Artisan Sanctuary-Tributes to Irene Leeson And Digger

Songlist:

Willin'
All Over Now
Jeanette 15 Years Ago
It's My Time
Handy Man
For What It's Worth
Let's Work Together
Good Time Charlie
Old Time Rock And Roll

With
Frederick Jones-Harmonica (6-9)
Doc Rudolph-Fiddle (8-9)

Had a fiddle player helping me the last two songs in Doc Rudolph, he played bluegrass and I forgot we could have done Fox On The Run.

Spare crowd and varied people.  Big Daddy Kahl started out, John Jorgensen played guitar and Father America did a X rated segment which was kinda interesting.

For the most part, I dedicated All Over Now to the memory of Irene Leeson, who supported my musical adventures back when I couldn't play the drums very well.  Her encouragement kept me going, even tho I have not seen her for many years.  Irene passed away on Valentine's Day.  Good Time Charlie was dedicated to Tommy Patterson, to which Doc Rudolph came up to play fiddle.  I also used Freddy Jones for his harmonica work too.  It was the first time Doc played the Sanctuary.  Freddy is always a late show but I did use him for good advantage.

Willin n Handy Man debuted for the first time.  As well as Jeanette 15 Years Later as a request from Diggy Kat.  I used the songbook for Willin.  Rough, but at least some people were singing to the chorus.

Overall, Patrick Lower did his usual fine job of making me sound good and the help from Doc and Freddy were icing on the cake.  Jim Jacobmeyer took the photos that you see here.

Elegy for Irene Leeson:

"It's hard for me to look at her and seeing a gray haired grandma;  she had long black hair and very stocky in the time that I knew her while growing up.  I'm sure she considered me part of her family as well.  I would rather remember the good moments rather than than the bad.  But in theory, Irene Leeson was a wonderful person to talk things with when I couldn't do that with my own folks.

Irene helped me with my beer can collection.  Back in the daze of the beer can craze, there was Brewery Two, a place you can buy old beer cans, and they had a the famous Orbit beer can that I had my eyes on.  It was a 9 dollar can but Irene was kind enough to buy that can.  And I still have that over the years.

As mentioned somewhere, Irene encouraged me to keep playing music.  Back around 1976, my dad had a reel to reel tape and a interesting set up.  I didn't have regular drums, so I pounded on coffee cans and a one string guitar and made a bunch of echophonic recordings on reel to reel and would go over to her place and we would listen to some of them.  I don't know how she listened to them all, I doubt that she could, hell I couldn't even listen to half that crap that I made.  Eventually, once I got real drums and guitar and learned how to make songs, I would show off the results to her.  She was quite impressed with how far I came from those noisy tuneless songs.

In the good ole days, Irene and John, her husband would come over and with the old man and mom would make these goofy tapes to which they all sing to scratchy 45s.  Irene did have a decent voice, she did a cover of Paper Roses which was note for note with Marie Osmond.   If they haven't been recorded over, I think some of the tapes exists but they are over 40 years old.

In 1975, The Leesons and The Smiths went on vacation for two weeks.  We went from Lincoln Ill to Jackson Michigan and stopped at the Football hall of fame in Canton Ohio.   Irene's dad had a acreage outside of Jackson on some off the way road.  They lived close to property owned by Ted Nugent to which we were warned not to trespass on his lot.  Her grandpa was cool, a big old beer drinker that would help build my beer can collection by drinking all these off the wall brands.  Irene had a sister, who had a couple of daughters, one of which captured my fancy.  She chased me all around the yard, she had long blond hair.  I can't say what propelled me to give my heart to her.  She also farted a lot, which one thought that real girls didn't do that.  Needless to say we were way too young.   I remember I finally gave up after being chased by this girl and as we begin to strolled toward a tent in the middle of the yard, a big dark cloud rolled up and rains poured down from the heavens, which had us running into the house.  Somehow the Almighty intervene and there would not be no hanky panky that day.  Afterward, we had to return home but me and this girl swore that we would stay true.

Young love isn't destined to last, and I would see Jeanette one more time a year later.   Long distance love never last either, especially when you're still in high school.  I made the mistake of waiting till graduation and waiting for her to move up to Iowa.  That never happened, she would end up having three children before she turned 18 and that broke my heart, but then again it was young love and I knew nothing about it.  Irene did her best to console me, while playing her Town's Edge Rock, there was a song called All Over Now that was written about my frustrations with things and Irene offered to play that song at the wedding reception.  Irene didn't care much for Jeanette's husband to be and in her own way, would play this song in front of everybody.

Needless to say, the Bride and Groom were not happy with the results and that tape somehow disappeared and broken into a million pieces and then ran over with the car.  In the end, that marriage didn't last very long, but I think Irene had my back on what happened and the wasted time waiting for that love that never came true.  I haven't seen Jeanette in 45 years and I know I'll never see her again.

I did managed to stay in contact with Irene for the most of the 1980s, till she moved to Hiawatha to where we lost track and I saw her one time.  But I loved her as a friend and personal confidant.  I will miss her smile, her infectious laugh and her kind heartened generosity.

I will miss her.  Much love and blessings to the Leeson family."
https://www.murdochfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Irene-Leeson/

Elegy for Tommy Patterson.

"Sunday Night was the first time I ever jammed with Tommy.  And sad to say it was the last.  He was a great person who played in Koop N Company and was part of Airwaves years ago and many other bands.  I got to be his final drummer, in the final hour of playing the jam.  A pleasure knowing you Digger. "

 https://klosterfuneralhome.com/obituaries/2020/tommy-lee-patterson?fbclid=IwAR2ewdGFeYCuoXlLFRITeC65qx1k0ZGMmCdd33WliA6eG7v6G_Q3ccm_5is