It's a Hootenanny!

They called it a "Big Damn Acoustic Jam," but it was really a good old fashioned hootenanny. Hayes Carll, Jimmy Kaiser, David Lee Kaiser, Roger Marin, Mark Jungers, Ryan James, Josh Langston and Big John Mills all sharing a stage at Courville's. Of course, they weren't really sharing a stage because the stage wasn't big enough to hold them all, so they had to extend it a bit. As Yogi Berra might have said, if you didn't see this show, you really missed it.

Every one of these guys is more than capable of pulling off a whole show by himself, but tonight it was all eight of them, one after another, occasionally accompanying one another--especially the Kaiser brothers accompanying each other and Big John Mills playing along with pretty much everything. When Hayes Carll broke a string in the middle of his unique version of "I've Been Everywhere," Big John had him covered so well that they didn't miss a beat while Carll traded guitars with Roger Marin.

I like Hayes Carll better every time I see him play. I would wish him only the best in his career, but I'm sort of selfish, so I hope everyone else continues to ignore him. If he ever gets the recognition he deserves, I'm afraid he'll be too big for Beaumont, and certainly too big to play the small sort of places that I like to go to listen to live music.

The music was great, the food was good and the drinks were cheap. What more could you ask for on a Wednesday evening in Beaumont? Special thanks to Jimmy Kaiser, who was credited with putting it together, along with Big Rich Courville for bringing this sort of stuff to Beaumont (and although no one mentioned his name, I suspect Donnie Courville had a bit to do with it too) and RadioFreeTexas, who also had something to do with making all this happen.

Edited to add: Read what Laurie Who Misses New Orleans had to say about it here.