John Day--an internationally renowned musician, composer and artist--wrote, directed and performed the music in this play. The songs were old protestant hymns and gospel.
This is not my music, for sure!
Yella was the lead singer with 2 other ladies doing the harmony and one playing harp. Paul Day played bass.
Yella told me about the rehearsals for this music. She is a 40 year pro and she was being challenged constantly about minor--oh so seemingly minor--bits of timing with the singing.
The result was nothing short of spectacular!
Emmy Lou Harris, Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton move over. There is a new trio in town!
The vocals were so tight, it sounded like one magnificent voice.
At one point in the play, I thought I was listening to recorded music but it was live. It was that good.
The rest of the play was as good as the music portion.
This morning, I rode my bicycle into town. I haven't done this in a year.
It was a gorgeous day for a ride, so off I went.
When I got to town, I toured the local gathering places and landed at Olga's, of course!
I had coffee with the director of the play who is a friend a well as a remarkable director. We yukked it up about life and rehashed the play. Fun!
Then the male lead in the play showed up, he is a young guy (about 30 years old) and told us he was meeting his twin brother and a bunch of traveling co-eds for breakfast.
They all showed up and the place got a lot more energetic. Let the hormones flow!
I also ran into our keyboard player and his wife so we talked about music for a while.
On the way home, I ran into some friends that had seen the play and they were blown away. They said, "We had no idea these plays were this good!" I said, "Where and the hell have you been? This has been going on for over a year."
I also didn't know how many people love these old hymns.
I missed it. I was raised Catholic and we had different music that I would prefer to NEVER hear again.
2 comments:
Hi Tom, have really loved the blogs of late, and I LOVE having a sense of the places and people You speak of. My visit was great for grounding with You and Panama. Am so Happy that they have You and Yella contributing to the local loving expression. We are all lucky for that. Miss You and wish You the Best! Darshan
Thanks, Darhan!
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