A Night at the other Friendly Coffeehouse (Perry Hall)

Well, Willie's bus made its final stop of the Almost Famous Folksinger 5th Comeback Tour last night at the Perry Hall United Methodist Church for Folk Music Night, after a few detours during the week (apparently the driver had discovered some of Willie's leftovers hidden away in the back seat). And what a nice evening it was, including open mike performances from Marlin and Tom (playing instrumentals on squeezebox and recorder), John (playing a resophonic guitar including an old piece by Reverend Gary Davis, something unfortunately you don't hear too much of these days), Leah and Debbie (playing and singing three beautiful duets including the Kate Wolf tune Gold in California and the Joni tune Urge for Going), John (playing some ragtime/old-time piano that fit just right with the slightly, well almost slightly, out of tuneness of the keyboard), Dan (singing some nice country tunes on guitar and playing this tight instrumental in which he joked he was being paid by the note), Dick (singing some great old tunes on his baritone uke including Sixteen Tons), and a fellow with the last name of Shapiro (sang three originals including a sad one about a family member and a humorous one about global warming). There was also a featured performer, Kimmon Waldruff, who played some some rock oriented tunes on his acoustic guitar and then finished with some fine instrumentals on a guitar tuned to CFCFFC, giving it a beautiful haunting quality (and must be quite a challenge to tune :-).

My three song set:

1. You Ain't Going Nowhere (the old Bob Dylan tune that I still adore after singing it for close to 40 years, with some key changes and chord changes along the way-I am fascinated how songs evolve as they stay with you-as John McCutcheon once said, if you were to play the song exactly like the record, you might as well play the record up there on the stage.It would be hard to find a record player anyway. Or in the words of Joni Mitchell, you would never ask Picasso to paint the same picture twice).

2. Kitty Alone and I (from Joe and Janette Carter of the Carter Family tree (not Jimmy) and learned from the singing of Ed Trickett (or as the folksinger Bruce Hutton used to refer to him as Dead Crickett-sorry Ed :-)

3. Here Comes the Sun (the Beatles tune as channeled through one of my musical heroes Richie Havens)

Well, my thanks to Neil and Debbie Zimmerman, who host the coffeehouse every month. Check out their website at [www.perryhallumc.org] .

For now, we're all cleaning out Willie's bus before we return it. And we are keeping one eye on the driver.......

Peace,

Gary B