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Arts & Entertainment

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

Once a week local musicians of all ages meet at Friendly Grounds Coffeehouse to play music and enjoy the night.

Hey,

A bit of news I just received; Tom Boyer, fingerstyle guitarist extraordinaire, and a strong past supporter of the open mic, is moving to Phoenix Arizona.  Somebody told him that the music scene is really hot there…I hope he understood that correctly.  Tom has been nominated as instrumentalist of the year for the Western Music Awards slated to take place in Albuquerque later this year; he is playing in a group called the Red Hot Rhythm Rustlers, a Western swing band.

The was humming last Thursday; we had a house full of people but were a little light on performers—at the drawing time of 6:15 we still had three time slots vacant, but that eventually changed.  We could have used a Red Red Robin, because with four Bobs, we were Bob, Bob, Bobbing along.

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6:30 Greg Gross:  As host, Greg brought the meeting to order with Harold Groot’s quirky “Baby Vampire Boogie”; followed by everybody’s favorite, Peter, Paul & Mary’s “Puff the Magic Dragon”; Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”;  and he finished with a tribute to Ken Graydon, who was gravely ill, (He passed this last weekend)  his “Three Quarter Time”.

6:45 Bob Setzer:  Had been fighting a cold since the music festival, but thought he should get back into the swing of performing.  He elected to do a Gram Parsons set with Bob Dylan’s You Ain’t Goin Nowhere (when Parsons was with the Byrds), from The Burrito Brothers with Chris Hillman, “Sin City” and “Lazy Days”.

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7:00 Tim Woods: I did a mixed set of Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart”; Simon & Garfunkle’s “Homeward Bound”; Ricky Nelson’s “Abilene”; Jud Strunk’s “A Daisy a Day”; and my favorite, The Zac Brown Band’s “Chicken Fried”.

7:15 Les Armstrong, Ray Poe & Patsy C.: The female vocalist with a dulcet voice joined the boys for Ricky Skaggs’ “Honey, (Won’t You Open that Door?)”, and Gene Watson’s “The Farewell Party”; then the guys gave us Merle Haggard’s “Working Man’s Blues”; Hank Williams Jr’s “Take These Chains from My Heart”; and Flatt & Scrugs’ “Rolling in My Sweet Baby’s Arms”.

7:00 Gus Mezzas:  Gus was a newcomer to our open mic, but not to performing; he had assembled some electronic effects to help him present a smooth version of Wilbert Harrison’s “Kansas City”, (a tune covered by Fats Domino amongst others); Elvis Presley’s “Fools Rush In” and “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”; then Aselin Debison’s recent arrangement of “Some Where Over the Rainbow” combined with “What a Wonderful World”.  Marquita brought Bob to our open mic and I think we will see more of him.

7:45 Bob Zacharias:  Was sans his regular partner, Steve Anderson, but he gave is a fine solo set.  With his guitar in his lap, he did a fine set of: The Eagles’ “My Man”; Frank Ifield’s “I Remember You”; The Beatles “Eleanor Rigby”; and James Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James”.

8:00 Marquita Lawson: Marquita took us back to an era many of remember fondly, with Brian Hyland’s “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” (with the audience filling in the 2,3,4 part); followed by “Stupid Cupid”; Carol King’s Herman’s Hermits tune “I’m Into Something Good”; and Ferlin Husky’s oft covered Gospel tune “On the Wings of a Dove”.

8:15 Tom Barbarie & John Movius:  Were the usually crinkled-hat duo were bare headed this night, they conspired on Charley Pride’s “I’m Just Me”; Jim Reeves’ “Four Walls”; Merle Haggard’s “Okie From Muskogee”; and Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” (I jumped in at the appropriate spots with my train whistle…I do what I can).

8:30 Big Al: Did his usual fine job on a set of the Allman Brothers Band’s  “Sweet Melissa”; Neil Young’s “After the Goldrush”; Kenny Rogers’ “Lady”; and the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Better Days”.

8:45 Bob Cool: Has been having his health challenges and missed our festival, but decided he wanted to play some music for us this week.  He played through his miseries on an instrumental version of Johnny Burke & Errol Gardner’s “Play Misty for Me”; followed by Milton Egger & Jack Yellen’s “Ain’t She Sweet”; Greg Gross joined him for “Has Anybody Seen My Gal” combined with “Please  Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone”; and a final instrumental, “Harvest Home”.

9:00 Bob Arsenault, John Movius & Tom Barbarie:  The trio threw together an impromptu Bluegrass band and did rousing versions of Louise Certain’s “My Blue Ridge Mountain Home”; Flatt & Scruggs’ “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”; by request, Ken Orik’s “November Rain”; Bill Monroe’s “Bluegrass Stomp”, featuring John Movius; and Bill Clifton’s “Little White Washed Chimney”.

9:15 Greg Gross:  Our evening’s host closed the evening with Fred Kohler’s “God’s Gift to Women”; Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee”; & Dale Evan’s “Happy Trails”.

It turned into a pretty good evening; the nice sized crowd was entertained in a professional manner and friendships were allowed to flourish.  What more can you ask?

God Bless and have a good week. 

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

Photos by Greg Gross and Tim Woods

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