11/22 Unfortunately I lost my notes (taken on a napkin) for the Starvin' Pilgrims concert, but suffice it to say that they put on an outstanding show. Mike Lundsford heads the band on keyboard, he was last here with the jazz band Ivory Coast which has since disbanded, Starvin' Pilgrims is his latest musical endeavor. However, these guys have been playing music together for years-weddings, private parties and so forth, but I think this was their first formal stage gig. The band is made up of Dave Dubberly and extraordinary guitar player and vocalist, Andy Starnes who also plays a mean guitar and vocals,the band was rounded out with Del Bale on bass and a drummer. They were a rock cover band and played all types of covers from the 70's through the 90's. My daughter Shelly who works weekends and knows the Birmingham music scene was very impressed by this band and has been bragging about them ever since. As has everyone else who was here, they electrified the crowd, and we had a good crowd. This is a well rounded band and can play anyplace. It was great fun and I hope they will come back. If there had been room, folks would have been dancing.
11/21 Lolly Lee is from Houston, AL, just over the Cullman County line in the Free state of Winston. She is another in a series of great performers that have performed here, and gave a wonderful crowd pleasing performance. Lolly is a popular figure on the Birmingham music scene, but doesn't perform solo much, so we were very pleased to have her play a solo set here. She has a haunting voice and a very dynamic stage presence. She started with an original that I really like Alabama Home. If Skynard's Sweet Home Alabama wasn't our state song, this would be. Then she went into a really neat version of Joline, not many people can pull off Dolly Parton songs, but she did. She sings a lot about broken relationships, coping, hope and even humor, but with here style and song mix she pulls it off well. She sang many of her originals including Barfly Go Away, Its A Perfect World, about a waitress at Uncle Mort's a really good country breakfast restaurant in Jasper, Free State, about Winston County of course, and mixed in some great covers such as Solitary Man, Momma Tried, Moon River, Blue Eyes Cryin' In The Rain and even Elton john's Blue Jean Baby. It was a great night. We didn't have a great crowd unfortunately due to the Alabama LSU game, so many didn't get to here this great show, but Lolly said she would be back.
11/15 The Overalls put on a great show, they are real pros and we were lucky to get them to perform here. They usually perform in much large venues, City Stages for example, and various festival around the state. They fit in great here and they performed a wonderful mix of folk and traditional music and originals all delivered in their unique style which I call "southern fried" PPM (Peter Paul and Mary), full of humor and great music. The trio is made up of husband and wife team Rick and Jilda Watson from Empire and Steve Norris from Helena. They started off with Jilda singing an original song about looking at life as a glass half empty or half full and then swung into a great rendition of Tennessee Ernie's 16 Tons. From there we went on a great musical journey. They have many wonderful original songs from Bad Dog, Bar-B-Que, Storm and Eagle, Don' Rattle Them Bones, At 33, to Steve's I Don't Look good Naked Anymore which brought down the house. Along the way they performed 16th Avenue, Me and Bobbi McGee, Fannie, even Summertime. Their originals are sometimes philosophical and sometimes knee slappin' funny. A great mix. They obviously had a good time and so did the audience. I certainly hope they will be back.
11/14 Laura Walker, local artist extraordinaire, held our first Coffee and Colors on Friday night 11/14. This is planned to be a monthly event, held on the second Friday evening. About 10 or so would be artists showed up, some with experience and some without,Laura gave them all the supplies they would need and they all began to paint a fall maple leaf under Laura tutoring. The class lasted from 6:30 until almost 9 and everyone had a painting to be proud of when they left. We will hold the next on December 12 and the subject will be a Christmas wreath.
11/10 Happy Birthday US Marines. Sempre Fi. I was a Marine from 1964-1969 and flew choppers in RVN for 13 months in 1966-67.
11/8 Larry Woelhart gave us his usual great performance. We had a decent crowd despite the Albama LSU game. Larry is a work horse, he has hundred of songs in a notebook that you can request he play and he does. You can sing along too. A real crowd oriented performance. He did a tribute to Gordon Lightfoot, the 10th is the anniversary of the wreck of the Edmon Fitzgerald (and I might add the Marine Corps birthday too)so he sang that and others of Gordon's songs including Sundown, Rainy Day People, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, and one of my favorites Don Qixote. A really great night. You can catch Larry at the Nook in Huntsville on the 3rd Thursday 6-9. The Nook serves over 125 kinds of beer and is a good venue.
11/5/08 I decided not to write anything about the election, it was too divisive around here. We had many vocal, loud arguments in the coffee house. I have never seen an election in which almost everyone was interested and concerned about the outcome and maybe scared too, both sides. Probably the most prevalent comment I heard though was that we really need a third party in this country. Most people did not particularly like the choices that either party made.
My own thoughts? I have always been a registered Democrat, but usually vote Republican. I consider myself a fiscal conservative and a somewhat social liberal, but I believe that you cannot just implement costly social policies without putting together a reasonable plan to pay for them. We need to provide health care for all, we need some redistribution of wealth through taxes, we need to regulate unbridled capitalism, we do not need to impede the ability of people to create, and reap the just rewards of their ideas and work and we sure don't need to empower unions to cripple what industry we have left. But we need to balance our budgets and not rob our kids and grandkids. But this year I have become disillusioned with the Republicans. They have been in power for 8 years, 6 with almost absolute power and could not do a thing for us except throw away our money on an unjust war and allow Wall street to bankrupt us as a country through their greed. They lied to us as well. They seemed secretive, greedy and power hungry. I didn't see McCain as anything different from the Republican status quo which does not have the interests of the average American in mind. He is a maverick maybe on small issues, but a party liner on the important stuff. So I voted for change, it was a protest vote. But I hope our new president elect and his dominant congress can accomplish some stuff for the people. If they can great if they can't maybe this will wake up the Republicans and they can recapture the congress in the next election.
11/1 Philip David Harris was supposed to perform tonight, but didn't show up. I was unable to contact him or his bass player Shelly Heaton who assured me earlier that he would be there. I like Phillip, he is a good singer-songwriter and performer, but he has stood me up three times now, he had a good excuse for one of them, and I can't take a chance on having him back.
