Written by James Killen

I started a very musical weekend with this very fine line up at a new concert series sponsored by Direct Energy in Levy Park, Saturday evening. Levy Park is situated between Buffalo Speedway and Kirby and between Richmond and the Southwest Freeway. The line up featured a number of musicians with Houston connections. In addition to up and comer, Brant Croucher and his wife, Lainey Balagia Croucher, were her former bandmate, Libby Koch and Libby’s flame, Chuck Hawthorne, local singer songwriter, Matt Harlan and Charlie Harrison of Charlie and the Regrets set up for a six part song swap.

It turned out to be a real challenge for the artists to put their best performance out there through a dropping thermometer and a chilly wind. I know that the temperature never actually dropped below 40 degrees, but this is Texas and we are Texans, and these wind chills did set our teeth to chattering.

Brant was first in rotation doing tunes from “Old Denton Roads” and the latest “Blanco County Lights” like “Drink (Drink, Drink)” and “Tennessee Moon” and acting as MC for the show. Matt Harlan was next in line kicking off with “Riding with the Wind”. Matt supplied some excellent guitar work supporting the other artists between his turns at the mic. Charlie followed, doing acoustic versions of Regrets songs like “Proud Man” and “Houston Rain”.

Chuck Hawthorne took the fourth spot in line with his deep, mellow voice and subtle vibrato singing songs from his album “Silverline”. He and Libby supported each other instrumentally on their songs as she followed Chuck. Libby had lots of her songs to choose from, but one of the most impressive was one that came from a weekend of writing songs with veterans called, “Deep Breath, Through the Door”. Libby and Brant both gave some vocal and instrumental support to Lainey as she was getting her “stage legs” back after taking time off to be a full time Mom.

Warm drinks were being passed around the stage during the performances as each artist waited for his next song. As 8PM approached, so did the time for a grand finale which came in the form of 3 great performances of cover songs in which all of the artists participated. It started with the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine”, followed by John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery” and ending with the Willie Nelson favorite, “Seven Spanish Angels”.

I noticed several musical artists in the audience as well. Kim and Sammy Barker from Brightwire were there before their appearance that night at Dan Electro’s. Crystal and Pete Damore of Ordinary Elephant were huddled under a blanket, next to Jen Grove on the eve of their show at a house concert, Sunday afternoon.

As chilly as the maiden voyage of the Levy Park concert series was, it certainly set a high standard for talent and entertainment for upcoming shows. I’m looking forward to taking advantage of those opportunities.