It is the solstice, the earliest it's been in an absurd number of years. The day after Juneteenth, and the day after our friend Tom Prasada-Rao left to take his place among the stars. The day before the full Strawberry Moon, and the day before the 30th Annual Mountville. It must mean something; all the stars and planets aligning to make Tom welcome in the heavens with a big special cosmic show. For a humble dude with otherworldly gifts and the biggest most beautiful laugh, somehow it just fits. Tom's songs will ring out on our stage and around our campfires this weekend, and he will be all around us, and gleaming bright in the hot summer night.

Rich wrote the words he could not say in his Welcome to Mountville introduction:

"I wanted to say how much his music had affected me. I wanted to say how much I valued his friendship. I wanted to say how his life was an example to me and how much I admired his spirituality and his sense of humor.

The best I could do was a few moments of silence. The rest got stuck in my throat and just wouldn’t come out.

I think he knows. When I look up tonight, searching for a new star in the firmament, I’ll tell him what I wanted to say and couldn’t.

Thank you Tom."

If you too are missing this special soul, and you can bear the heat, please come join us this weekend. It's going to be really special, no doubt a bit intense, but after all, we're one of Tom's many many tribes and many families. This is how we gather, this is how we say goodbye and til we meet again, this is how we lift our voices and hold each other, and yes, this is how we sing and cry and laugh and live all the moments richly, because we've been given the gift of this life.

This is how we Mountville.

Read Tom's obituary in the June 27th Washington Post (gift article) and the June 26th New York Times (gift article).

In loving celebration