For the Love of Mic: Wood 'n' Lips Newsletter

Come enjoy some great music and maybe even join in the playing at at 6:30 p.m.

Hi All,

First off let me mention something very important—the air conditioner works great at the Friendly Grounds.  Think about that when you are debating whether to drop by the open mic this week.

This last week the crowd gradually grew as the evening progressed; we started with a few open performers time slots that filled by 7:00.

6:30 :  Played a request for my daughter, Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”; followed by Johnny Horton’s “Running Bear”; Johnny Cash’s “The Reverend Mr. Black”; Jimmy Rodgers’ “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine”; “Burl Ives’ “Funny Way of Laughing”; and a quick version of Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart”.

6:45 Bob Cool: Led off his solo guitar set with Glen Campbell’s “Gentle on My Mind”; “Autumn Leaves”; “Falling in Love”; Patsy Cline’s “Heartaches” and a couple of minutes of “Misty”.

7:00 Greg Gross:  Does a really nice version of Jimmy Buffet’s Come Monday”; Harry Chapin’s “Circle”; The Lovin’ Spoonful’s “What a Day for a Daydream”; Jay Ungar’s “Ashokan Farewell” with Bob Cool adding a nice fiddle break from the audience.

7:15 Dylan Hyde and Zach Holman: Dylan, backed by Zach on keyboard brought Justin Beiber to the table with “You Smiled”; and The Beatles “Let it Be”; then he picked up his guitar for Beiber’s “My Baby Girl”; and switched to the keyboard for Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning”.

7:30 Alan Land: Made the drive from Oceanside again this week and gave us a powerful version of Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are”; Irene Dunn & The Platters both covered “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, albeit a few years apart; Paul Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years”; he finished with his own “Surrender to Win”.

7:45 Jenn Firebaugh:  Writes her own material; her first song was “You Know What I Mean”; then she did her latest tune, “Puzzle Piece”; “What I Dream”; and “Dance With Me”.

8:00 Bob Arsenault with Bob Cool (fiddle) and Tom Barbarie: The group did a Bluegrass set of “Cripple Creek”; “My Blue Ridge Mountain Home”; Bill Clifton’s “The Little White Washed Chimney”; Bob Cool’s “San Diego Breakdown”; and Bob Arsenault’s favorite, Ken Orik’s “November Rain”.

8:15:  John Movius with some help from James Brown: John pulled a last minute switch with Tom B. to bring us some old fashioned rock, including Ricky Nelson’s “Lonesome Town”; Stonewall Jackson’s “Waterloo”; and Patsy Cline’s “Side by Side” (written by Harry Woods—not my grandfather Harry).

8:30 Tom Barbarie with John Movius and James Brown: Collaborations seemed to be the trend this evening; these three did a set of: Johnny Cash’s “Home of the Blues”; Don Williams’ “Fair Weather Friends”; Chet Atkins & Boudleaux Bryant’s “How’s the World Treating You?”; Johnny Cash’s “Give My Love to Rose”, and “Folsom Prison Blues”.

8:45 Les Armstrong & Tom Barbarie: Country and Western was Les’s theme, he excels in that genre, they did Merle Haggard’s “Working Man Blues”; Lefty Frizzel’s “I Never Go Around Mirrors”; another Merle Haggard number, “Ramblin’ Fever”; Stonewall Jackson’s “Don’t Be Angry”

9:00 Bob Wilson: Has a schizophrenic instrument—it doesn’t know if it’s a banjo or a ukulele—it’s a banjolele and it only plays old music, such as “Hello My Baby” (about that new-fangled thing called a telephone); a WWI tune, “K-K-Katie”; the answer to K-K-Katie, “Sthop Your Sthuttering Jimmy” (sung with a lisp—I don’t know how to spell what a lisp sounds like).  He cut his set short and passed the time on to the next performer.

9:15 Rose Scibelli:  Closed out our evening with Norman Blake’s “Church Street Blues”; Jimmy Work’s “Making Believe”; and Iris Dement’s “Our Town”; Greg Gross joined her for the finale with Leadbelly’s “Goodnight Irene”.

God Bless and have a good week. Come see your friends soon.

Tim Woods, Greg Gross, and the Wood ‘n’ Lips open mic crew