Fort Myers, FL (Part 4) - Beautiful Music

When we went downtown for the First Fridays Art Walk in Fort Myers we had a chance to meet some of Alice's friends, enjoy some delicious food, browse a few galleries and hear some great music!

These are a few of the friends that Alice meets up with to enjoy First Fridays and other night life around town.  They are a sweet bunch of folks.

While we were there we heard the legendary John Mooney play blues (slide) guitar for free at the Indigo Room! He's a pretty amazing musician. (There's a photo of him playing with Bonnie Rait among other things). Apparently he has family in Fort Myers, so he comes to see them and drops in at some of the local places to play.  Sorry that the photo is blurry. I was using our table as a tripod and it kept getting bumped, but you get the idea.

After that we wandered down to have dinner at the French Connection Cafe.  The food was excellent and very reasonably priced.  Even though we had a pretty big storm earlier in the evening, the weather was perfect for eating outside.

Check out Alice's Steak Salad.  Mmmm!

Later we stopped in at this Arts for ACT Gallery and Boutique set up to raise funds for (Abuse Counseling and Treatment) in the Fort Myers area. See the beautiful blue scarf hanging over the partition? That's where I found MY beautiful GREEN hand-dyed silk scarf by Sara Long that I promptly purchased to bring home.  It was VERY reasonably priced too. I loved all the quilted art and textiles here. 

 

Alice has a friend, Kat Epple that was playing music at another gallery - Space 39 (also free to listen) so we headed over there to hear her music and meet more of Alice's friends.  We learned that Kat's music has won 8 Emmys for film scores and has been nominated for Grammys!  Pretty awesome, huh?  Unfortunately, I don't know the names of the other 2 musicians, but they all played beautifully!  The guy on the right is playing a theramin.  You can go here if you want to hear what one sounds like.  It has something to do with radio waves...

 

Well we're headed out to Naples today, so that's all I have time for. We had a really fun time at the Art Walk, thanks to our host and tour guide, Alice.

Journal Your Christmas - Day 8?

Are you wondering where the posts for days 1 - 7 are?  Well, for now they're in my head. I've been too busy to do any posts, but I'm gathering lots of thoughts and ideas. Once we get to Sunday I should have a LOT more time, I think... and maybe I'll try to go back and catch up on some of the journaling days that I've missed.

This week we have practice on Weds night (which is also our 32nd wedding anniversary), our Home Group Christmas party (here) on Thursday night, Terry has a concert in Scottsdale on Friday night, we're celebrating our anniversary on Saturday and we will be helping with worship at church on Sunday morning.   Then I think the schedule is pretty open until Christmas.  Yea!  Oh, I still have some Christmas shopping and wrapping to finish up, but that's easy peasy compared to these last few weeks.

I thought I could post about today's topic since it's about the Sights of the Season.  I've already been snapping pics this month, so I can easily find what I need.

I love this photo above of our cat, Shredder. She's trying to look so innocent, but you can see the evidence of her tail wagging if you look at the trees on the windowsill.
This past Friday and Saturday 12/4 and 5 - my hubby played in a Christmas Concert each night with some of our best friends. (He's the third one from the right in the rust colored shirt.) Randy Thompson is the featured musician in this band, since many of the songs were written by him. Terry loves playing these concerts with Randy and I love going to them! It's such an awesome way to start the holiday season.




Another one of my favorite sights in December is the bare branch that hangs in the living room.  It's so much fun to change the decor with the seasons. This winter it's sparkly! Silver, gold, crystal and white snowflakes, icicles and other various ornaments. With these decorations it can stay up past Christmas and through the other winter months as well.

And here's a little peek at our Christmas bathroom. This year, I made the two framed pieces on the walls. The black framed picture is filled with holiday designs and expressions from scrapbook paper and the red one, framed in white is "Merry Christmas" greetings on wrapping paper. What a fun and easy way to change out your framed artwork for the holidays!

Be sure to click to enlarge the photos.

Decorating our home is one of my favorite parts of the holidays. Thanks for visiting!

Sorry to be MIA -

We had a busy weekend that I need to post about later, plus I seem to have a lot of odd tasks that need to be taken care of right now. Researching some upcoming travel, and so much more.

Here's a link to some photos I took this weekend when Terry played with Bob Ryan, a friend of ours, for a new Coffee House that's meeting at St. George's Church in downtown Phoenix. There's way too many photos (I need to cut them down) but I told them I'd take a bunch so they could use some for their future promos. This was the first time they did it and they're hoping to meet on the Second Saturday of each month, which is why it's called "Second Saturdays". I think I got a few good photos, but it's always hard to shoot musicians in low light because they're always moving...and I hate the washed out look of my flash. I need to start using my bigger flash for these kinds of things.

There was a great turnout, especially for the first time and the guys, as well as Amber Hunter, the opening act, did an outstanding job. This was only the 2nd time that Terry and Bob had played together, but things went very smoothly and they had a really nice sound. I know Terry had a good time and it would be great if they have a chance to play together more.

Another diversion before I post the rest of vacation:

Next Saturday, September 12th, Terry will be playing at a coffeehouse downtown with a friend of ours, Bob Ryan. See more about Bob & his music here.

The evening is called

Second Saturday @ St. George’s:

Coffee House Night

You can find more info and a map to the location here. I think the times are wrong though. I think the guys start at 8:45, so be sure to get there early to get a seat. You won't want to miss a single song. It's expected to be just a relaxing night of music and coffee. The guys are billed as "The Catfish Hunters". Bob picked the name, but I'm sure Terry's just fine with it. (It's a baseball reference and we all know Terry's a baseball fan. Do you get it?)

The photo above is Terry, Bob and Amy (another friend) playing at Bob's CD release party a couple of years ago. They had talked then about getting together to play again sometime and are just now getting around to making it happen. Bob writes all his own songs and plays guitar. Terry will be embellishing with mandolin, bass, banjo, and harmonica.

Should be fun! Hope to see you there!

More compliments online for the Exit - Glory Road album!!!

You are never going to believe that our friend, Bernie Rolfe found more comments and compliments online about the Glory Road album. For those who haven't known us long, this is the only album that was made by the band that Terry played with in the late 70's (when we met). They recorded it the year before we were married and it actually came out the year we were married. (There's more to that story, but I won't go into it here.)

It's so amazing to find comments online from total strangers raving about the music from an album that was recorded over 30 years ago on vinyl. The internet really is a wonderful thing. You'll see that one of these bloggers lives in Australia! How in the world did he hear of GR ?

Anyway, check out these links and enjoy for yourself...and maybe even leave a comment if you heard the album or the band (and can remember anything about it).

The Ancient Star-Song - is a guy in East Randolph, NY. He has a place where you can download the whole album of music. Not sure about the copyright issues there, but for what it's worth.

Ascending and Descending - is written by Christopher Orczy, an Australian blogger. He also has some kind words to say about the album.

Really took me on a walk down memory lane. Such precious memories of a blessed and unique season of life. Fun times!

If any of the band members read this, it sounds like they would love to hear from you on these sites.

I am a HUGE fan of James Taylor

Even though he looks like he could be my dad, he is such a gentle soul and I love the stories he tells in his music.

I am actually signed up to receive his newsletter, mainly with hopes of finding out when he'll be in town or nearby so we could go hear him. Terry took me to one of his concerts at Universal in California and I LOVED it! I felt like I was sitting in his living room. He's the only musician whose newsletter I receive.

Take a look at this recent letter. He and his band are actually playing on a transatlantic cruise of the Queen Mary 2! Wow! I would SO love to be on that cruise to have a chance to hear him in such an awesome setting. There are some nice video of him singing there too.

And I just found out that he's going to be playing in Tucson in September and tickets go on sale TOMORROW!!! I'm excited. I think we'll try to get tickets. Anyone else want to go?

Tucson Folk Festival
Yesterday, Terry and I took a drive down to Tucson to visit our friends Dave & Kathrin Argentati. As mentioned before, Dave was one of 10 finalists in the TKMA Annual Songwriting contest and all the finalists were scheduled to perform their 2 songs each, starting around noon on Saturday.

We arrived at El Presidio Park with all it's great old architecture (well as old as things get in Arizona) a few minutes after noon, due to the lovely Tucson construction traffic. Fortunately when we found Kathrin, we discovered that they were scheduled to perform 5th in the group, so we still had plenty of time. We were so glad to be able to be there to hear Dave and Kathrin do their songs! He's quite a creative songwriter and they sounded wonderful together! Some other friends and family were also there in the crowd to cheer them on.

We stayed to listen to the rest of the finalists, who were also very talented and came from places as far away as Ohio, Washington and even Alaska. So you can imagine that the competition was quite stiff. The announcement of the top 3, including the winner wouldn't be made until nearly 4 pm, so we had a little more time to wander around before that.

Terry and I were hungry, and the amazing aromas coming from the food booths were so tempting that we decided to have "a little something" to hold us over until Kathrin's much anticipated dinner of homemade chicken enchiladas. We decided to share a tri-tip sandwich, although I'm sure we could have each eaten a whole one. Wow, were they good! You can see the photo here. This guy literally had a grill so big that he had to pull it as a trailer. It was piled high with whole tri-tips and when he saw me taking pictures, he lowered the rack so I could get a better shot. What a great guy. And the sandwiches were excellent. We were almost tempted to buy a whole tri-tip to take home, but weren't sure what we'd do with it for the rest of the day.

After we got our food, we sat in the shade and enjoyed lunch with our friends.

This pic is Dave with his daughter, Bethany. She is so sweet and as creative as she looks! She likes photography, cooking, doing hair and makeup and any number of other creative expressions. It was fun to get to know Bethany, her husband, Matt and the other kids. The other two young ones are two of Dave & Kathrin's kids, Davey and Rebecca. They are fun kids and did well hanging out with us all day.

After our lunch break Dave guided us to several different stage areas to hear various musicians. It was fun to see the wide range of ages and lifestyles that were represented. I love this little girl that was trying to sit still while her parents listened to one of the ensembles.

This guy, playing the standup bass is Bob Kimmel who was formerly a member of the Stone Poneys. For those youngsters among us, they were the band that played with Linda Ronstadt, who also started out in Tucson. If you don't know who Linda Ronstadt is, look it up.

Anyway, we enjoyed our time there. Listening to music in the open breezy air is always so relaxing and refreshing. Then 4 pm rolled around and we made our way back to the stage for the announcement of the contest winners. They announced the top three. # 3 was an older woman from Southern California who had such a free spirit and joyous way about her, # 2 was a rugged looking guy from Alaska and # 1 was Dana Hubbard (who was unfortunately one of the acts that we missed because we were late). So even though Dave didn't win, he did a great job and every bit of exposure and the connections that go with it are helpful for him in his love and pursuit of making music.

After a wonderful day, we decided to head out to the Argentati's lovely home. It was so gorgeous out that we ended up congregating in their shady back yard. A few more of their friends came by too and we all ate chips & salsa and enjoyed some delicious chicken enchiladas. Dinner was topped off with a sinfully rich brownie that Bethany made. It was a chocolaty cupcake-shaped brownie filled with bite-size Milky Way Dark bars in the center. It was so rich and wonderful. I can't believe that I didn't take any pictures of the food. Probably because I was hungry and enjoying the company so much.

After dinner the instruments came out and the guys proceeded to jam. The young folks were good sports. Matt tried to stumble his way on bass thru the "classic" songs that Terry and Dave were doing, which he had never heard before. Poor Davey ended up being stuck with the mandolin, which he didn't know how to play. He picked around on it a little bit, but eventually gave up. Bethany was willing to sing with the guys, but they couldn't seem to land on a song that all parties knew and could play or sing. Anyway, I think it was an enjoyable evening for everyone else. I always feel blessed with a day filled with friends, fellowship and fun and love the gift of having amazing musicians in my life, even if I don't play an instrument myself.

Thanks to the Argentati's for a precious day full of fun memories. We're hoping to make plans to get together again soon...and eventually we'll talk them into moving to Phoenix, we hope!

Worship Team Breakfast
Saturday morning Terry and I went to a worship team breakfast meeting and I decided to take a few pictures just for historical purposes.

The worship team at Open Door Fellowship is a wonderful bunch. There are musicians, vocalists, sound technicians, A/V technicians (that set up & run the slides for the worship songs) and others.
This morning was a low-key meeting and a great breakfast. Lori is working on helping Randy with the logistics on Sunday mornings to try to free him up from the details. Her husband, EJ generously agreed to make us all fresh waffles that morning as well as sausage, OJ, coffee, etc. What a prince!

Randy & Lori led the meeting. We are so blessed to have someone like Randy who works so diligently to coordinate all the details of every Sunday morning...beginning with choosing musicians, selecting songs, then music and tech rehearsals on Wednesday nights all the way to praying, leading, singing, playing and troubleshooting everything that goes on for 3 services on Sunday.

What an amazing man! And right now, that's just a small part of his weekly responsibilities. I'm not sure how he does it all, but I'm thankful that God has given him the strength to do it. I pray that he'll be able to continue to focus on the things that God has so wonderfully gifted him in and find help and support for the things that are a drain on him.

In memory of our dear brother Gordon Barr...

Today Terry and I attended the memorial service of our friend and fellow musician, Gordon Barr. He was diagnosed a few short months ago with an inoperable brain tumor and went home to be with his Lord last Sunday morning.

What a tribute it was to his quiet, gentle, caring spirit when the church sanctuary was filled with people. Gordon was not one to draw attention to himself or even want to be up front or in big crowds, but you could tell by the stories shared by family and friends that he had his own private way of touching peoples lives thru a shared meal or witty bit of humor. You could see and hear that those who knew him best loved him dearly and cherished their time with him. What a testimony to God's work through him.

He was an excellent keyboard player and bass player. He wrote much of his own music and loved to tinker on the keyboards. We'll miss seeing him up on stage playing for worship on Sunday mornings.

You can read more about his life and legacy, see photos and even add your own comments here.

Love those musicians!!

I took some pics the other night of Terry, Randy Thompson and Rand Mozingo for an upcoming gig they're doing for Leadership Catalyst. We want to post a "band" photo for them at the event.

The first batch I took were fun, but all of them had something wrong...at least one of the three had eyes closed, mouth open, funny looks, etc. This last batch (above) was more posed, but turned out better overall. Let me know which of these you like the best. I need to decide which one to use for the "marquee"

Here's one of my favorites below from the first set. I LOVE Rand's laughing face!!