Dana Cooper has always been on my “wish I could catch him live” list. I was disappointed to hear early in the day that he was sick and that he had to strain his voice in order to perform. I immediately set my sights for the evening’s activities a bit lower.

The evening was divided into three sets, each artist on stage by himself to start out and then the third would be a song swap. Vince Bell took the first turn at the mike. His voice is like a gritty warble with a smoky tone, all his own. He strummed and picked his way through classics like his “Girl Who Never Saw a Mountain”, “Even Cowboys Get the Blues” and “Troubletown”. Between songs, Vince regales the audience with quick jokes and witty insinuations always followed by that short high pitched chuckle. Every time I see Vince he makes me grin and laugh out loud at his ability to shake the world down with a punch line. Vince closed out his opening set with the waltz, “Last Chance at the Dance”.

Dana Cooper started out his set with “Enough” that he co-wrote with Kim Carnes, featuring the line “If you work hard enough you could die standing up”. Just watching the energy that Cooper was putting into the guitar, harp and vocals in spite of his illness, you could tell where that song came from. He followed that up with his tongue in cheek, “No Second Coming” and its jangly finger picking and the tribute to Townes Vann Zandt, “Bony Man”.

Dana’s sheer musical ability, was on display as he tried to work through the notes of “Leo and Lucille” in a lower key so that he wouldn’t strain past his vocal limit on the high notes. It was as if he were rewriting the song on the spot in order to fulfill a request and then ended up doing it in the higher key anyway, since the rewrite just didn’t sound right. Dana ended his first set with “Too Deep a Sorrow”.

After a brief intermission both artists ascended the stage again for the song swap segment of the show. Someone in the audience complimented Vince on his guitar. He said, “Thanks, it’s a custom. It’s made entirely of mesquite so if I can’t get the sound out of it I like, I can use it for the barbecue.” He started out the swap with his most often covered, ”Sun and Moon and Stars”. That’s one of the songs that Vince wrote and performed before the accident that he had to learn all over again from old films of himself. Cooper revisited the time in his childhood when his blue collar, WWII veteran, father brought home a copy of “Meet the Beatles” in the early sixties by playing his tune, “In My Living Room”.

Although neither artist contributed to the other’s performance the swap held the audience in place while Vince played “Poetry, Texas” and “100 miles from Mexico” and Dana led the sing-a-long (whistle-a-long), “Great Day in the Morning” and ending the swap with an appropriate “Thank You”. The encore consisted of Vince performing a gritty version of the Townes Van Zandt Classic “Mr. Mud and Mr. Gold” and Dana doing an enthusiastic version of his “Lucky Guy”.

Old guys like me really enjoy it when old guys like Vince and Dana come to town. They bring back all of the old times, good and bad. They help us to remember the friends that aren’t around anymore and, most of all, to remind us how good it is to still be around and enjoying life with a song. Until next time you’re in town guys…