2/26/08 I have heard nothing but favorable comments on Larry Woelharts performance here last Saturday night. Larry does a really great job playing and singing all the great music from the 60's and 70's. We had a good crowd and he played for two hours straight. Larry is very versatile and can play anything from Gordon Lightfoot to Janice Joplin, with John Denver, Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary, John Prine, Kenny Rogers and you name them, thrown in for good measure. He plays enough familiar stuff that everyone can join in on something. As I watched the audience, on almost everything he did, someone knew the words and was singing along. On some songs like Kenny Roger's Lucille even those who didn't know the words, the kids mostly, after the first chorus joined in. It was great. Even on the serious songs like the Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald, everyone was paying attention to the story as it unfolded in song. However I think I was the only other one there that knew all the words to The Canadian Railroad Trilogy, which I rate as Gordon Lightfoot's best song. Its difficult for a singer to sing famous songs which are signature songs for certain artists and have credibility, but Larry does it very well and pulls it off. He has a great laid back style, both vocally and musically, that allows him to be successful doing that. He doesn't try to compete with the original songs, or clone them, but simply performs them in his style and it is very effective. Larry also plays at a neat venue in Huntsville, on Governors Drive just down form the Botanical Gardens, called the Nook, I think he plays on the first Thursday night. The Nook serves 120 different kinds of beers and is a laid back establishment, not rowdy. I like dark beer, but limit myself to two usually (three if I have been there for a long while) and they had the best dark beers I have ever had. The owner chose the ones he wanted me to try and they they were outstanding. I hope Larry will be back soon.
2/25/08 Steve Hart, one of our regular customers, who is a great photographer, came by yesterday with a booklet he had created entitled "Open Mike at Berkeley's February 18, 2008". In it he had some really neat photos of the performances that night and even some of the spectators. These are not just run of the mill photos, they are art. Steve is an old pro and is helping me transition from my old Minolta film based SRL to my new Cannon SRL Digital. He knows all the ins and outs of digital photography. Come and see his book, I will keep it available. Steve is also planning to teach a class once a month here on Thursday nights. I think we are going to start Thursday night classes in photography, computer networking, etc. to be taught free by some of our highly qualified regulars who just want to share their expertise. Stay tuned.
2/21/08 Several of us, Brother Jude a monk at St Bernard Monastery who has architectural and engineering degrees from Yale, Makiko a Japanese native who just recently moved to Cullman, myself and maybe a few others have been talking sporadically for a couple of months about the possibility of putting a Japanese garden in Cullman. This was originally Jude's idea which he shared with a few of us in one on one conversations at the coffee house and has grown due to the coffee house networking effect. It has now evolved into a vehicle to try to help support cultural awareness and friendship between our growing Japanese population and our local population. Due to the location of several new Japanese factories here we have a significant number of Japanese managers and engineers who have moved in with their families.
Today we had our first real meeting to attempt to put this together. We met in the Japanese Tea Room here at the coffee house. We had three representatives from the Japanese community, a representative from the Japanese American Society of Alabama (JASA) from Birmingham and several of us locals. It was a good meeting and after much sharing and defining of goals we decided to proceed to the next step which was to form a Japanese American Friendship Committee (that may not be the real name) which will involve more of the Japanese Community and more locals. Then kick it off with an invitation to the mayor to come and meet with us and try to get some political support for the garden project, a Japanese Sister City project and others as time unfolds. Stay tuned I will keep you updated on progress and anyone who wants to be a part of this may.
2/20/08 Open mike this past Monday was another success: good music and a supportive crowd. Carlo opened, which is unusual, he usually wants to go third or fourth. He did three of his old Irish folk ballads acapella (?). One we used to do all the time in the 60's I don't know its name, but the first line is "It was Saturday night and I came home as drunk as I could be..." complete with a bottle wrapped in a paper bag and hicupping sound effects after each verse. Then he did a couple of his Irish cat drinking songs, one of which requires audience participation by "meowing" at appropriate times. Carlo's stuff is always fun. Next was Dennis Kahler doing some of his originals. He normally has to do two by popular demand; "No Room For Hippies At All" and "If My wife's Cat ..." which he did tonight. He also performed a song he just wrote "in Loretta Lynn" style that was funny. Dennis always puts on a good show whether at open mike or in concert. Seth, who hadn't been with us for two years, he said, did three covers, Jamie did three oldies with her great cd that a local guitarist plays for her to sing to. Again she is always entertaining. Robert was back, he hadn't been here for a while. He does mostly country honky tonk and gospel and that's what he did tonight. Mack also came but didn't sing with him. He lost his wife last year and hasn't been playing but I think he is ready to get back to it. Jason Wilkins was next singing and playing some of his really great originals. He is coming out with a new cd. Josh Brooks sang "Halelujah" from Shreck (he has to do that for Gerri) and "Maybe's" he does that for Erin)and then he debuted a new protest song he wrote over this past weekend called "Flag of the Losers". I was proud of him for singing this one, as it sticks his finger in the eye of wrongful southern pride. The idea for this song came when he and Erin went to our local flea market last Sunday and he saw a "redneck" tee shirt for sale that had a picture of the US Capital Bldg flying the Confederate battle flag and a caption that read "I Have a Dream". This made him very angry and resulted in the song.
The song basically condemns what he saw as an outrageous use of the battle flag in demeaning the civil rights movement. Anyone living in the South knows that the Confederate battle flag, which is the blue cross on the red background, is highly controversial here. To many it is a meaningful symbol of southern cultural heritage, especially when that heritage is under attack as it was during the "war of northern aggression" as many call it here, or threatened by the many changes that are occurring now in the south that are threatening to drastically change our traditional way of life into something that maybe many of us, including me, are wary of. I could spend a lot of time talking about this. But to others it is a symbol that represents past generations of oppression and terror. I understand both sides of this issue. However sometimes I feel the flag has become an emotional rallying point used by aging civil rights leaders, who are losing their grip on power as their constituency changes, to mobilize people for political action that has nothing to do with civil rights and has more to do with political personal gain and power. I also feel that those who use the flag as a sign of cultural heritage are within their rights to do so, I think it is a very attractive flag and is rich in history and heritage, but I feel it is in very poor taste to flaunt it or force in on others who suffered under those times, namely descendants of slaves, who view it differently. During the Civil Rights Movement it was used by those who opposed integration as a rallying flag, so to use it to parody Dr Kings famous "I Have a Dream" speech is in extremely bad taste and should be protested. I think this is the criteria that Josh used when he wrote this song and I applaud him for it. Bigotry and ignorance have to be confronted wherever it is found, even when it is dangerous to do so. You can read the words on his my space page.
Back to open mike. Andy Smith, excellent folksinger from Hartselle who started oming after the Southern Living article (thanks SL), did some 60's songs. He does some really nice finger picking and has a great voice. He will be having a Saturday night concert here soon, don't miss it. Check out the Schedule of Events page for a date, I don't think I have posted it yet but will soon. A young man named Cody performed next, it was his first time. We were glad to have him and his folks in attendance and hope they come back. The store is a really good place for young singers to debut as we have a very appreciative audience. I closed it out with "The Fox", an old obscure English folk song I have played for 50 years anyway, that few people knew until Nickel Creek recorded it, now whenever I play it all the younger folks sing along with me. That was a real shocker when it first happened. Then I did Preacher and the Bear. Mine was a command performance mandated by my wife. It was a great night, thanks for all those who contributed.
2/18/08 Although originally I had planned to go to the Gordon Lightfoot concert which played in Birmingham last Saturday night the 16th, which I originally mistakenly had thought was on Friday the 15th and so made other plans for the 16th, things worked out great. When I thought Gordon was coming on the 15th I booked Microwave Dave and Phil Weaver for The Classical Blues Cabaret on 16th, it was going to be a great weekend of folk music. As it turned out it was! Microwave Dave Galaher and Phil Weaver were superb, it was a wonderful show. Both musicians were in perfect form, Phil is a classical guitarist and Dave, is a great bluesman. You wouldn't think that classical guitar and blues would mix very easily but it did Saturday night at Berkeley Bob's. The show was all instrumental showcasing the great talents of each musician and combining their talents as well. The format that evolved was that the two sat side by side and Phil would play a classical piece, everything from Bach to flamenco and Dave would counter with blues, he even played the cigar box guitar which, as always, brought down the house. Then they would play together; either a version of a classical piece or a blues piece. We had a full house all night, these guys carried the audience from beginning to end without hardly a peep from anyone, except for riotous applause; the audience was really caught up in the music. To me the highlight of a night filled with highlights was their adaption of the flamenco favorite Malaguena, which they call "Malaguena Blues". When I was in Junior College in the San Francisco Bay area in 1961 or so, I went to SF to hear Carlos Montoya, the flamenco Master in a concert, just him on stage with his guitar for two hours and many encores. I still have recordings by him, flamenco is one of my favorite genres. I don't see how anyone can make that much music come out of a guitar, but Phil Weaver can, and did. He started it off with a classic flamenco Malaguena solo and then Dave came in with a bluesy Malaguena solo, very impressive, and then they together transitioned beautifully in to a deep blues piece. Can't do any better than that!! If you missed it I'm sorry, but hopefully they will be back sometime in the future. I know they enjoyed the evening as much as the audience did. It was inspired. Gordon Lightfoot eat your heart out.
2/12/08 You never know what is going to happen to you on any given day, and in a short period of time the best laid plans of mice and men do oft go astray as I think Hemingway said. It happened to me yesterday. I was working on my part time job with Soil and Water when it happened. I had taken a bacteria sample on Broglin River (under the Welti Road bridge) last week and got a very high E coli count. I think it was 133 colonies of E coli bacteria in 1 ml of water. Adem (Alabama Dept of Environmental Management) says anything over 6 is unhealthy for body contact. 133 colonies is in the upper 5 highest I have ever encountered. Very unsafe. (I report all of this to the local Public Health Dept and Auburn University) As we had had a 2 inch rain recently I figured the high count was due to storm flow runoff either from The Forest Ingram chicken plant just upstream on the Brindley Creek fork or the Cullman Sewage Treatment Plant just upstream on the Eightmile Creek fork. So I decided to go back yesterday and re-sample it to see if the count was down. Usually a couple of days after a high count like this it does go down to somewhat safer levels. The River sits maybe 100 below the bridge, so I have to climb down a steep slope (is that an oxymoron "climb down")to the river to get my sample. I had gotten down the worst of the slope when I slipped on some saturated sand from when the water had been higher over the weekend. My ankle folded under my leg as I went down and I heard it tear. I knew I'd hurt it good (another oxymoron?). This particular ankle has been a chronic problem for me, Its been in a cast three times and I wear a brace on it which I was wearing. I hobbled around and took my sample and climbed back out very slowly and deliberately. I didn't have my cell phone with me and so couldn't contact anyone. By that time I couldn't move my ankle and it had started to swell and was very sore. I got back to the office put the bacteria in petri dishes and called Gerri to take me to the Emergency Room. I wanted to get it X rayed, I was sure it wasn't broken, but knew I did something to the ligaments. Bottom line was it was a bad sprain and the doc said it would take 10 days to heal since my ankle was so screwed up. He looked at it and asked me if I had ever crushed that ankle, it looked so pitiful, but I hadn't, I've torn the ligaments countless times. After the X ray he told me that the inside looked as bad as the outside and that it looked like I had broken it several times in the past and it had never healed up right. The bones were all jumbled up with spaces in between them. Anyway I am down for a while, it is really sore to walk on. I haven't taken my pain pills, I just don't like to do that unless I am on the verge of passing out or just can't stand it. I was almost there last night! I'll be on crutches for a while. Worst part is I can't work my other job which I need to do until this coffee house begins to pay for itself. But the good side is that I'll be hanging around here for a while forced to pay attention to the details of this business (I am not a detailed person and they get away from me)and spending some time trying to figure out what to do with this place to make it work better. I am open to suggestions.
2/11/08 Gerri and I will be married 32 years on the 12th of this month. We decided to celebrate by taking a weekend drive through Tennessee, specifically the Natchez Trace. I am a student of early American history, I like to study the frontier period from the French and Indian War through the winning of the West, basically from the 1750's to 1880's. I also like to read historical novels from this period. Being part French Canadian I am fascinated by how the French interacted with the Indians and the wilderness completely different than the English, but thats another story. I also like to read about the fur trapping days of the 1820's-30's in the Rockies and the subsequent locating of the first wagon trails to the West. I am right now rereading Irving Stones classic "Men to Match My Mountains" about the discovery and early settlement of the Far Wast and California. I read it back in the '50's.
The Natchez Trace is a part of the history of that period. I had known about the Trace for years and had even been in the vicinity of it but had never driven much of it basically because it didn't go where I needed to go during my forestry days. The Trace is the old route from present day Natchez, Miss on the Mississippi River to present day Nashville on the Cumberland River. It probably started off as a buffalo trail (yes there were great buffalo herds in Alabama and Mississippi when the early Spanish explorers came by), it became a famous Indian trail and eventually became the famous Natchez Trace which was the route that the keelboat operators took back north after dropping their goods off in Natchez or New Orleans and sold their boats (they couldn't drive them back upstream on the mighty Mississippi then). They usually walked back over the Trace, the trip took weeks, it was neary 500 miles, to Nasville. It later became a the southwest frontier road that settlers took to head to Mississippi, Louisiana and points west, a wagon trail. Its heyday was from about 1800 to 1820 when the advent of steamboats gave people a better way north. It was a dangerous trip, complete with floods, robbers, hostile Indians and so forth.
We got on the trace just west of Muscle Shoals, AL and drove it through north Alabama and south and middle Tennessee to its ending point about 20 miles southwest of Nashville. It took us 6 hours. The Trace is a two lane road, well kept up (It is in the National Park system), with many points of interest along the way from historical places and events to waterfalls and so on. It rolls along through very rural parts of the south, mostly mixed hardwood forest and small farms and some small towns. Our first stop was Chief George Colbert's Inn (back then inns were called "stands" so this was Colbert's Stand)and Ferry. Chief Colbert was an ancestor of Colbert Garrett a friend of mine, who is Creek and Cherokee and knows many of the old stories about that time. Chief Colbert became famous when he ferried Andrew Jacksons army of Tennessee volunteers across the Tennessee River which was about 500 yards wide then, for a fee of $75,000. Nobody knows what happened to the money and Colbert Garrett told me that Chief Colbert buried it in a cave which was subsequently flooded when Pickwick Dam was built by TVA in the 30's and 40's. He believes the gold is under Pickwick lake. Colbert also has an old deed where Chief Colbert was given 900 acres of land by General Jackson on which now sits the city of Florence,Alabama. I have told him seveal times he should try to claim it.
Other memorable sites along the Trace were the tomb of Merriweather Lewis of the Louis and Clark Expedition. He was then the governor of Louisiana and was traveling north on the Trace to Philadelphia, I think in 1818, to finalize his memoirs when he was killed at a Stand under very mysterious circumstances, he was only 35. There are many remnants of the old trace that you can see and even drive over. It was a great trip and I would do it again, but I think the Spring would be a better time when wildflowers were in bloom or else the Fall with it's spectacular fall color. I would also like to do the southern Trace, from Florence to Natchez some time.
We spent the night south of Nashville, near Franklin, after a drive through of Music Row, but we were to tired for any juking. We ate at Corky's Bar B Que which is one of our favorite places to eat in the Nashville area. The next day, after a great country breakfast at The Cracker Barrel we spent most of the day in Franklin's historic district junking. They have some really nice antique and junk shops. I basically look for old coffee cans and other stuff for the store or old folk music records. I found an old really good Kingston Trio album I had been looking for that had They Call the Wind Maria on it and some other of my favorite KT songs that I don't have on vinyl. I bought a USB turntable and program the other day that will allow me to convert my records to cd's. We got back to Sweet Home Alabama way after dark.
2/5/08 Well today is election day--again! We voted here in Cullman County last Tuesday for a State Rep. I wrote about that election last week, but didn't tell you that James Fields the black candidate won. This result stood a lot of Alabamians from other areas on their heads since our county is known for its past racist tendencies. There has always been a fairly active Ku Klux Klan cell here and there may still be, but the old racist attitudes have mostly died out. This election kind of set that in stone. James won very handily from ballots all over the county. This county is 99% white and so this was a big deal all over Alabama as you can imagine.
It has been hard for me to decide who to vote for. I am a registered democrat, but don't always vote that way, no yellow dog (or is it blue dog) here. In Alabama you can vote for either party in the primary and I may vote the republican ballot. I would vote for Obama over Hillary if I voted democratic, but may vote for Huckabee because of his attitudes toward big government and small business. I made myself a promise this year that I would not vote for incumbents nor for establishment figures. So that rules out John McCain and Hillary for sure and probably Obama also, but I don't really look at him as establishment. I look at Mit Romney and I continue to see plastic man. After working 33 years in corporate America I don't trust the corporate look, especially the corporate hairdo. I won't go to a church where the minister has a pompadeau (?) and I feel the same way about politicians. Too smooth, to pliable, too plastic, too shallow (superficial sound bite speeches or sermons with no depth). Call it a prejudice, maybe it is, or call it intuition. My vote for Huckabee, if I do, (and I realize it may be a wasted vote in some ways) will not be because of his religious views. I am a Christian, though somewhat unorthodox, and certainly not a dyed in the wool evangelical. In fact I despise religion, which I consider to be the business of church superimposed on the necessary doctrines to enrich church leaders and enslave the laity, especially legalistic religion. I consider myself a disciple of Christ, which is all a Christian needs to be, the rest is fluff or crap, however you want to put it. The real church transcends churches. Not that churches are wrong, but we need to know what they really are and why they really exist and coexist with them however that seems reasonable to do. The coming of the holy spirit negates the need for person driven political hierarchies, spirit motivated gifts superceeds that. Fellowship with other disciples is necessary and we all need to work out how to do that. It is interesting that there is no formula given in the New Testament as how to do that since it is supposed to be Spirit driven. Sermon over. I like Huckabee for other reasons than religion. When I figure out who I can't vote for, he is left standing and when I hear him speak he reassures me that he knows what I need to survive the coming world wide changes we will all face due to mainly the global economy and pressure for open societies. The future of my kids may very well lie in this election. Gotta go vote!
2/5/08 From folk music to bluegrass with a cat drinking song, several clarinet solos, some great singing and some good old singer songwriter music thrown in, it was a really great open mike last night. We didn't have a great crowd, but they were enthusiastic and very appreciative. Nobody wanted to go first, so that meant I had to break the ice with a couple of old folk songs played on my long neck banjo; frailing style. Then Stephanie West from the Madison area sang some country tunes to a cd. Stephanie is young and has a really powerful, captivating voice coupled with a pleasant stage personality. She should have a bright future ahead of her. Dennis Kahler was next, he was in great form accompanying himself on guitar and harmonica. He has a neat homemade harmonica holder. He did my favorite No Room For Hippies and If My wife's Cat which always brings down the house. George Thompson, a Louisiana Hurricane Katrina refugee who settled here, played his clarinet. He stated that he hadn't played in public since 1945, but he obviously has been playing somewhere. He did some old big band favorites. Great job! He got the loudest applause of the night, the crowd loved him. Then came Carlo with a Rudyard Kipling poem put to song, the cat drinking song and a car song. He sings acappella and has an extremely eclectic repertoire, 'nough said. Jamie brought a keyboard and played some good stuff, she has a really good voice and puts feeling into her songs. Josh played some of his old standards, he will be playing a concert in April, it will be a good show. Next was first timer Bruce Jones from Birmingham an old 60's style folk singer. He is a good finger picker. He started off with Last thing on My Mind, one of my favorites. He has a very mellow voice, I think, by his card, he sings professionally in the Birmingham area, he is good. It was a great addition to the show I hope he comes back. His music is really the kind of music I was raised with, and that I performed through the years in coffee houses and bars and I hope we can have more of it performed here. Not many folks do it any more. Last was the Side by Side bluegrass band from Muscle Shoals. My stage isn't really conducive to bluegrass but the six of them packed in (side by side like sardines)and put on a great show. I let them play for a half hour I guess since they came so far. They are a really talented group of older musicians (maybe I should say vintage) like me. I'm hoping I can get them and Bruce Jones back for a concert. Jimmy wells videoed most of the show so I'm hoping I can download it here when he gets it up on his youtube space.
2/4/08 Greg Rowell and Dawn Osborn performed last Saturday night to a full house and put on a great show. Greg is a great guitar player and can play everything from classical to blues, and Dawn has the perfect voice to match his guitar work, very full, bluesy and a little smoky; her voice to me has an Ella Fitzgerald quality. Greg played some of his wonderful instrumentals such as the Theme from Pink Panther, kind of bluesed up, and some of his originals, and he sang some of his Americana traditional folk music such as City of New Orleans, Going Fishing and others. Dawn sang a great rendition of Summertime that brought down the house, and others from her great repertoire. It was a wonderful night and the crowd stayed with them until closing, a real tribute to the quality of their performance. I hope we will have them back soon.