The Wood 'n' Lips Open Mic Newsletter

Hi All,

First things first; I’m sure that if you receive my newsletter you know that the San Diego music community was stunned by the sudden passing of Allen Singer.  He suffered a massive heart attack on Tuesday and succumbed on Saturday morning.

Allen earned his Folkie stripes in New York’s Greenwich Village during the original “Folk Scare” of the early nineteen-sixties, and shared music with many famous Folk luminaries.  He was a board member of San Diego Folk Heritage, president of the San Diego Folk Song Society and editor of its newsletter.  His musical style was also heavily influenced by the early blues players, and he had many friends from both genres that he collaborated with musically. 

He will be sorely missed.

So, in last week’s newsletter I mentioned that the had air conditioning… I guess I jinxed it.  Who knew I could cause a all by myself? 

This week people showed up with stories of how they survived the San Diego Black-Out of 2011.

Jerry and Bev had been here with a picture of the first Friendly Grounds open mic, held on September 4, 2008.  They had been prepared to celebrate our third anniversary at this venue. 

Unfortunately, the Friendly Grounds’ owners were forced to close the doors at sunset.  Bob Arsenault and Rose Scibelli were the only musicians to brave the traffic and show up; with no electricity, they sat outside and swapped a few tunes.

Our last open mic had a gradually growing crowd, this time we had an overflow group before we even drew spots—a couple of people didn’t get time slots.

6:25 Greg Gross:  Gave up his set but started the evening a couple of minutes early with John McCutcheon’s “Calling all the Children Home.

6:30 Emma Richardson: Was the beneficiary of Greg’s spot.  She started with a tune she had recently penned, called “Trumpets”; then she did Paramore’s “The Only Exception”; followed by another of her own numbers, which she still hadn’t named; and finished with Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”.

6:45 Mitch Wilson: Mitch also writes his own, mostly finger-style, material  His first song for the evening was “Follow Me” which flowed onto his arrangement of the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” segueing into “Bring a Torch” (a belated or early Christmas tune); an song he wrote for his kids called “This is the Place”, (complete with lyrics); and another Christmas tune, “Silent Night”.  Referring to last week’s open mic maybe?

7:00 Les Armstrong and Alton Simpson:  The pure country duo cut loose with some genuine old-style Country and Western music; Waylon Jennings’ “Only Daddies That’ll Walk the Line”; George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today”; George Jones & Merle Haggard both covered “Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down”; Billy Crash Craddock’s “Rub it In, Rub it In” and Waylon Jennings “Today I Started Loving You Again” (a follow up to the George Jones tune?).

7:15 Bob Wilson: Has become a pretty regular performer at our open mic with his custom made banjolele; this evening he mentioned Cliff Friend’s “The Merry Go-Round Goes Down” (Th-th-that’s All Folks”) because Cliff also did “Freddy the Freshman”, which he played for us; and 1927’s “Crazy Words, Crazy Tune” by Irving Aaronson; and Herman (As Time Goes By) Hupfield’s “When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on the Tuba down in Cuba”. Say that six times in a row, quickly—I dare ya!

7:30 Gregory Martin Campbell: Kicked off with Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” blending into Ricky Skaggs’ “Highway Forty Blues”; then John Denver’s “Matthew”; Tommy Dorsey’s “The Music Goes ‘Round”; Kyu Sakamoto’s “Sukiyaki”; and a quick version of his “Guitar and Microphone” song.

7:45 Bob Carpenter:  Was a first timer to our open mic, a former student of Bari Zwirn’s, Bob plays the ukulele, he had a short guitar-like set of  Ray Price’s “Heartaches by the Number” and “I Fall to Pieces”.

7:52 Marquita Lawson:  Inherited the rest of Bob’s set, which she had ceded to him in the first place. (Marquita had a nice article in the senior’s Prime newspaper, check it out; it was very nicely done).  She played Anne Murray’s “Could I Have This Dance for the Rest of My Life?”; The Browns’ “The Old Lamplighter”; and a new tune for her, Al Martino’s “Spanish Eyes”.

8:00 Bob Setzer: Gave us a set of his own originals; the first, called “Slipped and Fell”, is based on an accidental fact; he followed that with “The Wall that Surrounds Me”; and “Oh Love”.

8:15:  Big Al: Al premiered his version of The Band’s “I Shall be Released”; and reprised Nine Inch Nail’s & Johnny Cash’s “Hurt”; and The Allman Brothers’ “Sweet Melissa”.

8:30 John Bosley: Returned to delight our audience with his unique musical stylings.  He gave us “Stained Glass Shepherd”; the next tune he calls his Jiminy Cricket song, “Freedom”; from his CD, “In the City Tonight”; he ended with John Denver’s “Darcy Farrow”.

8:45 John Movius with Greg Gross: John had his electric guitar and vintage 1961 Gibson Invader tube amp to play Duane Eddy’s “The Lonely One”; The Lively Ones’ “Surf Rider”; The Bel Airs’ “Mr. Moto”; Lee Hazlewood and the Astronauts’ “Baja” .  John was in good form this evening.

9:00 Alan Land: Made the drive from Oceanside once again; inspired by Bob Wilson, he reached back to 1915 for Irving Berlin’s “What Will I Do?”;  he added his original from about 20 years ago, “Surrender”; and for Allen Singer, who we had just heard had a massive heart attack, James Taylor’s “You’ve Got a Friend”; and his own “Chase Those Blues Away”.

9:15 Pete Erlandsen:  Our last performer, Pete serenaded us out with his well-crafted tunes, “Thunderbird Avenue”; “Out of Time”; “Falling Angels”; and “I Wanta’ Be”.  Although Pete wrapped up the night beautifully,  Greg Gross and I were inspired to lead the audience in a round of “Happy Trails”

It was another evening of terrific music from talented musicians; Bari Zwirn came up to me after and asked “Where do we get these people?”.  It’s truly a gift from above; I’m proud of our musicians and the shows we put on for our wonderfully supportive audience.

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

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