I had the express joy to return to CT and to my friend Frank Pergola’s evening in Shelton on Saturday night. This is a nice place, The Huntington Street Cafe, that features great food and a good listen space and audience. It was a great chance to catch up with my good friends Ron Anthony and Sue, Denny Collin, Pat Lauder and Frank, of course. There were some folks who had seen me before, which was curious, but it was a good situation to play in.
Tom Manna opened with some cool 12 string songs and tunes… (fingers of steel). Ron and Denny did a wonderful set of songs, in spite of some very talkie tables and some sound quirks. I was really contemplating how to play this kinda ‘bar’ situation. And I wasn’t really excited about doing another bar situation.
Ron finished up, and, providentially, the talkie table got up and left. It turned into a very nice, listening situation. I decided to start with Kent’s Santa Assassin, which really got their attention, and said so. I did some of my good stuff, including some stuff that worked at Allentown Symphony Hall. Smoking Babies continues to be an artistic risk, especially in New England, but gives me a great laboratory experience in my folk music studies. I screwed up stuff along the way and could have been a whole lot tighter, but its the audience interplay that is the craft. … and that was all to the good.
I’ve been under a cloud of blues recently, and it was a wonderful way to get away from my situation, and play for friends. I also got to reconnect with some Bruce Cockburn music as I drove, that helped sooth my soul.
A good night amongst friends…..