Pribek

I want to give you a little update here, guys.

Yesterday morning, one of my closest friends, Robert Arnold, passed away. This is one of those deals that seems unreal and I feel like it hasn’t sunk in yet. If you’ve been following along since the early days of this blog, you will recognize that Robert was the drummer in the three piece band, along with bass player Hugh Walpole, that we put together to perform stuff from the “Trouble Ain’t Over” record and other stuff at live shows.

Anyway, that’s been heavy on my mind.

No internet signal at the old campground yet so, my blog posting will remain spotty.

Yesterday afternoon, my buddy Pat Talburt graciously let me borrow one of his guitars. It’s an Epiphone J-200 which is a replica of the Gibson Jumbo. Since I do not have a quality acoustic laying around, I gladly took him up on his offer and, I can’t leave my hands off of this guitar. He told me he’d let me borrow it as long as I wanted; “maybe you’ll write a good song with it”, that sort of thing. I’m already not looking forward to giving it back.

Thirst N” Howl is at the New Key Largo in Springfield tonight and over at Cody’s South tomorrow night.

I had a good time this evening. We had a band jam session. Up until now, we have been rehearsing specific songs. Tonight we just jammed.

Bass player Hugh Walpole also happens to be a great keyboard player. The first time I ever saw Hugh play was in the early ’80s at the old Buffalo Bar in Springfield Mo. At the time, I was playing in a three piece band that never got off the ground. I went to watch the three piece that Hugh was in with my band’s bass player. I remember pointing out that Hugh was really good at the trio thing. There are not too many guys that can make a trio really interesting and the tendency is too play too many notes to make up for the lack of more players.

I went back to the club a few weeks after that and Hugh was playing keyboards. I couldn’t believe it was the same guy. He brings a good deal to the table on both instruments, pretty rare.

Hugh brouht his keyboard tonight and we jammed on songs like “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” and “The Work Song” by Cannonball Adderly, “Green Onions”, “All of Me”, “Honky Tonk” and “Summertime”. We even did a version of “The Hucklebuck”. It was a lot of fun. Nice chord changes. We are going to figure out a way to incorporate the keys as we go. Hugh has strong left hand and he thinks like a bass player and that’s the trick.