No. 951 – Soulshine

Performer: The Allman Brothers Band

Songwriter: Warren Haynes

Original Release: Where It All Begins

Year: 1994

Definitive Version: None

First things first: Was that some kind of ballgame last night? Unbelieveable, as someone once unfortunately said in a Flint Journal headline …

As I’ve noted, you have to be judicious when passing out the stories if a number of songs relate to the same experience. Consequently, I’m trying to tell longer stories in chronological order as best I can: This happened first, this next, etc. so you have the proper context at the outset.

Sometimes that doesn’t work, and this is one such occasion. Memorial weekend in 1994 was epic in the literal sense of the word. In the span of four days, I saw Pink Floyd twice, the Indy 500, a Cleveland Indians game and drove from Flint to Cleveland to Muncie to Indianapolis to Columbus and back. Oh yeah, I also found a new apartment while in Columbus, because the Thursday I left was my last day at the Flint Journal. That’s a pretty crazy weekend, no?

Needless to say, I have a lot of stories to come off of that one, but I’m going to dive right into the middle—the Indy 500 BBQ in Muncie at my brother Scott’s apartment. The BBQ the year before was so great, we just had to repeat it, even though Scott’s post-graduation downtown apartment wasn’t as conducive for a confab as his rental ranch house had been the year before. That didn’t stop us from having the proper food, drink and pageantry (complete with balloon release).

We added a couple of new features for 1994, but one facet of the previous year that I continued was to stop at a record store in Muncie and buy some new music for the outing. The choice in 1994 was Where It All Begins, and Soulshine was the song of the day.

It was a perfectly warm sunny Saturday as we hung out in the side yard with the Allman Brothers floating down from the speakers Scott moved to the windows of his second-floor abode. There’s nothing like a good slide guitar as you stand in Winner’s Circle and quaff the post-BBQ victory milk (with all-important spillage), I always say. Sweet soulshine, for sure.