|
[About Us] [Guestbook] [Contact] |
Patterson Chapter News
Volume 20, Issue 4: March & April 2000
Newsletter segments:
Kingston chapter news, Patterson chapter news, Poughkeepsie chapter news, and other articles.Febuary review by Parker Gambino
Barbara Mahon's opener was an original "It's Not About My Cat", paying tribute to all the guild songwriters who inspired her to be a song creator as well as interpreter. She then covered "Margins Of My Neighborhood" by Britt Lasky, giving images of scenes where "some know evil, some stay good". Scott Morrison pitched a couple of Michael Hedges instrumentals ("Jitterbug's Boogie", "Ritual Dance"), bass-string-driven folk boogie work with bursts of harmonics and phase-shift-sounding trebles. Newcomer Michael Cervone drew from books for his two originals, first a paean to the "shadow kings of prose and vice", joyriders Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, then, is it dreams, ancient recall, or what? Recurring vibes and insistent questions of his "Many Lives". Carol Hotte and Peter Martin took us into the Boho-ville (can bongos be far behind?) of a voice with bass-only accompaniment, a Dory Previn ode to Janis Joplin about her tribute to Bessie Smith.
Talk about influences and impacts! Pawling poet laureate Alan McNett captivated us in reciting a historical poem about how local neighborliness was defined in the wildness of 1776. Ron Gluck got us off in the St. Valentine's mood offering Buffy St. Marie's "Until It's Time For You to Go"; then his reconsideration in the original "Save Me" (I'm Falling in Love with Someone New).
The feature was a round robin trio with songs-that-tell-stories as the theme. Uncle Frank drew from Sandberg's "Hunters of Kentucky", an eloquent braggadoccio offering the Kentucky version of the battle of New Orleans. Bill Wemmerus sang of the demise of the legend "Jesse James", Monty Delaney's "Ode to the 44th Precinct" exposed the raw emotion and raw deal of urban police work. Frank resumed with "Father Dear Father Come Home". B. Wemmerus then gave mandolin accompaniment to the olde "MacPherson's Lament": M. Delaney let his imagination, but not behavior, run wild, riffing on a weeping bikini-wearer in "Staring at England".
Explicit morbidity returned with Frank's farewell to the doomed aviatrix Amelia Earhart ("First Lady of the Sky"), and even more so with Wemmerus's Tom Dooley (the Doc Watson version). The last of the feature was M. Delaney's wrenching "Pure Pure Love"; a stray bullet death on a fire escape for South Bronx 7-year old Christina, leaving on "a thousand white doves".
Could there be a Jurassic Park on Lake Erie? Maybe, sez Mike and Emmy Clarke, in a song of hope about the Blue Pike, "Bring 'Em Back". Then, fishier and fishier,"Hangin", old friends, hooking up (fishing pun intended) again and once again getting close. Denise Finley showed off her 21st century stealth guitar; she and Joe Murray gave us Lennon-McCartney's "Things We Said Today", and a nice Susie Boggus tune about changes (as in, what your 18-year old does, and what parents must do), "Letting Go". Yours truly wrapped with Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and gospelized with a tribute to last year's departed Curtis Mayfield, "People Get Ready".
[About Us] [Guestbook] [Contact]