The Wood ‘n’ Lips Open Mic Newsletter

Come enjoy some great music and maybe even join in the playing every Thursday at Friendly Grounds Coffeehouse at 6:30 p.m.

Hi All,

I heard that a few of our regulars weren’t going to be here, so I was expecting a smaller .  Wrong!  What a special evening it turned out to be! We had to pull a bunch chairs from the backroom. 

Take some young teens experiencing their first open mics, a performer getting ready to celebrate her 90th birthday, add in some really professional quality acts, and top it off with an SRO (standing room only) audience—and you have the perfect formula for an open mic.  We did this night.

6:30 Tim Woods:  I started a little early by polling the audience about any interest in joining in with the Bluegrass group on their cruise at the end of January; it is billed as a Bluegrass, Folk, & Gospel Jam Cruisem but at this point they are short on Folkies (which is how I like to refer to most of the music we play besides bluegrass).  If we could get a few area people to go, we can have a great time. 

I began my set by having everyone sing a Happy Birthday to my daughter Jessie, who was turning 30 the next day; then I played her favorite tune, Peter, Paul & Mary’s “Puff the Magic Dragon”.  After that I launched into a John Denver set of: “This Old Guitar”; “Back Home Again”; “Country Roads”; and “Annie’s Song”—all sing-alongs.  A great songwriter he.

6:45 Pauline Jimenez: The recent retiree put us on her list of things to do; she treated us to a set of Mary McCaslin’s “My Love”; “The Mourning Dove” (co-authored by Judy Coder & Les Buffam); “Spanish is the Tongue” (Charles Badger Clark Jr. & Mark Williams); and Dave Stamey’s “McGee Creek”.

7:00 Opal McCracken:  San Diego’s Senior Queen of the Music Scene graced us with her presence; Opal will turn 90 next month.  I hope we can all manage to emulate her and enjoy our music for years to come. She started with an offer to take requests, because she knows so many tunes.  Sans requests, she started with “Wonderful, Wonderful, Jesus” (written by her uncle, Leif Lee Harrison); “The Beautiful Picture in a Golden Frame”; “That Little Old Green Valley Far Away”; the almost naughty, “Down by the Railroad Track”; and “The Sod Shanty”.  Her set was over way too soon—she was a delight.

7:15 Sandy Stedinger: Plays a banjo, but we let her play anyway. She started with “When the Train Comes Along” by Dave Macom; then Grandpa Jones’s “Eight More Miles to Louisville”; and “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”.

7:30 Rebeccah Moore: It was her first open mic and she jumped in like a pro with the Beatles’ “Let it Be”; “If I Die Young” by The Band Perry; and Colby Caillat’s “I Never Told You”. She did an amazing job for a first time!  I was impressed and a bit jealous.

7:45 Gregory Martin Campbell:  The polished performer brought his usual finesse to “Lovers Love the Spring” (words by W. Shakespeare, music by Don McLean); Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers”; Bob Bennet’s “Kings of Summer Street” (The first line, “I killed my best friend today”, gets your attention); and an instrumental of Eddy Haywood’s “Canadian Sunset”.

8:00 Pamela Reinagle and Paul Thomson:  The recent pairing did Guy Clark’s “Stuff That Works”; “Steven Voitko’s “Shallow Was the Grave”; David Allen Poe’s “Would You Lay With Me”; and Steve Voitko’s “To the Blues”.

8:15 Dylan Hyde with Zach Holman on Keyboard:  Dylan is fourteen, and I’d guess Zach is about the same; they played Three Doors Down’s “Be Like That”; Justin Beiber’s “You Smiled” and “Favorite Girl”; and Maroon Five’s “Sunday Morning”.  The pair of young men did a very polished set.

8:30 Emma Richardson:  Hasn’t been by for quite a long, so it was great to see her again.  She did Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”; then her original, “The Thirty-Year War”; The Expendables’ “Bowl for Two”; Jack Johnson’s “Angel”; and a final original that she had just written about a month ago, called “Trumpets”.

8:45 Bob Wilson: The Banolele man, started off with the century-old “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” by Irving Berlin; and Berlin’s “He’s a Devil in His Own Hometown”;  George Burn’s favorite song, “The Red Rose Rag” by Percy Wenrich; and “Has Anybody Seen My Gal”.

9:00 Paul Thomson: Returned to the stage to give us a fine set of Dave Wilcox’s “Rusty Old American Dream”; John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery”; Lonnie Mack’s “Oreo Cookie Blues”; Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads”; and Willie Dixon’s “Twenty-Nine Ways”.

9:15 Bob Setzer: Brought Bob Dylan into the mix with “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”; he revamped his own, “Shut the Whole World Out”; and then did a couple more of his songs, “Oh Love”; and “Thinking of You”.

Greg Gross:  Serenaded us out with Fred Kohler’s “God’s Gift to Women”; followed by the sensitive “If” by David Gates.

I had started the evening still suffering from a week battling the flu and by the end was totally revived; the open mic is truly an elixir.  Drop on by and spend your Thursday night with us; I guaranty you it will do you good.

God Bless and have a good week. 

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