He must know to make a half turn to look in the direction of the band. That slow, deliberate action on his part prompted the first twelve notes of a Classic African tune to pass through the ears of the steely-eyed watchers. The hot piercing melody tore through all of that stillness and the saturation that hung like a patch of condensed rain cloud. Bodies moved because some in the crowd had started
breathing again. The moment had loosened up, smelting to the point of lewd casualty, and with the same inevitability as the running of a red-hot knife through a stick of butter. But this otherworldly tune, this non-native, hardy growth of grooving harmony, this twilight of synchronized flutes and congas, couldn’t be coming from Huck Finn and Willie Nelson’s Cousins on the bandstand. But by God, it was the band of mountain boys playing, belting out the melody of a lifetime. For those in attendance, their friendly Duck Dynasty, Louisiana’s only hickey band, the erstwhile lounged blue grass gem, the quartet known as the Heart of Dixie, had transformed themselves into a band of soul brothers.
