Open Mic, March 17, 2018
No Time for Encores
"You know it's a good night when you have just enough time to get all of the acts into the show with no time left for encores," said Arts Center president and host Ron Hackett. "Spring break and Saint Patrick's day didn't affect our attendance tonight." Apprentice host Travis Leimer kicked off the show singing and strumming a pop song trio that included "You Make It Easy," by Jason Aldean; "Lights Down Low," by Max Schneider; and "Heaven," by Kane Brown. Ian Bonner followed Leimer and performed a number of piano instrumentals that included "Snowflake," "Looking Glass River," "Legend of Madrid," "Liebestraum," and "Lampbells are Coming." The Arts Center has an electric piano and a small drum kit, so performing artist don't have to worry about bringing these items to a show. Caroline Bonner, Ian's sister, performed next. She also performed piano instrumentals that included "Elizabeth Bullet," "Music of the Night," written by Andrew Lloyd Webber for "The Phantom of the Opera," "Hallelujah," written by Canadian singer Leonard Cohen, and the theme from "Beauty and the Beast," by Alan Menken. Caroline won the Arts Center's first annual Music Scholarship in 2017. The competition for the second annual Music Scholarship will be held at the Arts Center on Saturday, March 31st at 7:00pm. Elliott from Petersburg returned this week with more of his lively and humorous songs. Elliot said he had been overexposed to Irish music in his youth, so he declined to perform the usual Saint Patrick's Day ditties. He did concede to perform an Irish styled ballad called, "Rickety Tickety Tin," by Tom Lehrer. Lehrer was born in New York 1928 to a Jewish family, so the song isn't really Irish. Elliott finished with "I Love You a Bushel and a Peck," that was written by Frank Loesser and performed by Doris Day, and a tune for the youngest members of our audience named, "Around and Around and Around." Jim Yarbrough from Hazel Green returned about this week to perform three of his outlaw country favorites. His songs included "The Storms Never Last," by Waylon Jennings, and two songs by Hank Williams Jr. entitled "All In Alabama" and "The Blues Man." Belly dancer Heather Clemmons made her debut appearance at our show. Keeping with the spirit of Saint Patrick's Day, her first dance was done to a medley of Irish tunes that included "Blair Atholl" and "Sleeping Maggie." Blair Atholl is a small town in Perthshire, Scotland. She finished with a sword balancing routine that brought the house down with applause. Regular performer Thunderbyrd Newman came back again this week to perform three of his original avant-garde songs that included "Lost in a Memory," "The Girl in my California Dream," and "Imagination." Singer and songwriter Jon Rosenblum made the trip up from Huntsville to perform three of his original songs, including "From the Inside Out," "The Family of Genius," and "Ink on a page." Although he doesn't like to sing, Hackett felt inspired by the "holiday" and finished the show by singing three songs that you would expect to hear in any Irish pub, especially on Saint Patrick's Day. He started with "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" and "My Wild Irish Rose." He finished with a quaint little ditty about unicorns as Clemmons performed the hand movements that go with the chorus. The only problem is that none of these songs are really Irish. Despite appearing in many Irish themed movies in the mid-twentieth century, "Irish Eyes" was written in Tin Pan Alley in 1912 by Chauncey Olcott, George Graff and Ernest Ball. Olcott's mother emigrated from Ireland as a child, but that's as close to Irish as they got. "Irish Rose" is another Olcott ditty written around 1899. American Sheldon Allan "Shel" Silverstein wrote "The Unicorn Song," and the Irish Rovers made it famous in the mid-1960s.
Photos
Photos courtesy of Ron Hackett
Travis Leimer
Ian Bonner
Caroline Bonner
Elliott from Petersburg
Jim Yarbrough
Heather Clemmons
Jon Rosenblum
Thunderbyrd Newman
Ron Hackett
Ron and Heather