Music on the Porch

I’ve wanted to host a monthly musical event for several years now and just kicked it of in January 2018 on a small scale.  We are gathering the 4th Friday of each month on the side porch of our WW2 army barracks at 7pm to enjoy a different musician each month, usually a singer songwriter and always someone talented and interesting.  Sweetie’s Cafe, who normally closes for the day at 3pm, serves dinner by reservation those nights at 6pm and the music follows on the porch at 7.

This month, June 22, locals Valerie Levy and Bob Cubbage will entertain us with a couple of jazz sets; Bob on the piano and Valerie singing her heart out.  See their musical bios below.

Each of these monthly events are donation based, meaning the audience should come prepared to make some sort of a monetary donation.  We want this to be a sustainable event and hope locals and visitors alike will appreciate the talent and nice evening out and be happy to pay for it.  We would love to have folks donate between $10 and $30 per person to make it attractive for the artists to come.  Three of our 5 artists so far have traveled 4 hours to perform and this is how they make their living.  Besides a cash donation, I am happy to donate the space, my time to promote the event, set it up and clean it up at the end of the evening in hopes it will be a permanent Dunnellon event and possibly increase to weekly .  The real goal is to outgrow the porch and fill the historic train depot.  That will require rent and probably insurance so for now, we’ll continue to get the word out, attract talented artists and stay put at Grumbles until we know this is something Dunnellon residents will sustain.

•      Bob Cubbage
• For some reason, I have never created a resumé of my musical

  background. I don’t know why; perhaps I was never called upon to

  provide one. Of course, in the competitive world of music in New York

  (or Nashville, or L.A., et al), the best resumé would take second place to

  simply auditioning for the job. Moreover, when I landed an apprenticeship

  at Mark Century Corporation, to learn the art of commercial production,

  as well as master editing, the fact that I had absolute pitch, as well as a

  feeling for the rhythms in human speech, carried much more weight than

  the fact that I was a piano major at Denison University.

  Anyway, here is some of my musical background, in a nutshell.

  I began playing at the age of three. My mother used to relate the story of

  my performing “Pistol Packin’ Mama” with one finger.

  I began serious piano lessons at the age of nine. When I was twelve, my

  piano teacher insisted that I audition for the Preparatory Division of

  Juilliard School of Music. I was there for one year. Later, I was a piano

  major at Denison.

  During the late 60s, I began playing production piano for stock theatre.

  Some of the more memorable productions were “The Fantasticks,”

  “Camelot,” and “Company.” In later years, the work that I spent

  memorizing these scores, as well as others, would hold me in good stead

  when I performed at such venues as the Sherry Netherland and One

  Fifth.

  What is really important about my musical background is the fact that it

  provided an introduction to the world of audio production. Studio

  musicians, as a rule, are pretty fussy about who works on their recorded

  masters. In my case, the fact that I had worked at Mark Century as a

  master editor and was performing at a major piano lounge, gave me a

  great deal of credibility. And the more I worked, the better I became until

  I found myself in demand by numerous artists, record companies and

  music publishers – all this without any advertising or marketing. In fact, I

  was probably the only production facility with an unlisted phone number!

  At this time, I am devoting my energies to restoration of all of my

  analogue master tapes, as well as performing the service music at an

  Episcopalian church on Sunday mornings. I am also a production pianist

  for several vocalists. This is in addition to helping my wife manage our

  farm
• 

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