Who Was That Girl?

Song 262: This week the playlist features Other Guys Girls by Mindy Jostyn, who also wrote the piece. Seven weeks after my last personal friend song post, this week's track is by a woman who I met and became friendly with at an open mike night in the fall of 1992 at The Turning Point in Piermont, NY. She played this song on stage that evening, and it excited me so much that I told her I'd like to get a copy of it to submit to Fast Folk for inclusion on an upcoming album. She sent me a cassette of it, which I listened to a lot (and still do), but at the time, no one at FF had any interest in the piece. I took her cassette with me when I headed back to the Bay Area of northern CA for a visit the following summer, and when I played the cassette for my former Oakland housemate Doug, it totally rocked his world. He said to me, "Who IS this woman?!!" I answered him, "She's pretty good, isn't she!!!" Fast forward 3 short years, and when I began my enduring association with David Seitz, who now engineers and co-produces my recordings, he was running a small indy record label called Prime CD that issued Mindy's first album Five Miles From Hope, which does not include this track, but which I will also recommend highly. That summer of 1996, I volunteered to work the Prime CD table at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, and when friends dropped by and asked which CD I felt was the most prime, without hesitation, I reached for Five Miles From Hope. My connection with Prime CD also brought me back into the Fast Folk orbit that summer, after having drifted away from the organization 3 years earlier when I had concluded that no one there paid any attention to my suggestions. In reconnecting with Fast Folk, it pleased me to learn that Other Guys Girls would finally make it onto an FF record. A bit earlier, Mindy, who often worked closely with Carly Simon, had married Carly's songwriting partner Jacob Brackman, and during my time associating with Prime CD, I signed at least one company card to Mindy offering congratulations on the birth of a son -- she had 2 sons, and there might have been 2 cards, but time has fogged over a few of my Prime CD memories. All the same, those were moments to celebrate, but sadly, in March of 2005, Mindy died at the young age of 48. She had so much talent -- in addition to singing and writing amazing songs, she played many instruments, including all that wonderful harmonica stuff on this track -- and it's a shame that she wasn't able to reach a larger audience during her lifetime, because she certainly had the talent to deserve a much bigger following, but at least she left behind some fine recordings that can continue to showcase her special gifts, as well as her sense of humor. Whatever sadness I might feel over her death, whenever I hear this song, it always makes me smile.