I was asked to put together an hour and half show to finish out Saturday night at one of the stages at Mayfair. It was, of course, a drawn out process of finding people to play for little, and put on a good show. It was a good show tonight.
Tommy Sands led off the evening with four wonderful songs, including his amazing ‘Roses’ which has become an anthem for ‘The Troubles’ in Ireland. He was charming and so very professional. I had had some mix-ups booking him, and went back and forth with his ‘management’ about this gig, the number of songs, etc. As it turns out, he came up before the gig and said, “Dave, I’ll do anything you want”. He is a gentleman and fellow player.
I opened with ‘Don’t Call Me Early in the Morning’, July (with Juli Kehr on vocals) and a full band version of ‘Shoo That Fly’. Kris Kehr on bass for my set. It was a good variation of music following Tommy’s set.
Sam Steffen came out and did two really good, thoughtful songs that impressed the crowd. Juli and Kris followed with ‘She’, a Gram Parsons song, that perked up the crowd’s ears with Juli’s strong voice.
I introduced Dina and we did Nanci Griffith’s Five and Dime as a band, Dina’s Sept. Moon, Sam and Dina’s ‘Girl from the North Country Fair’ and then Dina’s ‘It’s All Right’. It was fun to sit in on mandolin, though I was a little skewed on some of the tunes.
Juli followed with an incredible ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ with the full band, and I finished with ‘Dixie Chicken’. I broke a string on it, gave Kris a bass solo and George a drum solo while I took Dina’s out of tune guitar (which she muted while I tuned from her digital tuner on stage). I came in on the final verse with the vocal, added the guitar and we finished strong. It’s never easy, but I love to deal with these things on the fly.
I was proud that it turned out to be a coherent, diverse and entertaining folk music show. I’m even more proud of how all my friends pitched in and contributed to a thrown-together folk music show. Things could have been tighter, but that’s not a big deal in this genre, thank goodness.
I am whipped after three shows today. Whipped, but good.