Dancehall in Heaven
https://youtu.be/ejMTDEgW01Y
An amazing person, friend, husband, teacher, and more died this year. He was well-known in swing dancing circles from Arizona to Texas. He was beloved as a teacher. He was probably one of the most photographed people I have known in my life. And his love for music, dancing, people, and, most of all, his wife, Betty, were palpable.
I don’t know about you, but I am so tired of people who have committed crimes — especially those whose words of denial are the only ones heard — being so much of what we see and hear. Doug and people like Doug need to be recognized, celebrated, and this joy shared.
Betty asked me to emcee his Celebration of Life. We all know these are only half hearted “celebrations” most of the time — but Betty suggested I write a song, something about a dancehall in heaven. We’d known Doug and Betty for almost 20 years and we were honored that they liked our music and would come to our gigs and visit and dance.
It was a hard gig to emcee that day. Whenever I thought I might cry, I would tell myself “it’s just a gig”. That worked when we played for my wonderful brother-in-law’s funeral and it mostly worked for this one. There were 150 people crammed into the room and another 30 outside and, altogether, about 300 people in person and online, from 5 countries. That was Doug. Bigger than life even in death.
Betty organized the event and I was so honored to be part of it. Every musician who knew them would have done anything to help. I started by welcoming everyone and saying, there’s one person who would have loved to be here but couldn’t — and we all know who that is.
Here’s the song I wrote with help from Katie Gill and Amy Blackburn. Since it was a one-off group, we called ourselves the Douglas B Carter Trio and not Holy Water & Whiskey. Most of the pictures are from Doug’s FaceBook page. I downloaded so many that FB apparently thought I was a stalker and blocked me from Doug’s page.
Here is Dancehall in Heaven. https://youtu.be/ejMTDEgW01Y I hope, if you have someone who passes for whom this song fits, that you use it, so when our time comes, we can pass right by the harps and find each other.
