Mel Brown and Margie Evans

Margie Evans is playing the tent after a great set by Monteal’s Ranee Lee. I’m at the front and I see Mel Brown and a lady friend speaking to the ticket-taker and being directed to the back stage area. I saw my friend Alyson, who was the box-office manager, right there so I called out to Mel, and told Alyson to stamp him. She did, but later that night when I met up with her she was asking "what the hell??" and who was that guy I let in. As we watched, right after Margie’s second tune, she made a big deal about Mel being in the audience and had him up to do a couple of tunes with her. I guess they had worked a lot together in the past. In fact, he covered a lot of time for her and it may have been deliberate on her part because she did sound like she was having a little trouble with her voice. Meanwhile, I hope I have occasion to refresh Mel’s memory of me someday and tell him that when I got him into the show I didn’t expect he was going to take over the show.