Mike Quick, Robert "One Man" Johnson and I are all really looking forward to our two gigs together this coming June 17 and June 19. June 17 (Father's Day evening) we will be taking turns presenting songs at Sammy's Pizza, London Road, Eau Claire from 6PM to 9PM.
It will be a very relaxed "Austin City Limits" type presentation, with all three performers on stage for the entire evening, just taking turns, talking about and singing original tunes from our respective albums.
Robert Johnson is by far the most prolific writer of the three of us, Having produced 8 albums since 1976. You can read up on Robert at his web site: www.housedogmusic.com.
Mike just released his first solo album "Down Bullfrog Road" in 2004, featuring all his own compositions with musical backing from the cream of Chippewa Valley's musicians. Before that, he was a member of the very popular group "The Mighty Bullfrogs". You can read all about Mike on his web site at: www.mikequick.net.
My contributions were put into two CD's in 2002: "Larry Heagle:Rude, Crude, and Poor", and "Irish Heart". Like Mike, I was fortunate enough to recruit some really fine players from the Chippewa Valley to give my songs some color and depth.
Ah, the stories we could tell! and probably will during the course of the two performances. I first met Bob Johnson while we were both students at the UWEC. Bob came down to Eau Claire from his home town of Rhinelander and I was just out of six months National Guard Training.
Along with another Rhinelanderian, Jim Zerenner, Robert and I formed "The Freedom Singers" and sang folk music at any and all occasions we could find. It was, after all, the early 60's and the "folk scare" was in full bloom. We traveled in my older brother's hand-me-down 1954 two door, two tone, green Chevrolet. It was really a hoot just getting Jim's huge string bass into the car. There was room for one of us in the back seat, and the neck of the bass jutted between the driver and passenger seat in the front.
Those Rhinelander boys could sure drink beer! We would play gigs in Antigo or Hayward and they would insist on hitting every road house on the way back to Eau Claire. I would sleep in the car while they had "one" beer, and then we would move on down the road to the next neon sign.
Zerenner had a pet phrase he would always say as he struggled to climb in the back seat with the bass proper: "I love my mother, but I'd sell her for a jump tonight!"
Eventually Jim graduated and moved on to law school and Robert (perhaps because his name is, after all, Robert Johnson) discovered the blues and outgrew me. You will discover when you listen to him in June, that his writing reflects both folk music and the blues.
Mike? well, Michael was still "wet behind the ears" in the 60's, but both Bob and I became fast friends of his and fans of his writing ability when he appeared on the scene, back from San Diego, California.
We decided, in 1987, to do a songwriters concert at the then Gnu Dehli, just off N. Barstow Street. It was a wonderul evening and obviously one that none of us have forgotten so we are doing it again. We all hope you will join the three "mature" guys as they try to re-capture their fleeting youth, albeit just for two evenings!
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