LIVE MUSIC = NAVASOTA

Last Friday night, the cool and the astute might have have discovered there were two, (2) thats TWO excellent live music performances going on in downtown Navasota.. BEFORE the Sept 11 Bubba Can Freedomfest on Saturday.

Blues Alley offered Navasota born Tony Taylor, and free food and beer, and Corner Cafe featured Mike Gallo, guitarist, composer and performer. A nice crowd supported the free stuff, but considering the quality and value, very few did either and even fewer did both.

Tony is on his way to big things, as he is young, hard working, extremely talented and looks like Mel Gibson, except a bit better mannered. I would have taken pictures but I was in a stupor after preparing the store all day. Sorry Tony, I'll do better next time! Hey, at least we had the beer and food, and a few dozen folks to cheer you on.

And Mike, well, my apologies Sir. You gave an impressive show, and displayed your considerable talents as composer and performer... and you deserved a much larger audience. But frankly, our community has not supported the Corner Cafe very consistently. At the very beginning, I explained to the visionary owner of the Corner Cafe that it was absolutely imperative for the store to attract out-of-town trade or die trying. Navasota is a relatively small and economically challenged town, and her upper class is not committed to supporting the arts... at least not regularly.

Never-the-less, Mike sang as if he was comfortable and enjoying himself, and it was a real pleasure to see him in his element. He is a good song writer and a very polished entertainer. And he is regularly financially compensated for doing what he loves the most. I submit a drawing of him, done by is adoring, loving wife. How cool is that? Mike, ignore the clueless masses, you may not be famous, yet, but you are a rich man.

Great songs are always in Season.

Season Ammons came to play. It was Friday night, her husband was watching the kids back at the house, and she would not be denied. Whether six or sixty, she was going to give this lucky Navasota audience an art moment as authentic as the coolest coffee bar in San Francisco. An elite but select group sat in near reverence as she delivered up one soulful original after another. The songs, many of them refreshingly honest, were inspired by some facet of her life, or even some of her bravest fantasies. They sounded intelligent, gutsy, even sensual, but Season stood and delivered them effortlessly as if they were a casual conversation.

Like her songs, Season is 100% original, and a very decent guitar picker, and I cannot help but draw some comparisons so you can appreciate your own need to hear her perform. Try if you can, to imagine a voice as tough and yet womanly as Tanya Tucker, as edgy and sophisticated, and at times as jazzy as Billie Holliday, but as relevant as today’s mail. And then that voice being poured like warm honey all over you. In the end, the only thing missing from the moment were CD’s made available at the door, to run those sweet, sensitive, fearless vocals by, one more time, to make sure I heard what I heard. Many of her songs have such a familiar, powerful ring, your brain instinctively tells you these “ought to be classics someday.” Perhaps not being able to satisfy that sudden personal need to acquire a recording of her impressive quiver of songs, and take the music home, makes the performance so much more a treasure.

So Season came to play and to give her all, and own the crowd, and she did. Someday, if there is justice in art, it will be a larger crowd in a major city worthy of her important talent. The Corner Café in Navasota will just be another little place where she humbly honed her performing skills, before the inevitable deservedly happens. Yes, you could say we were smitten. Anyone who enjoys hearing good songs, passionately sung by their own writers, will want her to do what she comes to do, and to just keep on playing.