Wild West Junction

We arrived at the motel in Williams AZ. today and moved into our rooms which were converted train cars outside of the town. We were told that the trains have a ghostly history, but the two nights spent there revealed no phantom powers.
Clarence Clearwater was the artist we worked with today in a fake old west town someone built with the intent of giving visitors kind of a Knott's Berry Farm experience near the Grand Canyon (which we somehow managed to sneak in).

Clarence is exactly how I imagined him, a real cool character full of stories and laughter, Like Bingo before him, he truly has a lust for life and his girlfriend, Kat is really chill as well. Clarence brings with him two nice acoustics and four capos.

Everyone in fake old west land is anachronistic, even the "sheriff" packs a real sidearm and is actually running for actual mayor. Strange and fun stuff!
We set up in the middle of a very windy courtyard amongst fiberglass cowboys and dilapitated "old" porches and waited while Clarence serenaded us with his own material and we got to one he made sung in Navajo which is essentially a prayer from a man to his horse. Absolutely beautiful. Clarence has made a number of albums (six) and goes on to say that in Mexico, a version of this song is quite popular. He generously says we can have it for ourselves and wants nothing in return.

Recording goes into the evening and the freezing wind becomes a real issue for the microphones and the crew. Thankfully, we end up with a great recording in which Clarence did his own dynamic backups. We are very pleased with the results. Later, we eat with them at their fave diner and stories galore occur. Clarence is quite a storyteller.

The next day,we went on a field trip to the train Clarence is a musician performer on. I took part in a cheesy costumed skit that the train company performs daily (I am the captive kiwi tourist) and then we headed off toward Santa Fe. Clark forgot his suitcase in the train motel and lucky for me we went back cause I left my boots there as well!

From the terrifying bouncing cabin of our winnebago,
Nathan