AVB (the Acoustic Vocal Band)

As part of my self-therapy, I got together with Guy and his friend, Jim T., who had performed with Guy in the Athens area as “Unknown Soldier” in coffee houses around Ohio University. We also invited my old friend Dale K. in to form a small folk-rock ensemble. We called ourselves ‘the Acoustic Vocal Band’. We learned new material, and both Jim and Guy had written some of their own songs, which we also worked out. I even had a couple of my own to add to our playlist. Dale didn’t have any originals but helped us decide on some of the ‘covers’ we’d attempt. The idea was to use close 3 and 4 part harmonies and switch instruments around during our performances. I played (depending on the song) guitar, fiddle, or bass. Guy played guitar, flute, bass, and mouth harp. Jim played guitar, flute, and bass. Dale played guitar, bass, and fiddle.

We rehearsed intensely for about a month and decided to try for a few gigs. Since I wasn’t working full time then, I went out and arranged auditions for us. Our first was a Wednesday night at the Ground Round in Parma. About a week before we auditioned, Dale quit. He said he wasn’t confident we could pull it off. So, we quickly rearranged our songs and playlists. We had about 4 hours’ worth of music for the audition, which turned out to be only one set, so about 20% of our material. We were always adding new original and cover tunes to our list and dropping the ones we liked less. We also recorded every practice and performance so we’d know where we needed to improve.

To be Continued

–LE