The Zydeco

Another choice gig at a happening venue, and once again I sensed the presence of lots of guitar players. Teddy Leonard, my favorite, was having dinner with friends and was there most of the night (I saw him at Chicago’s a week later and he did mention that he enjoyed the music). Before the last set I stepped out for a little air, and came back to enjoy the set doubly. Driving home with Dawn, she mentioned that she had fun on the last set – I said I really had fun and she knew why but she wasn’t critical except to say that some of the songs got counted in fast. The next night, we did the same thing and I attempted to do “Girlfriend Blues” at about twice the speed I normally had – In fact, I completely changed the arrangement. Lorraine was still trying to fit in a lick that would never work at that speed and at the end of the night she confronted me and said she didn’t “appreciate what I had done” and that the whole last set was a “train wreck”. She even thought the previous night was bad, but she didn’t say anything. I told her she should have said something then. And I said if my performance was going to suffer, I wouldn’t do it any more.

Albert’s Hall

This was a great way to start the New Year. A gig at Albert’s “It’s not a bar, it’s a legend” Hall. It was the first time we’ve played five nights in a row and you would think that I would just keep getting better but I realized, especially after hearing the tapes, that I was getting a little stale. Still, if you play it with conviction and don’t get sloppy, you’re the only one that knows it’s stale. The first couple of nights there were lots of musicians in the crowd – slightly intimidating. Then on the first night I broke two strings in the first set. There was a columnist from the Sun at the gig and she took some pictures and interviewed Dawn and Lorraine. When the picture appeared in the Saturday Star, it was of Dawn alone and she was disappointed that Lorraine didn’t appear in the picture or get mentioned in the article. When I saw the reporter a week later she said she couldn’t get a decent picture of Lorraine (she was in the dark) but that she had almost used a picture of me. I said it’s a very good thing that she didn’t.