Friday Meanderings

November 13, 2015 by KTgreen

Okay, you know where you are supposed to be tomorrow. Right? Here in Old Homosassa. Enjoying all that great seafood. Much of it deep fried. Usually I can smell the oil cooking away all the way to my house. Of course, if the wind is right I can hear the bands at the Shed.

Speaking of. Sarasota Slim At the Shed. Saturday evening. Sunday afternoon. I will be slipping over there.

And lets talk about OUR entertainment at the Festival.

“Shades of Gray” and Cat Valentine are playing on Saturday. Rick Standard is playing on Sunday. Followed by “Under the Willow”, a bluegrass band. With a banjo. Looking forward to hearing all of the groups.

Next interesting event is the Homosassa River Alliance meeting at the Civic Club on November 19th. They usually hold their meeting on the second Thursday of the month but the Festival committee has to use the Civic Club on that night. So it’s been rescheduled. Gerry Mulligan, the publisher for the Citrus County Chronicle will be the special guest. He’s a very interesting and informative speaker and will be talking about Citrus County’s future with our waterways. It’s open to the public. We’ll be there. Well, if we make it through the Festival weekend!

Have a great weekend!

Kathy

Blues ‘n Bar-B-Que

November 12, 2015 by KTgreen

“Lets Get Bluesified”

Oh yeah, I was all covered with the Blues last Saturday. Three different bands. All great.

It was the 20th Annual Blues ‘n Bar-B-Que. Always held on the first Saturday in November. Mark your calendar. This is such a GREAT EVENT! Hear really great live music under beautiful live oaks. Eat Cuban food or BBQ. Have some beer. What’s better than that.

We’ve been attending for the last three years. For some reason, every year before we had a scheduling conflict. Now we don’t have a conflict because the Blues ‘n Bar-B-Que is scheduled FIRST on our calendar. No Conflicts!

This was our first year for warm weather. Year one there was rain. Last year there was cold. Seriously cold. I took a quilt, mittens and a hat. This year we had wonderful 80 degree weather. Wow!

We got there in time to hear all three bands.

Beautiful Bobby Blackmon opened the day.

Beautiful Bobby played covers of a lot of really great Blues. He was very entertaining.

Jim Davis did the emceeing duties. Jim writes the music column for the Citrus Chronicle and reports on the local music scene. (Just in case you didn’t already know that!)

He introduced “Cool Corporate Cats”. Obviously, this was why everyone was here. To hear our own local guy, Jim “Boe” Anderson and his band.

Usually “Cool Corporate Cats” has three members. This time they expanded to seven. WOW!

Like I said, WOW! Cool Corporate Cats play their own original music. No covers. WOW!

Next up was the Albert Castiglia Band. Unfortunately A lot of the audience left. They were there for Boe and his group. Those that headed out really missed the highlight of the day. I thought Cool Corporate Cats was great but the Albert Castiglia Band was amazing. A whole different style of blues music. Hard rock working the blues. And Albert Casatiglia was funny and engaged the audience.

It was a great day. As I was sitting there soaking up all this great music, all I could think was “I live 5 minutes away. This is in my backyard. How lucky am I?”

I feel bad for all those that left before the Albert Castiglia Band took the stage. They were GREAT!

Looking forward to the event next year! Like I already said, put it on your calendar. First Saturday of November. Right here in little Old Homosassa.