My cravings for live music have been tastefully fed lately. Life doesn’t get much better when you have quality live music in your own living room and that’s just what happened a few weeks ago. For those who don’t know, my far better half, Sue, the boys and I host house concerts in our home under the banner “Music on McLean”. The way it works is we arrange to have artists perform in our home, advertise via email, people book seats, pay an entry fee (usually between $10 to $20) ahead of time to ensure reserved seating. All monies go to the artist. My son Adam handles sound with his portable PA and the rest of us move furniture and host. More and more touring artists like playing house concerts between major shows because they get to play their music to people who are listening rather than in a noisy bar and there is a comfortable, personal intimacy from the scene. They usually sell their own cd’s as well so people are able to go home with a memento to play later.
Recently we held our eighth show, and a dream came true for me. We hosted, from Nashville, Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart playing to 50 lucky, cozy folk. Each told stories of the origin of tunes, recent travels as they literally play all over the world and quirky peeks at one another. Stacey reminisced on how, when she was growing up, her older, and now famous, brother Steve used to bring other starving song writers to their parents home for meals and to collaborate on songs. She played a favourite Townes Van Zant tune, remembered from those days. My high school buddy, Chuckles, reminded me of what he’d said when we saw them at Bluesfest a couple of years ago… “they sure love each other” and his comment was felt by all in attendance that night in our living room. I guess you’ve got to have some magic in a relationship when you’re together as much as they are these days. Mark’s superb guitar stylings (Merle Travis’, he mentioned, for one) won everyone, especially his treatment of George Harrison’s ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’…. Whew!!! A memorable evening at home. Gracious People.
I also sat mesmerized (along with several other Perth area music lovers) a couple of Saturday nights ago at the sold out NAC gathering of songwriter’s favourite songwriters - Guy Clark, Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt and Joe Ely. Following a standing ovation before they played a note, Guy Clark, the elder statesman, whose every word and music were devoured by the other three, started the show with the following statement… “no set list, no agenda, no fear” and then lit into L.A. Freeway.
Four simple chairs across the stage were filled by the four troubadours, accompanied themselves with their own acoustic guitars , fueled by the odd sweet guitar lick by a neighbour. The only dancing was the reflected light bouncing about the room from the fret and pick boards. We were all mesmerized, seeing various world views through these craftsmen’s story songs. Of these four, probably only one player’s name is known by Joe Q. Public and about 95% of the songs played during the 2 ½ hr show have never been on regular radio, yet the 2300+ seats were filled to capacity, paying big bucks and whose averaged age was probably @ 40 yrs old. It just goes to show the powerful draw of live music and those pro’s who create it, in spite of the lack of local airplay.
In spite of two guys breaking strings, John Hiatt forgetting the words to one song 2 times and another song once, classic magic prevailed. These primarily Texas lads couldn’t get over the cold weather here and Mr. Hiatt predicted the Senators would win the Cup, by the way. Lyle played one of the first songs Guy Clark had ever wrote , “Step Inside This House”. Topping the evening off was their joint rendition of Woody Guthrie’s anthem “This Land is Your Land” where Lyle stated they felt Woody had written it for all Mankind and then they proceeded to sing the Canadian version to many a thankful listener. Ooh, it don’t get much better. Sometimes less truly is more.
Locally, I’m pleased to see there’s a few more folks each week enjoying the wonderful live and original music being performed Tuesdays at O’Reilly’s by Brock Zeman, Keith Glass, Peter Newsom, Pete Bigras and sometimes the sweet guitar work of Joel Williams. Please support live music everywhere and I’ll see you there.