WORTHINGTON — With temperatures in the 80s late last week, the sun had never been more welcomed or felt better. With spring slowly coming into bloom, the show season at my old stomping grounds, Worthington Memorial Auditorium is also warming up.
California Dreamin’: The Songs of Laurel Canyon will take the stage at 7 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Auditorium. Anyone who knows me knows this is just about a match made in Heaven. I often joke that I’m a “Gen Z kid trapped in a boomer’s body,” so when I read that their repertoire includes James Taylor, The Beach Boys, Jefferson Airplane and more West Coast artists of the 1960s and 1970s, I “locked in,” as the kids say. When Tammy Makram asked me if I wanted to play housewarming music for California Dreamin' this Saturday, I said yes faster than you could believe!
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I can practically hear the songs I’ll be bashing out on the old six-string after I get home from work today: Bread’s “Guitar Man,” “Take It Easy” by The Eagles, “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘N’ Roll Star” by The Byrds, The Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B,” a song that was once stuck in my head for three days straight! So much great music not only came out of the 1960s and 70s, but came out of Mid-to-Southern California.
Although that’s not to say my music and I will stay exclusively rooted in the West Coast scene. If you don’t think I’d play even just one Beatles song, you would be sorely mistaken. Also not out of the realm of possibility are Memphis, Tennessee’s seminal power pop group Big Star, Jackson C. Frank of Buffalo, New York, New York City’s prodigal sons Simon and Garfunkel and, while Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are often associated with the California sound of the 1970s and onward, the late great Tom Petty — who I miss more and more each day — is actually from Gainesville, Florida. (That, dear readers, is what we refer to as a “loophole.”). Who knows? I just might even mix that all together and play some Traveling Wilburys!
Tickets for Saturday night’s performance may be purchased between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. through Friday at the Memorial Auditorium box office, or online at friendsoftheauditorium.com. You may also call to reserve tickets at (507) 376-9101.
The Trust Project
