DJ Stylus just sent me this, and I couldn’t resist sharing this clip of Junkyard Band rocking at the American Folk Festival in Bangor, Maine. Pay special attention to the old lady in the front row around :51

New England! Ruff it off…

On Saturday night, Jill Scott sang at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md. About midway up the center seating area stood a little boy. He wore a white undershirt and white basketball shorts, and he was with his mother, a petite woman in a green dress. The boy couldn’t have been more than 8—though I would guess that he was 7.

He was loving Scott. As soon as she opened her mouth, he was standing up, rocking to the beat. His finger waved above his head. His arms pounded the air. Every once in a while, he’d turn and sing a lyric to his mother, who mouthed the music back to him. Except for one time. In this instance, she gestured for him to go into the aisle and sprayed him up and down with bug repellent.

But that was the only noteworthy pause of musical bliss.

That boy was a gold-star concertgoer. He made sure every penny spent on his ticket was worth it. Come to think of it, he probably couldn’t even see Scott. There was a pack of guys standing up in front of him most of the time.

No doubt about it, this adorable little mini-fan was feeling what most others in the audience revealed with slightly less enthusiasm: Man, Jill—she’s damn good.

You get the sense that Scott treats a crowd of 40 no different than a crowd of 4,000. She laughs. She curses. She instructs. She informs: Before a series of slow jazzy love songs, she says, “This is the segment of the show I call ‘Trying to get you laid.’” Between songs, Scott says that she thinks she knows something about relationships, and she’d like to share it. In the end though, she delivers no real speeches. With emotional authority, Scott just sings her heart out, and mostly forgets about the audience mid-song, just concentrating on her sound. This was particularly true with her rendition of “Insomnia,” in which she sings about the hours passing by as she waits in bed wondering where her lover is. The woman earns her back-up singers (three, for the record). She also looked great. As the token full-figured woman, Scott was featured in Vogue’s “Shape” issue this year. But there’s no doubt, she can pick out her clothes: on Saturday, she came out in a black satiny tunic, big jewelry, black leggings, and chunky heals.

Scott saved two of her most popular, more up-tempo songs for the end of her performance. After “finishing” her set, she sauntered—and this woman really does saunter—off stage only re-emerge a few minutes later with go-go legend Chuck Brown for her hit “It’s Love” from her debut album, Who is Jill Scott? At this point, a man stepped out into the aisle for the sole purpose of shaking his butt. He stood there for a while, back bent, cheeks out, and wiggled his tush. Then, an usher directed him back to his seat.

After “It’s Love”, Scott continued onto her latest catchy tune “Hate on Me.” Chorus: “Hate on me hater, now or later….”

No one seemed to be complying.

A few weeks ago I visited the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum. It had a few things going for it: a pretty good amount of archival news clippings mounted on walls, the clippings were presented in a fashion that could be described as “museum quality” or “well lit,” the place was not crowded, the staff was friendly, the bathrooms were super clean (best bathrooms east-of-the-river!), and there was air conditioning.

Oh, and the place is free.

The one problem: the museum’s paltry go-go exhibit. It’s not listed in the current exhibit list online so maybe it’s gone. I doubt it. It’s such an afterthought that the curators might have thought it did not merit attention on its website. The curators would have done well to first consult with and reprint this little piece of journalistic excellence. The current exhibit amounts to a hallway, a few glass-enclosed t-shirts, a few sentences on go-go history in Anacostia, and two videos. That’s it.

I wished that there was more. One of the videos–Junkyard in the mid ’80s downtown–hints at what needs to be rediscovered: it’s early violence-free-and-controversy-free roots. The music holds up as well as early hip-hop if not better. The Junkyard clip–I wish I could find it on YouTube–gave me goosebumps. I wanted more of that!

What we need is an actual museum devoted to go-go.