March Missive

​  So, here we are on the 8th day of April, and I'm finally getting to my March blog update. My homework assignments were usually late too! 
   Anywhoo, March was full of wonderful events and plenty of musical madness to go around.  We made the annual pilgrimage to The Sertoma Youth Ranch for the Will McLean Festival on the 11&12, a family reunion of sorts for the Florida songsmith community.  A great time was had by all, at least everyone I came into contact with.  There's always a grump or two in attendance, fortunately, I didn't run into any of them!
    I had the extreme pleasure of working with the Shining Star youth program this year. They asked if I'd do a songwriting workshop with the young folks, and in my usual style I accepted before fully realizing what it would entail. A better group of young folk I have never encountered, very talented and bright.  Our mission was  to craft a song during our time together, two one hour workshops, and if all went well, perform it on the main stage Sunday before the festival's closing activities. No pressure! Thanks to Laura Julian for setting me up with this project, it was a wonderful experience. The song turned out to be a real hit with the crowd and I'm sure this program will continue into the future.  I'm quite willing to pass the mentor torch onto some other songwriting mastermind for next year! Here's a link to the video performance.
    The following week I had two sound gigs for the Indian River House Concert series here in Sebastian. Our featured performer was John Flynn from Delaware.
A Great singer songwriter, if you ever have the opportunity to see him, don't blow it! Wednesday the 16th was a private event, then he played again on Saturday at Shirtstock. An annual event, we like to think of as Sebastian's version of Woodstock! A little smaller but just as groovy! Thanks to T-Shirt Kathy for putting on this great series, and allowing me stalk my way into this groups of folkies. 
   I've also been hanging in there with the Blue Lion Open Mic series every Tuesday night. It's kind of grueling to do it every week, but on the nights when something really special happens, it's all worth it.  
    Oh yeah, the recording.  It's so close I can almost smell the discs burning!
I think I've enlisted some of Florida finest folkies to help me out with this project. I'm not going to drop any names, that would be uncool, plus it would take an entire page of credits.  You'll have to wait.  Yes, it's marketing ploy!
 Thanks for continuing to follow my ramblings, and check back often to see where I'll be making some noise!
​    Stay safe and healthy!  Al