Last night brought some sweet sounds at Bangkok blues. I was there to perform as part of a strong songwriters night hosted by Ron Goad and the Songwriters Association of Washington.
I really enjoyed listening to the other performers. Tom Dews was singing, picking sweet guitar, and playing blues harp. He was very tight and smooth with a Keb Mo style. His songs were very bluesy but had interesting harmonic structures and were very sweet.
The Lynn Veronneau Trio played jazz standards, which surprised me for a songwriters night. But they were cooking real nice on some Brazil-style stuff, with strong, clear emotions in the vocals and cool tranging on the guitar solos. A reall good version of “One Note Samba.”
Anita Aysola went on right before me. She played piano and sang with a lot of blues and emotions. She had some intricate piano lines going under her vocals, and her lyrics were touching. After me was Christiana Trenum who had some good melodies. She tried out one new song called “Blue Eyes” that I like best, with sparse guitar picking behind the vocals. Unfortunately we had to scoot along before we could hear Greg Vickers’s trio, but hopefully I’ll catch up with Greg some time soon.
My set was a little nerve-bending. I tried out some brand-new material that I have been putting together over the past few months, and the first time is always a little awkward. I really like this new stuff, but it would be nice if others liked it too. These new songs are shifting lyrically toward stories about romance, which has not been too common for me in the past. Plus I’ve been fighting dehydration for some weeks because of a respiratory infection. Overall my set went really well. People responded to the new songs, and I’m real pleased about that. I did blow out my voice after about four songs because of the dehydration, and I did have the guitar in the wrong key for one song. But no major problems, and Ron requested that I play “Stoned At Work Today” to finish the set.
There were a lot of musicians who came just to listen, which made things very warm and cozy. Jim Clark was recording audio and video, so hopefully some of my stuff turned out. I hope that this night of good musical vibes is a sign of what’s to come as 2010 unfolds.
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