When the stars align themselves...

Rick Summer Droit and Tami Griffin came from opposite directions to meet on the Corner Cafe stage Friday night. True to Phil's impeccable taste in music, their convergence led to an especially intimate and delightfully varied constellation of original songs.

Rick is the songwriter and guitar picker, and is masterful at both. Tami laces classical flute throughout his songs that polishes them with a powerful serenity. The two create a deep, mature sound together that reveals rare talent and love for the music. Rick's versatile ability serves up songs that come from many influences, and he would be impossible to label. Not unless there is a name for music that is forged from the crucible of bluegrass, folk, rock, blues and Celtic. His songs are romantic and winsome and he shares them with laid back professionalism, making his performance a welcome escape from a hectic week. They played with admirable respect to the audience, which was really small... But the energy between them was so real that the audience and its size was irrelevant.

I especially liked a song called Horse Sense. And I loved a bluesy song called Born Under a Bad Sign. Droit simultaneously and deftly plays a driving scramble of guitar finger-picking as he blows his riveting harmonica. And they debuted a new song called Wild Mustangs Can't Keep Us Apart...where they banter back and forth, that should be a hit someday. "Do you hear the words I say? Are they scattered across the Milky Way?..."

The celestial convergance lasted as they visited Blues Alley the next morning and took some pictures and purchased some things. We talked about bottle digging, records, and blues of course! Nice folks... Sure hope they can come back and give us a chance to show them a better audience. If not, they sure showed Navasota a great performance.