Truett Lolllis looked delighted a he surveyed the crowded room at Darwin’s Friday night, March 25. “I am so happy to be home,” he told me, “and so glad to be back at Darwin’s.”

Truett spent every Monday playing at Darwin’s for several years, beginning as a teenager too young to drink and ending this past January..It showed at how comfortable he is on the stage he has performed on more than 150 times, even though his “happy feet,” as he described them, did keep pulling chords loose from his soundboard. He played, while we were there, for 2 hours straight,and then lets his band, consisting of local legend Jon Schwenke, prolific drummer David Green, and percussionist Tony Erice on bongos, take a break. He himself said, “I;m just going to keep on playing,” and kept right on strumming as we head reluctantly out the door for home.

He was full of energy, not at all like a man who had been on planes and on the road for the past two months, touring in Europe and across the United States to support his new record deal. But he explained that he has been playing “the same 6 songs for 30 minutes” for that whole tour, and he just wanted to stretch out. Stretch out he certainly did. It was so much fun to watch him move as he played those amazing guitar notes, ably accompanied by Schwenke, Erice, and Green as they rolled almost non-stop through old material and new, including crowd favorites like “Scandalous,” “Hey Joe,” “Hit the Road Jack,’ and fabulous  song he wrote that he sang as a duet with Scwenk (and I missed the name),and too many songs to count.

It was a fabulous evening, full of friends, images of Truett dancing across the stage, that stunning guitar, Ercie, Schwenke and Green playing their hearts out, and all of it just like,as Truett said, “the greatest homecoming party, ever.”

Welcome home, Truett. It was so good to have you back!