night if she didn’t love it. She ended up having a blast, and we danced together the whole night. After the show, we walked around downtown and ended up just walking three miles back to the Airbnb (with a stop at Taco Bell at 1AM naturally). I forgot my mom knows how to throw down; I was passing out before her that night. She insisted that we go back the second night and sneak back into the pit as we had seated tickets that night. Who am I to say no to my own Mom? We went back that night and snuck into the pit and even got up to the front row and danced again all night long. The highlight of the shows for me was during the second set of the second night, he performed a cover of Bob Dylan’s Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again. It was too fitting considering our road trip down from Memphis and me and my mom were just high fiving and hootin’ and hollerin’. Honestly, it’s probably one of my favorite memories ever. I had a smile so big I was like the guy on the Jamming With Edward cover who’s smiling so hard his face falls off. I’ve been to a good amount of Billy shows, but these two in Mobile with my mom are probably the most fun I’ve had at a show and I’m just happy I get to have all these great memories from this trip. I love my mama. Obviously, I was traveling, so I wasn’t listening to records, but before I left, I found myself listening to this Mississippi John Hurt record a lot. Why not listen to some Delta blues and folk if I’m gonna be traveling around the Delta? I love John Hurt’s music so much, it just sounds so comforting. I’ve mentioned many times before but blues and folk music is so awesome cause so many of these songs are like a century old but they still sound incredible and the feelings they convey are still relatable to this day. I love just about every song on here, but if I had to pick a couple of favorites I’d go with Salty Dog Blues, Make Me a Pallet on the Floor, Sliding Delta and Stagolee. Man, I had to cut that short. I realized I was typing out like half the track list. I guess to bring it all back and tie everything together, it was cool to travel with my mom for a concert down to where my great-grandparents are from and listen to Billy play some old ass folk songs they might’ve even listened to back then too. The power of bluegrass and folk baby, the circle is never broken.