The other day I played at a club house with a colorful bunch of people. It's a place with a game room and card tables and such set up but all of the action happens outside on the back patio. This is also where everyone smokes cigarettes. I'm not a fan of smoking but I hardly notice it once we get singing.
Many of the people I know from my five or so years of coming there but there were also a lot of new faces. Since there are a lot of people of color there, I chose to sing songs by black artists. Those who never saw me before quickly dropped their guard as soon as I started singing, "My Girl" by Smokey Robinson. Just about everyone stopped their conversations and joined in. Next I sang, "Stand by Me," followed by, "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay." Soon I was taking requests which ranged from Beatles, "With a Little Help from my Friends," and "Yellow Submarine," to Marvin Gaye's, "Heard it Through the Grapevine," and Cat Steven's "Moonshadow."
Later, Roberto asked me, "Do you know any Latino songs?" And I started playing a Latino-like chord progression and improvising lyrics sung in a Latin beat, "Ev-ry bo-dy got some-thing- to - sayyy sayy ya ya .." Roberto starts laughing and laughing. Next thing I know, Joe starts in riffing off of me and making up lyrics and singing and improvising. Roberto keeps on laughing and starts drumming on the table. Then Susanna joins in beating on an old coffee can. I kept on playing my Latino song and we played around like that for quite some time. Finally, when it was time to go a guy named John said, "That was the most fun I've had in a long time!"
Sure was... I can still hear that song we made up in my head. I wish we could have recorded that!
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