Checkers Jam- 7/26/17 Benediction Two

Checkers Acoustic Jam 7/26/17

Host: Julie Gordon
Surprise Guest: Ryan Matthew Paul


Songs;

It's Been A While (Belinda James: Vocal)
Independence Day  (Belinda James: Vocal)
Blue Bayou (Belinda James: Vocal)
A Thousand Miles From Nowhere (Steve Black Wolf: Vocal)
Knocking On Heaven's Door (Steve Black Wolf: Vocal)
Last Kiss/Stand By Me/This Magic Moment (Steve Black Wolf: Vocal)
Lion Sleeps Tonight (Abigail Bunker: Vocal)
Let It Go*
Does It Matter (Belinda James: Backing Vocal)
Everybody's Talking (Donna Jo Eisner: Backing Vocal)
For What Its Worth (Donna Jo Eisner and Steve Black Wolf: Backing Vocals)
Jet Airliner  (Donna Jo Eisner and Steve Black Wolf: Backing Vocals)
The End/
Ring Of Fire (Donna Jo Eisner and Steve Black Wolf: Backing Vocals)
Turn The Page (Steve Black Wolf: Lead Vocal)
Sundown (Ryan Matthew Paul: Lead Vocal)
Ball And Chain (Ryan Matthew Paul: Lead Vocal)*
What I Like About You (Julie Gordon: Lead Vocal)

*debut

With
Julie Gordon
Ryan Matthew Paul
Belinda James
Steve Black Wolf
Donna Jo Eisner
Buddy Archbrenner
Abigail Bunker

And that was pretty much it for jammers.

I'm not sure the reason why there wasn't many folks tonight, it may have been yet another thunderstorm going through the area, or just plain indifference   While Julie is making plans to finish up her Dreams Of Arcadia dates before her knee replacement, the surprise guest was Ryan Matthew Paul back in town.  And we actually jammed on a few new songs namely Ball And Chain, which in a simple D A G chord progression was easy to play along.  I still rather play drums or percussion but for a first time sharing the stage playing actual guitar, I did all right.

Mark Randolph was not there so basically Belinda relied more on Ryan and Buddy playing guitar, although I did follow her off stage on It's Been A While and kept teasing her on the riffs to Fever.  And for Blue Bayou there's a chord that I cannot figure out but she sings it in off kilter key.  Somehow she managed to sing the chorus to Does It Matter, an original of mine.

For my set, I really was gasping at straws so I decided to go with an improvised version of Let It Go from the new Logic And Lies album and playing it in a more blues style. I didn't have my cheat sheets so I had to rely on similar sounding words and hoped for the best.   I was kinda hoping for a bass player to show up to do For What Its Worth but Skip didn't show and neither did Mark but at the final chorus it became a call and response from Donna Jo and Steve  (everybody looks what's going down to which it became I sing Going and they responded with Going  too.  It was extended and everybody had a good time.  Also the 12 year old wunderkind Abigail Bunker joined us on stage for an extended version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

I don't know, I really didn't venture out much out of the songs that I have been doing. I didn't plan on The End but Belinda requested that so I did that one and went into Ring of Fire to which Steve and Donna Jo return to sing backups.  Later on, Ryan wanted to do Sundown and he does it in a whole different chord, probably more easier than the version that I do. Ryan wanted to do Ball And Chain from Social Distortion so we did that one for the first time ever.  And we concluded the whole thing with What I Like About You with Julie doing the lead vocal and harmonica solo.  She really does a good job on that.

After the jam, I talked to Donna Jo and her husband about their cabin and how it sits near the Wapsipinicon River and wondered how they were faring.  He mentioned that the road leading to the cabin was six feet under water and where they had the stage at, it would have been initiated by flood waters but he did mentioned that the river is receding.   However, had the jam been this weekend it would have been postponed.  While the Wapsi has had the flooding rains that cause the floodings, the Cedar River basis managed to avoid the 10 to 12 inches of rainfall and has risen slightly but not enough to flood things. So we're good.  For now.