I just feel like blogging about one of my regular gigs, in this case a restaurant I play weekly (hopefully, not weakly).
Last night at was apparently musician’s night at this restaurant. Two people came in that played guitar and/or sang. As far as I could tell, they didn’t come because they already knew me; it was just serendipity.
The first was a young man that commented after he heard a song or two, “That’s a nice sounding Breedlove ya got there.” Now my Breedlove guitar is an older model, and has only the script “B” logo on the headstock (click on the pic for a closer view of what I’m talking about). On more recent models, Breedlove changed the logo on the headstock to read “Breedlove.” 
So I knew this guy had to be a guitar player. He engaged me in conversation, told me some things about his “gypsy” (his word) lifestyle, asked questions and requested songs.
A little later a couple came in, and it turned out that the woman was a choir director that sings alto and plays guitar. When they asked for an example of what I’ve played in church settings, I sang “My Chains Are Gone.” When they asked for something else along that line, I sang “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less” to the tune of “The Sound of Silence.” She then told the story of playing that tune on her guitar as the background music for some photo montage. Obviously, this couple also engaged me in conversation, asked questions and requested songs.
Actually, the word “conversation” may be misleading. In both cases, what transpired between us was just brief snippets of dialogue between songs. When I play this gig, I play typically 3½ hours (as I did last night). Once I start (at 5:30), I play straight through the evening. I don’t take breaks, and unless I’m engaged by patrons, as a rule I don’t comment between songs. So I play on average 70 songs a night. As one restaurant patron put it, “You’re the jukebox.”
Which gives me an idea for another blog…