From: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org (believers-digest) To: believers-digest@smoe.org Subject: believers-digest V6 #148 Reply-To: believers@smoe.org Sender: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk believers-digest Monday, July 29 2002 Volume 06 : Number 148 In Today's believer's digest: ----------------- Curtis Arboretum, 7/28 ["Tim Dunleavy" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 21:09:06 -0400 From: "Tim Dunleavy" Subject: Curtis Arboretum, 7/28 Susan did a nice, relaxed set tonight at this park in Cheltenham Township outside Philadelphia. It was a free concert that ran from 5 to 7pm, with a 15-minute intermission at 6pm. It was WAY too warm, but the weather cooled off nicely in time for the second set. There were about 300-400 people there for the free concert. A little history on the locale: the Curtis Arboretum is a big park on the land once owned by the founder of the Curtis Publishing Company. He had a huge, HUGE mansion there a hundred years ago. After he died, his daughter tore the whole place down (except for one wing, Curtis Hall, that Curtis used as his music room- it's big, but it's tiny compared to what used to be there) and donated the land to Cheltenham as a park. I grew up in Cheltenham and have driven by this place thousands of times; believe it or not, it was my first time actually inside the place! I ran into Susan while walking in; we were both looking for bathrooms, and we found them in Curtis Hall. During the show, Susan asked what the difference was between Curtis Arboretum and the more famous Morris Arboretum in nearby Chestnut Hill; the consensus was that Morris is bigger and nicer. Susan said she'd played many weddings at the Morris when she sang with Ken Ulansey's band. "I think I know about 40% of you on a first-name basis, and 25% of you, I think I played at your weddings!" Some small children were playing up front, sometimes loudly, for most of the show. At one point she said, "You see that girl chasing that boy around? Well, that's what this song is about"-- before launching into "None of the Above." During the second half a boy started to cry loudly, and his father quickly rushed him out; Susan said, "Ever get the feeling that you need a snack and a nap?" She was low on sleep, having flown in from Ontario early in the morning; she said she slept from 1 to 4am, then from 6 to 7:30 on the plane, etc. The set list was pretty similar to most of the sets she's done since NNF's release. This time the first half was guitar; she was about to move over to piano at one point then said, "Wait, I've just been informed this is a two set show" and instead did a set-closing number on guitar ("Ode to Billy Joe"). The second half was all piano-- selections from the romantic song cycle. After starting the show with the first four songs from NNF, she went to two songs with a "botanical theme" - "My Mother's Garden" and "Like Bonsai." In the second half, while commenting on how nice this garden looked, she launched into a verse of "Garden Party," sung in a nasal Rick Nelson imitation. She sang the first part a capella, then when she figured out what the chords were, she played a few to finish out the chorus. "Ooh, a new cover I can do," she said. Always great to see the creative process in action! In the first half, she did a song she wrote last Thursday called (I think) "Why." A very nice minor-key twelve-bar blues. Each line of the song was a question starting with the word "why." The lines came too fast for me to absorb them, but one key line was something like "Why rent the misery when you've got enough at home?" (That's a VERY loose memory of the line. I should have brought my notepad.) A song that made me smile while giving me a lot to think about. In the second half, she did "Stay on Your Own Side of Town." This was my first time hearing this charmer that, as she says, takes place in Chicago but has a universal theme. For her encore, she returned to guitar. The first song was "The Great Out There," a song she thinks she first heard Greg Simon perform at songwriter's night at the Mermaid Inn. "Does Tom Gala still do those songwriting nights?" "Yes," cried out some people. "I think I could do a show of Tom Gala's greatest hits," she said, before launching into an impression of Tom that got a lot of laughs. She did the song in an open tuning, and used the slide guitar tricks she's been using for over a year in "Standing In My Own Way." The second song of the encore was a fingerpicked country blues... that turned out to be a cover of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" from "My Fair Lady"! A great, inspired choice, beautifully done. She didn't stick to the melody, but I liked the fact that she included the bridge; Rosanne Cash did a version without the bridge that never worked for me. I asked Susan afterwards why she chose the song, and she said it was simply a song that she'd always loved, and while playing around with it she thought it had a bit of a gospel feel that she hadn't noticed before. While standing in the queue to talk to Susan, the guy in front of me explained that he was on the board of three people who booked acts for the township; he was also an official at Temple University, and had been turned on to Susan's music over a decade ago by a former classmate of hers! I also heard Susan tell someone that the next album would be all piano, and the one after that would be all covers. "And after that I better have a baby, or it probably ain't gonna happen." All in all, another great set. She ended by saying "Thanks, and see you all at the Folk Festival." - -Tim HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ End of believers-digest V6 #148 ******************************* --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- This has been a posting from the Susan Werner believers-digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers-digest" in the body of the message