CEDAR CITY, UTAH
and
EAGLES’ FLIGHT
I’ve recently gotten some good advice from two fine artists who I’m lucky enough to call friends: James Hurley and James Lee Stanley. Besides being a fan of their songs as well as their performance skills, I was picking their brains for how to book road gigs, and successfully fill a tour with enough dates to make the trip not only worthwhile, but fun. It should be noted that I offer to buy breakfast or lunch for whichever friend whose brain I’m downloading information from (a handy thing to remember if you should have any good stuff you think I should know, and you like free meals). It would be nice if we, as performing artists, had managers and agents who did tour booking for us. And, of course, if you’re someone like John Prine, you probably do. But for the rest of us, we are our own managers, agents and bookers. It’s gonna be a while until I’m as accomplished as the “James Gang,” but I’m working on it.
I’m doing a cool show this Saturday night, April 28 at 7pm, in Cedar City, Utah, of all places. Address and contact info below. How this show happened is that last November George Loosley – who hosts the Saturday Singer-Songwriters with George on Thunder 91.1 KSUU, Saturday at 11:00 am MDT (streaming at suu.edu/ksuu) – read on my Facebook page that I was traveling through Cedar City on my way up to Salt Lake City, and he messaged me suggesting I come do a show in that beautiful part of the world. So we scheduled it. George is a Cedar City native, and a 20 year veteran in broadcasting who has worked all over the country. It’s at the Off the Cuff Improv Theatre 913 S. Main St., Cedar City. And I’ll be on his radio show Saturday morning at 10am PST.
For more information, call 435-590-2590, or go to https://otccomedy.com/concerts
Helping me out on a few tunes, and singing a couple of his own, is my old friend Art Kaufman, who lives there. I’ve known Art since we were both in the Summer Theater Program at Occidental College (Obama’s alma mater) in the early ‘70s. Art went on to have a successful career producing “song-poem” music; that is, when people send their lyrics in to a company and get finished tracks back from “real professional songwriters.” There’s a whole lore to this strange corner of the music business. The late Tom Ardolino, of the great band NRBQ put out a whole series of CDs with notable (and wacky) examples of this sub-genre. I have even been hired in the past to sing on some of these by another “song-sharking” (a less-affectionate name) company here in LA. These sessions presented two challenges: 1. Sight-reading the music to get it done in one take (time is money), and 2. Doing your best not to laugh while you’re singing it.
I was never a “country-rock” guy in the ‘70s. I was mostly listening to R ‘n’ B (Donny Hathaway forever!). But I’m having a blast doing The Tribe’s upcoming Eagles tribute show, performing the entire “Desperado” and “On the Border” albums with the likes of Dave Pearlman, John Pratt, Maitland Ward, and Rosemary Butler at Bogie’s in Westlake Village. The show is May 6th, and is close to sold-out. Tickets available here.
See you on the road.