Friday night at the Free Store

I played and sang at the Free Store again last night. There were like twice the usual number of friends. A nice family brought food so the atmosphere was a bit different. I was really nervous at first and totally flopped on the first song "Unchained." Oh well. They were all busy eating and talking. So I just smiled, apologized for butchering Johnny Cash, and moved into the next song. It was fun. After singing "Palms of Victory," the spirit struck dad and he launched into a small sermon on not giving up. Way cool. Then I did Lucinda Williams' song "I Lost It." I asked first if anyone had heard of Lucinda Williams. No takers so I mentioned that that was good because then they won't know what they're missing. My friends here were so nice to me. No food was thrown. I actually got small rounds of applause.

After a while I sat down to talk to Frank Zubek. I handed my guitar to Eddie and he picked up my Mel Bay songbook of old hymns and did three or four songs. I think he's a much better singer. Frank and I talked about what doing a book would look like and he asked if I could just help him do a brochure to go with his product. Of course. He handed me a letter he'd written to the reporter in response to her article and asked if I'd correct it. So I did it this morning. He's such a wit, I'll tell you. If he doesn't mind I'd like to reprint some of it here in another post.