Gary Blanchard
beloved, local musician
I found out about this place from a Craigslist ad. Two middle-age folks want to start an arts center in Lowell, MA. They rent a space and are trying to bring folks in without selling alcohol. They want to have entertainment that is not treated as background music. They want to support all of the arts. In short, my kind of place.
I signed up to do the gig to do a practice run of this fall's concert/live recording in my home turf. It was a great room, with wonderful acoustics. My voice sounded wonderful with light amplification. I got to test out my new tablet/cue sheet setup, got to play some new songs live for the first time, and even pulled out a couple of songs from the Wobblies, since Lowell is an old mill town. The audience was small, but appreciative. It was a special thrill to have my olf friend, Gary Green, in attendance. We haven't seen each other in 30 years. Here is what he posted on Facebook:
"Tonight I had the incredible pleasure of listening to one of the most beautiful and clear voices in the history of American Folk Music. My old friend Gary Blanchard, who I have not seen in 30 years, was performing in historic Lowell Massachusetts at a throw-back era intimate little folkie coffee house called "The Hearing Room." He spiced his performance with a selection of Wobbly songs (in tribute to the venue) and some of the most beautiful folk originals ever written, mixing new songs with his classics like "Cherry Wine" and "The Peace Song". Gary used to host my Hootenanny nights in Baltimore at Bread & Roses Coffeehouse; he attended Peoples Song Network with me in the 80s; and opened for me personally many many times in those folkie days. What an amazing talent and pure pleasure to hear him again after all these years. Gary Blanchard is a great talent and an absolutely wonderful human being; I have so much admiration and respect for him!"
Gary took this picture:
The Luna is my open tuning guitar; this one sounds amazing in open D tuning. The folks from The Hearing Room posted these:
It was neat seeing folks wearing these buttons.
They also posted this video clip. This was a song that I used to play at the Bread and Roses coffeehouse, one that I knew Gary would remember well.
All in all, a fun night, and it made me more confident that this fall's show will work.
I signed up to do the gig to do a practice run of this fall's concert/live recording in my home turf. It was a great room, with wonderful acoustics. My voice sounded wonderful with light amplification. I got to test out my new tablet/cue sheet setup, got to play some new songs live for the first time, and even pulled out a couple of songs from the Wobblies, since Lowell is an old mill town. The audience was small, but appreciative. It was a special thrill to have my olf friend, Gary Green, in attendance. We haven't seen each other in 30 years. Here is what he posted on Facebook:
"Tonight I had the incredible pleasure of listening to one of the most beautiful and clear voices in the history of American Folk Music. My old friend Gary Blanchard, who I have not seen in 30 years, was performing in historic Lowell Massachusetts at a throw-back era intimate little folkie coffee house called "The Hearing Room." He spiced his performance with a selection of Wobbly songs (in tribute to the venue) and some of the most beautiful folk originals ever written, mixing new songs with his classics like "Cherry Wine" and "The Peace Song". Gary used to host my Hootenanny nights in Baltimore at Bread & Roses Coffeehouse; he attended Peoples Song Network with me in the 80s; and opened for me personally many many times in those folkie days. What an amazing talent and pure pleasure to hear him again after all these years. Gary Blanchard is a great talent and an absolutely wonderful human being; I have so much admiration and respect for him!"
Gary took this picture:
The Luna is my open tuning guitar; this one sounds amazing in open D tuning. The folks from The Hearing Room posted these:
It was neat seeing folks wearing these buttons.
They also posted this video clip. This was a song that I used to play at the Bread and Roses coffeehouse, one that I knew Gary would remember well.
All in all, a fun night, and it made me more confident that this fall's show will work.