Up 8:30. Coffee 10-11, caught up in daybook. Started working on “My Old Man” w/ Bree. I think I can get the piano part down. Spent early afternoon getting Laura’s set together, met her and Thirsty Dave at Euphoria to run a few songs, headed to Sid Gold’s. Had time to get dinner at the West African/Carribean steam table place nearby, and a coffee at Variety. Started reading Jim Crow, but got slightly involved in a strange situation – a guy w/ cerebral palsy wanted to use my phone (his was dead and his computer was dying, he said), w/ a complicated story about calling his dad for a credit card number. He called 3 times and left voice mails. It wasn’t a scam, but something else was wrong – a woman came in and told me that he’d been talking about hurting himself on the train, and that she’d been staying w/ him for the past 2 hrs. So then my phone rang, and I gave it back to him; the woman told me to write down the number because he wouldn’t give it to her – she wanted to call her dad himself to see if he was ok and find out what to do. But when he gave me back the phone, he’d already deleted the number. But I guess he got what he wanted, b/c the woman left and he sat down for a while – that was the end of my involvement. Went back to Sid’s, played the set w/ Laura, Mark S., Jeremy C., Kenny Kosek, and guests Thirsty Dave, Smokey Hormel, Dahni Clermont, and Julia Greenberg.
Driving Nails in my Coffin (Ernest Tubb)
Half A Mind (Ernest Tubb)
Beaumont Rag (Bob Wills)
Cow Cow Boogie (Ella Mae Morse – Raye/DePaul/Carter)
The Gold Rush is Over (Hank Snow – Cindy Walker)
I Almost Lost My Mind (Floyd Tillman – Ivory Joe Hunter)
Right or Wrong (Milton Brown)
Blue Skies (Bob Wills – Irving Berlin)
Maiden's Prayer (Bob Wills)
I'll Be There (If You Ever Want Me By Your Side)(Ray Price)
You Don't Know Me (Eddy Arnold – Cindy Walker)
Bubbles In My Beer (Bob Wills – Cindy Walker)
Sad and Lonely Texas Dancehall Girl (Ernest Tubb – Justin Tubb)
Big Iron (Mary Robbins)
Born to Lose (Ernest Tubb)
Waltz Across Texas (Ernest Tubb)
The bridge of Jeremy’s double bass flew out from under the strings at the end of the 1st song – none of us had ever seen that. He fixed it in a couple songs. My comping is pretty good at this point, but I thought a couple of my solos were wack – hard to keep it together on the fast 2-beat rags. Sang “Still Crazy After All These Years” at piano karaoke afterwards, got a ride back to Queens w/ Laura. Home 12, lights out by 1.
[Interrupted the A-Z playlist for Fats Domino, R.I.P.]