The Wood ‘n’ Lips Open Mic Newsletter

Hi all,

It was going to be one of those awesome nights; by 5:30 we had three hammer dulcimers dueling out on the patio—you don’t see that every day—and Jack Johnson with his stand-up bass and a willingness to play with anyone who would let him. By the time we did the drawing for time slots we had a full slate and an excited audience.

6:30 Greg Gross: Our host for the evening, launched the show with a well picked rendition of James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain”; followed by Dan Fogeberg’s “The Leader of the Band”;  “The Centipede” (I dunno who); and David Gates’ “If”.

6:45 The Jordan Blake Band: Consists of Jordan Lucero, Blake Sappington, two well syncopated guitars, an occasional trumpet, and nice harmonies.  They started with dedication to our barista Olivia, John Mayer’s appropriately named tune, “Something Like Olivia”; then Johnny Craig’s “I Still Feel Her, Part III”; The Local Natives’ “Airplanes”; ending with John Mayer’s “Stop This Train”.

7:00 Rebekah Williams: Used a CD for a backup band; she added impressive vocals to Norah Jones’ “Don’t Know Why”; and Taylor Swift’s “Love Story”; Greg Gross joined her for a little live guitar back-up on Bette Midler’s “The Rose”.

7:15 Tim Woods:  Threw together a set of The Zac Brown Band’s “Chicken Fried” (I really get a kick out of playing it); Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice”; Lebosky & Newman’s “The Wayward Wind” that Patsy Cline has success with; and Merle Travis’ “Sixteen-Tons” (Remember Tennessee Ernie Ford?).

7:30 Ralph Lowe: Has a huge repertoire of songs in varied styles of music; this evening he dusted off a few I had never heard him perform: A mostly John Prine set of  “Spanish Pipe Dream (Blow Up Your TV)”; “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness”; “ Fish & Whistle”; and “Angel From Montgomery”; closing with Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans”.

7:45 Les Armstrong & Ray Poe with Jack Johnson: The three strong musicians combined their time slots and gave us rowdy Honky-Tonk set of Merle Haggard’s “Working Man Blues”; George Strait’s “The Cowboy Rides Away”; Merle Haggard’s “Ramblin’ Fever”; Ray Price’s “Soft Rain”; The Oakridge Boys’ “Elvira”; Hank Williams Jr.’s “Family Tradition”; Elvis Presley’s (Johnny Cash too) “I Forgot to Remember to Forget Her”; Carl Perkins’ “Match Box” (Jeanette Anderson and I had to dance to that); and Flatt & Scruggs’ “Crying My Heart Out Over You”.

8:15  Sandy Lowe, with Ralph’s accompaniment: Was the first to  give us a taste of hammer dulcimer with “Gulls Flight”; spiced it up with Consuelo Velasquez’s “Besame Mucho”; and the traditional “Wynken Blynken & Nod”; and “Rakes of Kildaire”.

8:30 Bob Arsenault & Bob Cool: Paired up for some more traditional mountain music with: “Red Haired Boy”; “Big Sandy River”; Henry Clay Work’s “Grandfather’s Clock”; “Wilson’s Clog”; and “Home Sweet Home”.

8:45 Jim & Steve Przywara: Counting Sandy’s dulcimer, when she joined them, we were looking at 240 strings worth of dulcimers (Try tuning those!); they did “Tripping up the Stairs”; with Sandy, “Devil’s Dream”—it could have been a fiasco, but it wasn’t—“The Road to Lisdoonvarna”; and “Old Hag, You Have Killed Me” (I hope it refers to a horse and not a wife).

9:00 Tom Barbery & John Movius: Did a set of Johnny Cash’s “There You Go”; “Walk the Line”; “The Home of the Blues”; plus The Carter Family’s “When the Roses Bloom Again in Dixieland”;  and another tune from the Man in Black, “Guess Things Happen That Way”.

9:15 Jeanette Anderson with Jack Johnson: Yet another Honky-Tonk singer, Jeanette closed our evening (much more of this Honky-Tonk stuff and we’ll have to get chicken wire installed around the stage to protect the performers from flying beer bottles, like they do in Texas), she belted out Marty Robbins’ “Two Gun Daddy”; Faron Young’s “I’ll Never Get Used to Being Your Old Used to Be”; Faron Young’s “Wind Me Up”; Buck Owens “I Don’t Believe I’ll Fall In Love Today”; and Bob Seger’s “C’est La Vie”.

What a great night of music!  If you were there you would agree…if not, eat your heart out.  We just have too much fun.

Pamela Reinagel wanted me to put out the work on her Mission Hills Song Circle;

It's:   www.meetup.com/MissionHills-Song-Circle

Only members can see photos (for privacy reasons) or download chord sheets (for copyright reasons) but everyone can read about their format, philosophy, and example song lists, and anyone can join.

God Bless and have a good week,

Tim Woods, Greg Gross, and the crew