Charles Atkins
Blue Monday Jam at Grand Finale
Tallahassee, FL
May 18, 1992

SBD to 2 track cassette mono. 
Digitized using Griffin iMic and Final Vinyl at 32 bit (transferred to wav/flac at 16 bit)

ca1992-05-18.flac16

01 Scratch My Back
02 Stormy Monday
03 Summertime (instr)
04 Days Like These $
05 Little Bit of Love
06 Instrumental?
07 All Around the World
08 Bad Luck is Killing Me
09 634-5789 (partial)
10 Blues is Alright

@ 54 minutes; 547 meg aiff or wav

Highlights: Tracks 2, 3, 5, 8, 10
Harty - $  

Players:
Charles Atkins - keyboards and vocals
The Blues Boys
Larry Laseur - harmonica
Harty Wiedemann - guitar
Tom Henning - guitar ?
? - bass
? - drums

Notes:
This recording is from the Blue Monday Jam at Grand Finale, a bar/restaurant on the college strip along Tennessee St. The restaurant was downstairs and out the back; the bar was upstairs opening on Tennessee; room was narrow, dark and barren. The audience was a lot of players looking for good music and a chance to sit in. Usually the night would start with the host band doing a set and then it would open up for jams. Absolutely a pecking order, with the known players getting prime time.

This tape is a "best of" mix; don't know if it was me or Harty making it. At least by this point we all had the same tape deck so we don't have timing issues, but there is some hiss. Charles and the Boys start out with the new opener - Scratch My Back. Charles is on the Casio; Larry and Harty probably not running thru the board, maybe getting picked up thru vocal mics. Recording gets better later on. Don't know who is on bass but I like it. The drummers rotated often.

Track 2 is a slow Stormy Monday. This is followed by an instrumental version of Summertime with Chris Tarquinio on flute. Chris directed the horn section for Mighty Big Blues Band, among other things (www.geocities.com/tallyswing/musicians.htm#tarq). He could sit in whenever he wanted and I assume he called this song. Good mix, good tone on this one. Track 4 is a Harty tune, late start but I left in some of Charles' chatter at the beginning. Charles might could say anything to keep things going. Harty is having fun, and his old bandmate from Crosscut Saw, Julian Kasper, is in the house. (www.julienkasper.com and there's a Crosscut Saw reunion on YouTube)

Little Bit of Love is Charles with Larry & Harty on backup vocals. Don't remember if Tom was in on these Monday night gigs but he usually did the pa amps and setup on stage. Mix is off on this track as things start jumping. No doubt Charles is standing and off-mic and rockin' the song. After this is an instrumental that I'll eventually catch the title. Nice slow groove. Track 7 - All Around the World, or Grits Ain't Groceries we might call it. Vocal levels change a couple times - too low, then too hot.

Bad Luck is Killing Me - this was one of Bernie's songs. Charles slows it down some, and builds it to a whole other level. Sounds like Larry had some harp problems @ 4 min in; he may have been standing up to one of the cheapo mics. Anyways, it's a great take. After this is a short piece of 634-5789. Mix is off; tape gets cut. Lastly we get Blues is Alright. Chris stepping in on sax; 9 minute jam; and it sure gets wild near the end. Enjoy!

Drawing of Charles was done around this time at the Grand Finale by a street artist named Grahound. Scanned it to use for flyers, a cover for tape release, and eventually t-shirts.

9-28-07 Peaceful day at Torreya SP - again. Did 9 mile hike early in the morning. WooHoo - SCopeland
--