Steve Leach: News

The Lost Serenaders spent three lovely Saturdays in May singing in the big natural amphitheatre at the Dallas Arboretum. A bit hot and sunny, and a few vocal blends distorted by allergies, but we had a fine time playing the oldies for young and old.
On the middle Saturday, I had the pleasure of seeing my three daughters and my one-and-only new granddaughter in the audience. Daughter Kelley, the new mama, got up and sang a couple with us. Aunties Alicia & Marisol watched little baby Cora Ruth, who was a little bit baffled when she heard her mother's voice over the P.A.

My wife talked me into auditioning for a show I barely qualify for, The Senior Follies, to be presented on September 5 at the Eisemann Center. All cast members have to be 55 years old or older. I'll turn 55 in September, so they let me audition. And I made it into the cast! I'll be in one featured number and four ensemble numbers. I can't wait! I'm not sure who else is in the cast, except for the wonderful humorist/singer Lu Mitchell, who's in her eighties and still going strong.
I have a new pick-up line now: "Hey, baby, come check me out in the Senior Follies." I haven't tried it at Starbucks yet.

The Bowley and Wilson "Colonoscopy Tour 2008" was a standing room-only, sold-out show at Poor David's Pub. (A second reunion show has been booked for June. Visit their website: http://www.bowleyandwilson.com/.) It was wall-to-wall former fans, who have had only a couple opportunities to see the raunchy comedy-music act since their club closed twenty years ago.
John Bowley and John Wilson met at SMU around 1970, hit it off, and began performing as a duo, As they added members, their unique blend of original dirty songs and audience participation made them a favorite of college students and bachelorettes for almost twenty years.
I played bass and sang a couple of feature numbers a night (non-comic relief) for several years, in two stints with the group. John Wilson is also a member of The Bob Monk Singers, and he and Andy Mitchlin (who played piano at the reunion) and I were in a 4-part vocal group called The Gentlemen's Club for many years.
Also on hand for the reunion show were longtime band member Jimmy Gray (guitar, vocals and magic), drummer Rosebud, and steel guitar/banjo whiz Brian "Flicker" Thomas.
Another bass player who did a lot of time with B&W, "Champagne" Billy King, got up for a few rockers. Michael J. Martin, who wrote the B&W fave "How Can I Get You Off My Mind," opened the show, and comedian Dave Little, who got his start with B&W, also performed. B&W soundman Mark Bechtel flew in from San Jose to help out with Poor David's soundman's fine work, and Karen Kelly gave the crowd a little Cher.
A splendid time was had by all!

The Lost Serenaders will debut February 23 at The Labyrinth Walk Coffee House in Oak Cliff. Gabrielle West, Debbie Scally, and I have decades of experience singing harmonies around Dallas and beyond. I've sung for many years, in several entities, with Ms Debbie, and I have enjoyed doing a few gigs with Ms Gabrielle as well. We've decided to pool our talents on a repertoire full of upbeat, light-hearted best-songs-ever-written, all in tight three-part harmony, accompanied by guitar. No originals (yet) with this enterprise. Just lots of new arrangements of old songs--and some audience participation.

Tinkers Jam, an acoustic jam circle hosted by Ms Charli Alexander on Sunday afternoons for about 25 years, is still full of surprises, new converts, returning vets. You can see more about it at the Jam's site: www.tinkersjam.com.
I've been attending, through some extended periods more regularly than others, for about seven years. It's always a treat to sing and play (and socialize) with some of the friendliest and best musicians anywhere, including singer Charli, who has a big birthday coming up, I hear.
I'm a lover of all kinds of music, and, though there's quite a bit of singer-songwriter stuff and bluegrass pickin'--as you'd expect--there's also a wide variety of songs being played any given week. Last week, Billy sang "Thunder Road" (Robert Mitchum's only hit), bassist Dr. Jim went to guitar for a nice version of "Moonlight in Vermont" (with a bass solo by temporary sub Mark), John did "Choo-Choo-Ch-Boogie," Blackie, the resident pop-sixties encyclopedia uncharacteristically did Judy Collins' "Song for Duke," and I did "The Great Pretender." And we also covered "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," "Trouble in Mind," and many others, including "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" on ukulele.
And that's another thing: the instrumentation varies, too, from guitar to violin, mandolin, flute, dobro, harmonica, bouzouki, cabasa, and yodel.
It's eclectic, just the way I like it.

I've been doing volunteer work with the public schools for many years, but I recently started feeling increasingly like I was not really helping anybody very much. And I've been playing music, either for a living or for the little-something-extra, for more than 30 years. And was increasingly feeling like I wasn't really using music the best way I could.
So, in August 2006, I contacted the organization Arts for People (http://www.artsforpeople.org/Home/tabid/79/Default.aspx) and I've been doing four-to-six one-hour gigs a month through them, playing old standards on the guitar and singing for seniors' groups, hospitals, and other care facilities. It's the most rewarding music-related enterprise I've ever been involved in, and it combines my love of music with my need to do volunteer work. And it gives me an excuse to do songs like "You Made Me Love You" and "Satin Doll."
This week, fellow Jammer Dennis "Slide" McBride, one of the best musicians I've ever had the pleasure to play music with, asked if my daughter Kelley and I would accompany him to the Veterans' Administration Hospital to serenade a recent auto accident victim, a young lady who as a result of the accident is quadriplegic. We sang a few Christmas songs, plus a few non-Christmas songs, and had a nice time entertaining this patient (and a few nurses). To top it off, Dennis, who used to play guitar with The Dixie Chicks way back when, had gotten the Chicks to send the girl a signed photo, a letter, a CD and a DVD. Nice, unexpected Christmas present!
I hope to expand the whole music/volunteer thing in 2008, with a goal of convincing some of my musical associates to form a loose group of troubador/players, willing and able to do a few songs at benefits, hospitals, and care facilities whenever called.
Sounds like a good way to keep playing music without having to field Bob Seger requests from the barflies!

Tony Vinsey played fiddle, mandolin, harmonica, flute, and guitar, and sang, too. And the wonderful thing was that he was absolutely fearless with music. Whether he'd heard the song before or not, whatever the key, whatever the genre, he'd wade right in and come off like he'd been playing the song on the bandstand for years.
It made our several-month-long gig at White Rock Bar & Grill perfect, because I was just running through my repertoire of original songs, 20s-40s golden era classics, 50s & 60s pop, whatever, and Tony was always right there, adding color and playing fills and leads.
I'll miss that, and we all have been missing Tony, a key element of our regular Sunday Jam, since he died of a heart attack, 54 years old, in October. I send out my best thoughts to Tony's family during these first holidays without him. He'll be missed.

The Earth Rhythms CD, on which I'm lucky enough to appear with Rhett Butler, Annie Benjamin, The Dreamsicles, Lu Mitchell and others, is now orderable on the Earth Rhythms site: http://www.earthrhythms.org/catalog/.

The CD will actually debut December 21 at Moonlady's Winter Solsticelebration at Cathdral of Hope. (Details are in an earlier post.) Here's the blurb about my song):
Showcasing Steve’s clear reedy voice, with the smooth harmonies the Bob Monk Singers are famed for, the song asks us to get busy living while staying flexible to deal with the unexpected. Strong guitar picking gives it a countryish flair with an unexpected splash of violin.
“When you’re haunted by dreams, it’s do or die, then you’re hurtling through the sky. What does it mean - this sign you’re given? It will be clear what you’ve been given. Life in all its brilliance is the only life worth living.”

This morning, a cold front came in--right around the time we were supposed to start making music for the thousands of White Rock Marathoners streaming by our bandstand. We played our music, shivering and trying to keep our fingers limber and our vocal chords loose. At least we didn't have to complete a marathon!
I hear a lot of bands didn't show up, due to the weather, but Charli's Jammers did, and Marsha, Chris, Dollar Bill, George, Tom, Jenni, and I, and, of course, Charli, made music, in between rock sets by Sad Design.
For the rest of the month, I'll be working some Christmas carols into my oldies repertoire for the senior citizens centers and hospitals I play through Arts for People.
Now, it's beginning to look a lot like, uh, you know what.

A CD project called Earth Rhythms is in the works, collecting songs of spirituality and joy by a variety of songwriter/performers, including yours truly. The song I'm contributing is called "Life in All Its Brilliance," with words by my lovely and talented wife Donna (listen on this site). The CD will be released at the upcoming Winter SolstiCelebration.

The 15th annual Winter SolstiCelebration will happen at the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas on Friday December 21, 2007. (Service from 7 to 9 pm ~ doors open at 6:15 ~ Yule Fest from 9 to 10 pm.)

Host Moonlady says, "Sing out with me, loud and proud like your life matters, like your life is your song. Be the melody of your own creation."

For more info about this event and about the CD, go to: http://www.earthrhythms.org.

Since the young, nice-looking, smart and female member of The Bob Monk Singers is expecting a Bobette in March, in addition to obtaining her undergraduate degree next month, we've been a little bit sidelined of late. Doing some recording, but notta lotta performing.

But we will be learning some lullabies to harmonize to.

Well, there may not be anyone in Garland, Texas, listening to The Bob Monk Singers, but I heard from someone in Japan whose group would like to do a couple of our songs, "In Harmony" and "Swell Time." Pretty cool! (Especially if they sing them in Japanese, but I don't think that's the case.)

There's also a fellow in Paris who heard our songs on MySpace and requested we arrange and record a song he wrote. It's a very good song, and certainly seems BobMonk-appropriate, so we may give it a shot.

Who's next--New Zealand? Botswana? Have we got a song for you!

I'm straddling formats these days. I still avoid cassettes, but, in addition to my iPod shuffle that I can't run without, I listen to CDs (mostly in the car), LPs (mostly in the morning, at home), 45's, and now 78's. I got a Crosley 33/45/78 record player with a built-in CD burner. The first 78 I played was, of course, a harmony vocal number: Connee Boswell, out on her own after leaving her sisters (for more info about the unique and glorious Boswell Sisters, visit www.bozzies.com) for a solo career. She's backed on "There Must Be a Way" by some other sisters, The Paulette Sisters. It's a great arrangement of a song I hadn't heard. I'll be hunting for more vocal group harmony 78's now. And other great stuff, too--I just found Tex Williams doing his classic "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette," a song meant for the sound of 78 rpm records. (But I did put it into my iPod mix, and it was a hoot to run to).