Oct. 3, 2002

Dear David,

Thousands of people are screaming in the dark as the starstruck, teenage writer follows the rock 'n' roll band backstage for the first time in the movie "Almost Famous." When the drummer leads the band into the first song you can almost taste the adrenaline.

In a perfect world, my old friend Randy Leiner would be having this experience almost every night. He would be a rock 'n' roll legend (he is to me). At least one of his songs, "Where the Highway Meets the Sky," would be on everybody's Top 10 list.

Randy hoped all that would happen, but when it didn't he started a business and raised a family. And when his sons, Jordan and Noah, got old enough they all formed a family band with their mom, Sally, on drums.

This was a different way to be a musician.

Now that the sons have gone on to their own bands, Randy plays rockabilly in The Melroys on weekends. Sally is happy to be able just to dance again.

But I know Randy's rock 'n' roll dream never died. You can see in the way he plays and sings how crucial all of it still is to him.

The family was in the audience when The Melroys performed on the main stage at the City of Roses Music Festival last weekend. Fifty bands, 11 nightclubs, Maui weather and a moonlit stage on the Mississippi River created an on-vacation atmosphere. Imagine that, a Cape Girardeau vacation.

Audiences and musicians paraded from club to club looking for each other. Motorboats circled the Mississippi River barge that was the main stage. A spotlight found a girl on one of the boats dancing to Dave Mason's band.

Physically, Dave Mason could be the poster child for the ravages of rock 'n' roll. Almost 40 years on the road and all that can entail have worn his face and body pulpy. I feared the worst when the band started playing, but Mason's voice is as sweet as it ever was.

One of my new favorite bands is ColorWill: Guitar, bass and drums augmented with a talented saxophone player. He and the drummer riffed off each other in long jams while girls with tattoos and navel rings did a modern version of the Deadhead whirl.

The Bruce Zimmerman Band includes some of the best rock musicians to come out of Southeast Missouri. They can play anything and did over the course of the festival.

The weekend gave me a new appreciation for the Acme Blues Band, a group that has been around so long they're almost taken for granted. Now they've been around long enough to be a Cape Girardeau institution. They had the Indigo sweating.

On the quieter front were Wooden Ships, two guitarists who play and sing acoustic songs from the'60s and '70s incredibly well, and Julie Walker, a woman with a lovely voice who is just beginning to put her feelings into songs.

I didn't hear Mid Life Crisis but others raved.

Papa Aborigine, Cape Rock Drive and Funky Donkey Cheese, mainstays of Cape Girardeau's rock scene over the last decade, played. Those who grew up on their music will want them always to be here.

If life had gone differently, Randy might have been the headliner at the City of Roses Music Festival. He would have made more money, someone would have carried his amp and the crowd, though missing Jordan, Noah and Sally, might have screamed.

Maybe it's a perfect world after all.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.