{"id":2561,"date":"2007-12-03T11:41:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-03T19:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=2561"},"modified":"2007-12-03T11:41:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-03T19:41:00","slug":"the-honor-of-his-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=2561","title":{"rendered":"The Honor of His Company"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Last night, we went to see the early Tom Paxton<\/a> concert at \"McCabes in Santa Monica. For many, many, many, many years McCabes has been holding concerts<\/a> in their back room; Tom is a long-time regular.<\/p>\n

For those unfamiliar with Tom Paxton, he is one of the greats in American Folk Music. Tom started in the 1960s folks scene with greats such as Pete Seeger, Ian & Sylvia, Peter Paul and Mary, and other \u201cNew Folk\u201d performers, and is still going strong in his 70th<\/sup> year. I never pass up a chance to see him when he is in town. He is one of my favorite folk performers (he\u2019s even starting to eclipse PP&M), and McCabes is one of my favorite venues (ever since I first saw Shep Cooke play there in the early 1980s).<\/p>\n

Attending the concert with me were nsshere<\/a>, ellipticcurve<\/a>, and ixixlix<\/a> (in gf_guruilla<\/a>\u2019s stead, as she was sick [she gave me the cold I have today]). After a wonderful dinner at Rae\u2019s (see \u201cDining Notes\u201d below), all but EC got on line at McCabes. EC joined us about 10 minutes before the show started.<\/p>\n

On to the show, which consisted of a single act (as I recall, Tom\u2019s last show was also single-act, although the show before that had an intermission). Note that I didn\u2019t keep a formal playlist — song titles are from memory. Tom mostly did songs from his new album \u201cComedians & Angels<\/i>\u201d [indicated with *](which will be formally released in the US early next year — it isn\u2019t even on Amazon yet). These are mostly slower love songs. Songs that I remember Tom doing during the show are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
How Beautiful Upon The Mountain*<\/td>\nThe First Song Is For You*<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
And If It’s Not True*<\/td>\nI Like The Way You Look*<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
A Long Way From Your Mountain*<\/td>\nJennifer and Kate*<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
You Are Love*<\/td>\nComedians and Angels*<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
George W. Told The Nation<\/a><\/td>\nKaty <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Jennifer’s Rabbit<\/td>\nBottle of Wine<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Last Thing on My Mind<\/td>\nRamblin’ Boy<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Bravest<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

As a result of the song selection, the show was much slower in tone; something I also remember from Tom\u2019s last show at McCabes. I miss the heavily political Tom and the faster songs, but I also understand that song tastes and selection changes as one ages. Tom, as always, was in fine form, and was ably assisted by the ever wonderful Fred Sokolow<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Currently, there\u2019s nothing up coming on the concert agenda. I am thinking about getting tickets to Peter Paul & Mary<\/a> at the Orange County Performing Arts Center<\/a> in March 2008. As our \u201cNew Folk\u201d musicians age (and especially given Mary\u2019s health problems), this may be the last time they are in the Los Angeles area. McCabes also has a few interesting concerts<\/a> coming up, including Odetta<\/a> and Holly Near<\/a>, but I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019ll get tickets. This is McCabes\u2019 50th<\/sup> Anniversary year, so they should have a spectacular concert schedule (including a big concert in the fall at UCLA). Of course, if the Austin Lounge Lizards<\/a> ever bothered to come to Southern California (they visit NoCal regularly, but haven\u2019t been down here in almost 5 years), I\u2019d snap up tickets in a minute!<\/p>\n

Dining Notes:<\/b> Dinner for the evening was at Rae\u2019s in Santa Monica<\/a>. Rae\u2019s is an old-time diner, in business since 1958. Not a chain, but a small local hangout with a few booths and a counter, super-friendly waitresses, clean facilities, and super-cheap prices (cash only). I had the Chicken Fried Steak, and it was excellent… and everything, from the soup to the potatoes, was home made. ixixlix<\/a> had the turkey with stuffing, and nsshere<\/a> had a ham and cheese omlette… both of which were supposedly excellent. Rae\u2019s is one of those top-notch dives<\/a>, an homage to 1950s diners that is real, not manufactured (read \u201cMel\u2019s Drive In<\/a>\u201d, which we ate at on Friday night).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, we went to see the early Tom Paxton concert at in Santa Monica. For many, many, many, many years McCabes has been holding concerts in their back room; Tom is a long-time regular. For those unfamiliar with Tom Paxton, he is one of the greats in American Folk Music. Tom started in the Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,51,1],"tags":[32,467,24,272],"class_list":["post-2561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concerts","category-reviews","category-lj-xfer","tag-folk-music","tag-mccabes","tag-music","tag-reviews-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}