The Wood ‘n’ Lips Open Mic Newsletter

Stop by the Wood ‘n’ Lips Open Mic at Friendly Grounds Coffeehouse every Thursday at 6:30 p.m.

Hi All,

Things were humming from the get-go; we had a few new performers and a lot of familiar faces in the audience, as well as performers.

6:20 Wood ‘n’ Lips:  With the Water Conservation Gardens gig this Saturday evening, we were brushing up on our old songs including: “Daydream”; Ricky Nelson’s “Hello Mary Lou”; Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya”; Harry Belafonte’s “Jamaica Farewell”; “Big Yellow Taxi”; John Denver’s “Leavin’ On a Jet Plane”; The Drifters’ “Save the Last Dance”; and the Kingston Trio’s “Tom Dooley”.   (By the way, the gig went well; the weather cooperated and it was an enchanting evening.)

6:45 Bob Carpenter: Is getting acclimated to performing; the tolerant attitude of our audience has helped a bunch.  This week he and his uke gave us “Take Away this Ball and Chain” by Social Distortion; Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”; Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces”; “Heartaches by the Number”; the classic “You are My Sunshine”.

7:00 The Pony Tales:  Played The Brothers Four’s “Blue Water Line”; “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”; and “Shenendoah” with Doreen wielding a mean harmonica.

7:15 Chuck Page and Monty Kemp: Monty was on guitar and Chuck accompanied him on a djembe; they did Conway Twitty’s “Honky-Tonk All Night Long”; Gerry and the Pacemakers’ “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying”; and The Rolling Stones’ “This Could be the Last Time”.

7:30 Les Armstrong and Ray Poe: Les had a serious bout in the hospital this week and fortunately for all of us, was back in time to play for us.  The two did The Stanley Brothers’ “Just Because”; Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make it Through the Night”; Hank Williams Jr.’s “Old Habits are Hard to Break”; Freddy Fender’s “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights”; and Merle Haggard’s “Working Man Blues”.

7:45 Tom Barbarie:  Had Les and Ray stick around, along with John Movius, to create an instant country band.  They did Johnny Tillotson’s “Talk Back Trembling Lips”; George Jones’ “Grand Tour”; Box Car Willie’s “Rolling in My Sweet Baby’s Arms”; Merle Haggard’s “Silver Wings”; and a quick version of Hank Williams’ “Mansion on a Hill”.

8:00 Bob Setzer: Had a request for Simon & Garfunkle’s “Richard Corey”, which he does very well; all the talk of the upcoming cruise made Bob think of Jimmy Buffet, so he played “Margaritaville” (not the most nautical of his tunes); finally, he opted for an original, his own “Shut the Whole World Out”.

8:15:  Greg Gross: Did a dedication to the recently departed Allen Singer, John McCutcheon’s “Calling All the Children Home”; then The Eagles’ “Take it Easy”; Arlo Guthrie’s version of “City of New Orleans”; and ironically, and given the weather this week, Albert Hammond’s “It Never Rains in Southern California”, well, almost never.

8:30 Bob Cool: Also had a stint in the hospital this week, he’s been a bit of a frequent flyer at Grossmont Hospital this past year, so we are glad to have him back.  He did a parody of “Ring of Fire”, “Ring of Smoke”; he finger picked a nice rendition of Ella Fitzgerald’s “Misty”; The Kingston Trio’s “One More Town”; Mike Snider’s “If My Nose Was Running Money I’d Blow it All On You”; he had Greg Gross back him on the Irish tune “Harvest Home”; they also did “Has Anybody Seen My Gal?” combined with “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone”;

8:45 Cliff Niman: Was new to our open mic but certainly not to performing; he treated us to a set of Joan Baez’s “Baby (Daddy) You’ve Been on My Mind”; Phil Ochs’ “Changes”; a nicely picked version of Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Polly Von”; and Eddie Rabbit’s “Driving My Life Away”.

9:00 John Movius: John drafted Greg Gross for back-up to his electric lead guitar riffs; they did “End of Summer”; the Chantay’s “Crystal T”; Buck Owens’ “Buckaroo”; the Venturers’ “Telstar” and “Wipe Out” (with lots of drumming on the tables); and “Pipline”.

Greg Gross closed by leading the group with Dale Evans’ “Happy Trails”.

It turned out to be a fairly low-key, but nice evening.  Come on by soon and join us; God bless.

Tim Woods, Greg Gross, and the Wood ‘n’ Lips open mic crew