Open Mic Night

69°f/20.5°C, mostly clear but storms possible later. Still very humid.

Last night's open mic. I forgot to video our featured artist, storyteller Bill Hairston, whom I have known for 30 years. 

We had a fantastic time at open mic last night. I was worried that being so soon after the 4th, people would be worn out and not wanting to come out, but that was not the case.

First presenter was 92 year old Ervin Barr, who had not played any music in about 37 years. He was definitely rusty, but did his best and was much appreciated.

Matthew joined us again with his fiddle. He has been teaching himself to play for about 6 months.

My friend, author Cat Pleska, brought the student she is mentoring in storytelling; Cat read an absorbing essay and her student told a short story.

And regulars Barry and Fred were there. Bless their hearts,  they helped me set up my sound system, which I got back from my son to use here because we really didn't have one after Corey had to stop organizing the open mics. His music career is beginning to take off, so he is focusing on that. Since I wanted the open mic nights to continue, I have taken on the organizing, booking, promoting, etc, until Corey can do it again. Not something I expected to be doing but oh well.

We had a full house, ran out of chairs. This photo captures about half of the crowd. Not a huge crowd, of course--- this is a pretty small venue---so 40 or more people is a lot. The staff were hopping to serve all the tables. 

Bill did a great job and I am sorry not to have a video of him telling stories of a freed slave who became an integral part of a WV community at 12 years old because of his mathematical genius, a story about a church mission he went on in Russia, and ending with a funny tale that had us all laughing. In his first two stories he wove in two spirituals, sung in his deep, rich voice. He was quite a hit with our audience. This is the promo pic he sent me. Wish I had taken at least one photo last night though! 

Larry couldn't come with me, as his treatments have made him the color of a lobster and he didn't want to go out like that. I can't blame him! But I missed his company.

Today, back to the routine. Sure was nice to have that break last night though.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.