Let the Campfires Begin!

Hi everyone. Sorry no blog last week. I was very busy with gigs, rehearsals and celebrations.

This week Pride and Joy continues its rehearsal for our many upcoming appearances and functions. See donpride.com for a complete listing. We've started working on some new original music and it is sounding great. We'll be at Tommy's Park in the Old Port on Saturday, June 5 from 2-4pm premiering several new tunes. We hope you can be there. Come up and say hi to us if you come.

On Friday night, May 28, I begin a series of campfire concerts at the Hidden Pines and Powderhorn campgrounds in Saco. Unfortunately, you have to have a camp there to come so I can't invite the public. But if you are in the mood for camping, by all means come. I just bring my acoustic guitar and do a lot of "unplugged" 70's stuff like the Eagles, Neil Young, Van Morrison and Jackson Brown to start with. As the kiddos begin to arrive I usually switch to campfire favorites like "Bingo", "Home on the Range" and lots of kids songs. It's a fun gig with lots of audience participation.

Speaking of audience participation, I'd like to ask, "What is some of your favorite campfire songs?" Maybe you can help me out with this. Last year one person told me "Crazy Train" by Ozzy was his favorite, so I did it! Hey, anything goes at a campfire. Some of you remember my Metal days with Sidekick and the semi-Metal Pinnocchio...

Also, next Sunday May 30, I'll be playing a couple of original songs at Farmington Assembly of God for their 10:30 am service. I'll probably do "The Call" and "Who Is Jesus?" but that could change...you never know. No "Crazy train", though. Pastor Dan Abbatiello will be the guest speaker that day. He is a great speaker, so if you are in the area, check it out.

Other than those events, I'll still be teaching guitar, piano and songwriting to my wonderful private students both here at my home and at Daddy's Junky Music, also in Portland.

I've also got to get back to work on the Classical guitar again. I'm currently working on Bach's Fourth Cello Suite and a fun but challenging piece written for Andre Segovia by Albert Roussel titled, well..."Segovia". It was written in 1925. I'm also working on Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's "Appunti", written in 1968 and rarely played.

On the writing front, I am in the midst of writing out charts for Pride and Joy to play.

I am also almost done with the first movement of my setting of the Declaration of Independance for Tenor soloist, flute, oboe and piano. I'll be mostly just writing in articulation's and dynamics and then I'll begin the arduous task of proofreading and printing parts. Because of this, it's on my low priority list right now.

That's what I'll be up to this week. Please comment if you enjoy this blog and maybe we can get some dialogue going.