Life on the road can be sweet sometimes

M was the owner of a smart grocery store on the Côte d’Azur. We were busking one beautiful spring day on the street near his shop. Clad in a white apron and flapping his arms madly, he came running over to us. I thought he was going to call the cops to have us move along instead he invited us to play for dinner guests at his home later that evening.  

At the appointed time we arrived at M’s. The guests were elegant and rich and were charmed by M’s new find of Irish troubadours. Our repertoire back then was mostly old 30’s Hot Club swing tunes and songs as well as a smattering of Irish trad tunes and our own compositions. M was a larger-than-life character who looked like a mustachioed Oliver Reed and he fancied himself as a sax and harmonica player and singer. In fact he was quite good. His party piece was Kansas City Blues. M owned a magnificent record collection and had fancy record player with huge speakers. Apart from food and feeding his friends, his passion was music.  

Another shopkeeper also came to our rescue a couple of times. A rug shop owner would insist that we stand on a Persian carpet displayed on the street outside his shop. Local bylaws prevented the cops from moving us on from there. We had a kind of magic carpet diplomatic immunity. The owner at that time was proud to tell us that he was repairing a carpet for the great violinist, Stephane Grappelli, who lived up in the hills outside of town.

 M and his wife invited us to stay in their house, a rambling three story mansion for as long as we liked.  There was one condition, we entertain his dinner guests on demand. During our stay we got an education in French music and Jazz and he turned us onto the great Charles Trenet, Sidney Bechet, Roger Mc Gough, Mersey Sound, Charles Mingus and many of the greats of modern jazz . A fortnight or so later the wind shifted. We lifted our heels, packed up our instruments and slipped out in the dead of night after a dinner party. We caught the late train for Venice, Italy enroute to Greece.