Last week, I read at the online site of an Indianapolis-area media that Mark Butterfield, a longtime Indianapolis area concert promoter, is working to launch a regular small-venue concert series in the city of Greenfield, Ind., his hometown, while working to organize other shows in the Midwest.
This piqued my curiosity from afar, in Raleigh, because it conjured memories from a period when I was still living in Indy and photographing shows in Butterfield's long-running Indy Acoustic Cafe Series. I presented posts at this blog about most of those shows after each one back in the day, circa 2011-13.
The number of shows in Butterfield's series had begun to diminish after 2013. Butterfield shared news about upcoming shows with a mailing list of people who had bought tickets for previous shows, and I have a vague recollection in one of those dispatches in 2014 or '15 that Butterfield told us that he was having trouble finding a static venue to stage future shows.
When I was photographing the series on a semi-regular basis, almost all the shows were being presented at the Wheeler Arts Community building, a converted factory, a block west of Shelby Street in Indy's Fountain Square neighborhood south of Downtown. To my recollection, Butterfield never told recipients on the mailing list why Wheeler was no longer a viable, dependable option.
So when I read the recent news about Butterfield (shown in the lead-off and above photos) trying to establish a series in Greenfield, I went online to see what I could find out about what happened to the Indy Acoustic Cafe Series. What I learned was not surprising, I suppose, but it did sadden me.
It turns out Butterfield had shuttered the series in 2017, the same year I left Indy. The series' website remains active, but there is little information there except a link that brings up a long list of all the artists who had performed in the series over its almost 20 years.
Reading about that gave me the idea to do this retrospective piece -- putting memories of all the shows I photographed together in one post. To be sure, the performers represented in these images is a considerable minority of the series' aggregate performers' list. But they did involve 16 artists, which I feel is a decent representation.
The Indy Acoustic Cafe Series launched in January 1998 with shows staged at the former Rehearsal Studio Productions on South Keystone Avenue, just southwest of the avenue's exit off I-65. I don't remember reading or hearing about the series until more than a decade later. As I mentioned above, by the time I started dropping in on shows, Butterfield was now staging shows at Wheeler Arts Community.
Among artists the series had hosted through the years are a few you might recognize: Tom Rush, Rory Block, David Lindley, Ellis Paul, John Gorka, Jonathan Edwards, Nils Lofgren, Shawn Mullins, Craig Fuller, Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett (think Little Feat), Loudon Wainright III, Freedy Johnston, Darden Smith, Vance Gilbert, David Wilcox, Nicholas Barron, Amy Speace and Patti Larkin. And that's just scratching the surface.
I stumbled upon the series in April 2010 when I saw a blurb in the Indy media promoting an upcoming show by Rory Block, a folk blues artist with whose work I had become familiar in recent years. I attended that show and more than a dozen others, mostly in 2011 and 2012, with two more in 2013 and my last one in 2015.
The retrospective below is presented in chronological order. If you're a regular visitor to this blog going back to 2010 or thereabouts, you've seen a lot of these photos before. But there are a few that are new to Photo Potpourri.
Below the collection of performance photos are two extra categories -- one on instrument closeups, the other on audience shots.
RORY BLOCK, April 10, 2010
I started taking pictures early on in Rory Block's show, and after three songs, a man came up to me and asked if I was with the news media. When I responded no, he identified himself as being with Block's entourage and said that Rory does not allow photographs taken at her shows by anyone outside of the media. So I stopped taking pictures.
I did not do anything with pictures from the first three songs for many years afterward ... until about three years ago, when I decided to create a gallery of my shots from her show at my SmugMug online site. On the presumption that Block's objection was based on concern that people outside her control would profit from her shows without her approval or authorization, I do not allow the purchase of any images in the gallery from her show.
Today is the first time I have presented any of the Block images in a blog post. Images in my blog post are always of low-resolution quality, making it difficult for anyone who makes copies of these low-rez photos without my permission to make prints of those copies without experiencing resultant pixelization issues.
Unfortunately, I had trouble enjoying the rest of Block's show because of that encounter with Block's representative. In the days after the show, I emailed Mark Butterfield and explained to him what had happened and asked him if he had any objections to me photographing artists at his shows, and he said no. So I told him I would make a point to contact artists ahead of time to get permission to shoot at future shows to avoid what had happened to me at Block's show.
And for the record, only one future artist objected to photographs. I'll identify that person later.
DARDEN SMITH, Jan. 29, 2011
This show, the first one I shot after Block, was responsible for grabbing my endearing favor. Texas singer-songwriter Darden Smith, who I remember well not only because of the music, but also because of his delightful stories about how some of the songs came to pass.
He handled bumps along the way nonchalantly -- such as when the battery in his electric guitar died in mid-song. Some performers might have freaked and unraveled; Smith simply called out to Butterfield to ask him to retrieve a new one. People in the audience felt like they were right behind him, rallying to fix the problem. It was impressive.
The seating layout in the performance room of the Wheeler concert hall for this show had changed from the setup used at the Rory Block performance. The new layout -- putting the stage in the middle of one of the much longer two walls of the rectangular-shaped hall -- not only brought a lot more people closer to the performer, but it also introduced some wonderful angles for a photographer to exploit dramatic stage lighting. The image above is one such example.
In post-processing, I did exaggerate the contrast, as you might have suspected, but I did so because I wanted this look. I later made a blue tint version of the monochrome and used it among my four entries in a monthlong photo club exhibition at the Garfield Park Arts Center in which "blues" was my theme. I later gifted a framed version of the Darden Smith blues version to my oldest son.
Smith was on tour promoting his then-new CD, Marathon, and spent the first half of his performance playing songs from the new release. My favorites from the CD are The Truth of the Rooster (love the melody, guitar chords, soft trumpet notes and piano trickles throughout, and the lyrical story of deception), the rhythmic Bull by the Horns and the stark, haunting That Water. He used the post-intermission set to play requests from his repertoire, which dates to 1984.
He also found favor from the crowd with his anecdotes, one of which I remember involved a huge funny sign he came across at the airport in Milwaukee. I just don't remember anymore what the sign said. But that was the anecdote he was sharing in the third photo below, with the resultant reaction from audience members in the front row in the photo immediately after it.
To view a full gallery of images from his show, follow the link in this sentence.
FREEDY JOHNSTON, March 26, 2011
I most remember Freedy Johnston for his 1990s hits Bad Reputation (covered by Death Cab for Cutie and Seven Mary Three) and On the Way Out (and actually have the latter on a 1990s CD song mix I burned several years ago).
During lulls between songs, Freedy set up many of the next numbers with background stories shared with the audience while simultaneously fine-tuning strings on the instruments he played -- acoustic and electric guitars and a ukulele.
His composition anecdotes were memorable; for example, a 4-year-old girl's quarter-note-off tuning of a string on a guitar that Johnston had handed to her evolved into his Rain on the City, title track of his current CD, which Johnston played at this show.
Another song, composed in conjunction with the Hobart Brothers and Lil' Sis Hobart -- a side project he is exploring with John Dee Graham and Susan Cowsill (yes, of the 1960s pop group the Cowsills) -- originated from a casual sit-down and give-and-take out West one evening.
Johnston didn't play On the Way Out at his show here, but he did end his set with a very nice rendition of the 1982 Marshall Crenshaw hit Someday, Someway.
NICHOLAS BARRON, March 26, 2011
Before playing a single note opening for Johnston, Chicago-based
Nicholas Barron (above) warned anybody who would be seeing him for the first time that he's known for his constant movement and gyrations during his shows. He most certainly was all of that, injecting powerful emotion into his husky-voiced delivery and when hitting those high notes.
In addition to performing mostly original compositions, Barron did a rhythmic rendition of Leonard Cohen's familiar and oft-covered "Hallelujia," as well as a classic blues tune, which he performed when I was low and camped out at stage right (first photo below), a favorite vantage point of mine at the Wheeler's spartan, but cozy theater.
That corner allows me to enjoy a blackened background, as stage lighting does some dramatic contrast highlighting of facial and instrumental features. Barron also injected periodic oral percussives into his tunes. The percussives are "cluck" sounds, with the tongue and an open mouth (one instance pictured in the first photo below. That deep red color below his mouth is from a tiny stage spotlight).
BROOKS WILLIAMS, April 11, 2011
Brooks Williams is a Statesboro, Ga., native who was based in Cambridge, England, at the time of this show. He's a wonderful singer and songwriter, but his guitar-playing is what captivates -- and validates his inclusion as one the Top 100 Acoustic Guitarists of all time as listed by
DigitalDreamDoor. At the time, Williams'
Guitar Player album was on the site's list of Top 100 Acoustic Guitar Albums of all time.
It was a delight to see him let loose and flow as the guitar licks and riffs rolled off his fingers with the savvy of a maestro. His immersion into the music, hopefully, will be evidenced by the selection of images I took from his show.
Williams has a deft on-stage manner with the audience, and he delighted everyone not only with several blistering blues solos (I can only say "wow"), but a medley of short instrumental riffs from famous rock songs, from the iconic opening licks of Jimi Hendrix's classic Purple Haze to the Who's signature Overture from the rock opera Tommy. He joked that if he integrates a few more of those into the medley, it might be worth a full show.
At the time, Williams' website said he had a new Live Blues EP just out and that it should be available at concert sites that month. It wasn't among his CDs for sale at the show. Williams' career spans several decades -- and 17 CDs (at the time).
Indeed, the blues were an early influence in his musical journey, one that switched focus when, like many in his age and generation, he first encountered rock and roll. But after opening for Rory Block at a show in upstate New York in 1987, he was inspired to rediscover the acoustic blues he learned as a youth, teaching himself songs by blues legends Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Little Water Jacobs.
AMY SPEACE, April 11, 2011
Nashville, Tenn.-based
Amy Speace, promoting her 2011 CD
Land Like a Bird, opened for headliner Williams. She entertained the nearly full house with ballads that touched the heart and soul ... and with anecdotes -- even if they had nothing to do with a song -- that made lovely vocal interpretations even more enjoyable.
One narrative that had no song associated with it was the story of how Speace's grandparents met and took a liking to each other almost immediately, but delayed plans of marriage for many years because her grandmother had family to look after.
In another, she divulged having "sort of a crush" on the man who came to fame as the face of Verizon Wireless, Paul "Can you hear me now?" Marcarelli, whom she said was then-recently fired by the communications company. She used that story to transition into Change for Me off the new album, making a point to repeat the lyric "Can you hear me now?" and coaxing the audience to sing along.
In a third tale, she related how folk icon Judy Collins had planned to sing The Weight of the World, a Speace composition, at the 50th anniversary Newport Folk Festival in 2009 and announce to the audience that Speace was its composer. Just as Collins was about to say Amy's name, Speace said, Pete Seeger -- who was off to the side -- distracted Collins, who then traded good-natured barbs with the dean of America's folk singers.
When Collins returned to the microphone, she launched into the song, apparently forgetting to tidy up her introduction by mentioning Speace's name. Well, it's out there now -- even if only here.
True, it's not the Newport Folk Festival, but at least I didn't skip the most important part. Amy did say she's "good" with Collins, who later recorded the song on her 2010 Paradise CD; in fact, Speace was the first artist Collins signed to her Wildflower record label. Speace did joke that it's just Seeger she needs to settle with.
JAMES HOUSE, Nov. 19, 2011
Singer-songwriter
James House co-wrote Grammy- and Song of the Year-nominated hits for country stars Martina McBride (
A Broken Wing) and Dwight Yokim (
Ain't That Lonely Yet).
House scored a hit of his own --
This Is Me Missing You -- in 1995 (reaching No. 5 on the charts), but he's better known for his compositions recorded successfully by other artists, including McBride and Yokim (both tunes reached No. 1) and Diamond Rio's
In a Week or Two, which reached No. 2 in 1993.
He delighted a nice-sized turnout, including when he jokingly introduced a "medley of my hit" (
This Is Me Missing You). His show was the series’ last in 2011.
VANCE GILBERT, Jan. 14, 2012
Vance Gilbert, a Philadelphia native, started out in jazz and gravitated to folk music -- with a healthy portion of comedy as part of his act. It was Gilbert's first return to the Series in 10 years, but he has graced the series stage on many occasions, including once during the opening season (1998).
He started in R&B, and along the way, he realized he had a talent for storytelling and was invited to join Shawn Colvin on her 1992 Fat City tour. He also has been a voice coach throughout the globe and currently is on staff as instructor/professor at the University of Colorado-Denver.
GRIFFIN HOUSE, Jan. 14, 2012
For the
Griffin House show, I did a little something different; I shot almost exclusively with a new Sigma 85mm f/1.4 lens, mostly to explore its advantage and/or limitations. I did grab some closeups with a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens near the end of his set. In most of my cafe series shoots, I use my Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens along with the 70-200.
While processing the photos at home after the show, I had to wonder if Griffin knows just how often he keeps his eyes closed while performing. I get it ... it can help intensify poignant lyrical moments. But I had to search long and hard to come up with just a few quality shots from the show when Griffin had his eyes open.
But in retrospect, I think I was too harsh. After reviewing my images from the Darden Smith show, I noticed that Smith has eyes closed in a lot of photos.
SHAWN MULLINS, Feb. 24, 2012
Shawn Mullins came to Indianapolis to perform almost a year before this date. I went to that 2011 show but didn't take pictures because I was with my grown children and wanted to enjoy the show with them.
Mullins returned to Indianapolis along with singer-songwriter Callaghan, a UK native who makes her home in Atlanta, Ga. Callaghan also had opened for Mullins in 2011. And just like last year, the show was a sellout, which I'm sure delighted Series organizer Butterfield, who donates all beverage sales proceeds from the shows to charity.
Mullins had a new album to promote, Light You Up, and he played several songs from it, including the title track as well as California and The Ghost of Johnny Cash. The latter was one of two encore numbers; the other was Lullaby, a Billboard Top Ten hit in 1999. He also sang Beautiful Wreck, a single from his 2006 album 9th Ward Pickin' Parlor.
Joining Mullins on stage at the show was Patrick Blanchard, who plays bass for Mullins’ full band and played lead electric guitar for this show. To view a
full gallery of images from his show, follow the link in this sentence.
CALLAGHAN, Feb. 24, 2012
Callaghan was clearly excited about the imminent release of her first CD,
Life in Full Colour, which was due out that May, although people attending this show were able to purchase advance copies.
At the end of his set, Mullins invited Callaghan back to the stage to sing two then-new songs with him, and for the second of these tunes, both Mullins and Callaghan stepped away from their microphones and stepped to the front edge of the stage, no more than 3 feet from audience members sitting in the front row (see fourth photo below).
Callaghan would be back in Indianapolis in less than two weeks; she headlined a show at 8 p.m. March 8 at the Irving Theater, 5505 E. Washington St. Opening for her was an Indianapolis duo that goes by the name the Yellow Kites.
ELLIS PAUL, March 17, 2012
Ellis Paul was a singer-songwriter out of Boston when he first appeared in the series' debut show in January 1998. He was making his home in Virginia when he appeared at this show in 2012.
He ran late for the show and jokingly blamed the recent change in time from Standard to Daylight Savings. He made up for it with his music, his passion in the performance and with some pleasant stories between songs, including one that transitioned into a cover of a Roy Orbison classic, for which he borrowed sunglasses from a member of the audience to add a touch of reality to the Orbison "look" (see photo above).
He even had a couple of audience participation songs, and a photo of one of those from his last song, when he left the stage and filtered out into the audience to perform Annalee without the benefit of microphones and stage lights, appears below. In fact, lighting in the middle of the crowd was almost non-existent, so I did what I'd never done before on my Canon 7D -- I pushed the ISO to its maximum level, 12,800.
CRAIG and PATRICK FULLER, April 7, 2012
Anyone who enjoyed and/or remembers pop music in the 1970s and '80s surely was touched at some point by Craig Fuller. He founded the country-rock band Pure Prairie League, which had 1970s hits in "Aime" and "Let Me Love You Tonight."
In 1987, Fuller joined and fronted the reassembled band Little Feat, which had gone on a lengthy hiatus after the death in 1979 of band co-founder Lowell George. Fuller helped restore Little Feat's position among rock's echelon. He was the force behind three attention-grabbing Little Feat albums, Let It Roll, Representing the Mambo and Shake Me Up.
In 1998, Pure Prairie League reformed with Fuller at the helm.
Fuller went on to other projects through the years, and now is touring as an acoustic act with his son Patrick, including this show at the Indy Acoustic Cafe Series show. Fuller dipped sparingly into his Pure Prairie League and Little Feat repertoire; I was most impressed when he performed a Tom Rush song -- No Regrets -- that Fuller said he felt had gone grossly underappreciated over the years, and I wholeheartedly agree. Rush released the melancholy No Regrets in the early 1970s as the front, lyric portion of a two-part composition. The second half was an intriguing acoustic guitar solo romp called Rockport Sunday. Fuller didn't do the latter, but he took a nice stab at the former.
Patrick Fuller dazzled as an instrumentalist and on several solo tunes during the show. His charm was contagious, delighting the nearly full house in attendance in the intimate theater.To view a full gallery of images from their show, follow the link in this sentence.
JONATHAN EDWARDS, April 28, 2012
Jonathan Edwards delivered a rousing finish to the spring 2012 series season with a show that had spectators smiling, swooning, in awe and hootin' and hollerin' at all the right moments.
Like many artists who appear in the series and who travel the country and globe performing before intimate audiences, Jonathan Edwards flirted with significant fame at least once in his career -- his 1971 single Sunshine was a Top 40 Billboard hit -- before settling down to a busy, less commerce-driven lifestyle. The sense of humility and appreciation of people's enjoyment of the craft that Edwards exhibited has been a hallmark of almost all the performers I've seen at the Wheeler in the series.
Edwards' show was packed with storytelling, self-deprecation and a brief explanation for why he was performing barefoot (he joked that his shoes were confiscated by airport security). He displayed a sharp wit and playful interaction with the audience and delivered a spine-tingling bluesy-ballad cover of the Beatles' She Loves You that snuck up on just about everyone in the audience, including me. It had folks hootin' (including me) with excitement at song's conclusion.
He performed a charming, rhythmic, bayou-like romp, Don't Crawfish Me (a song he said a person he met in a bar offered to him), after which a spectator in the front two requested he play the ballad Sometimes. With Edwards’ blessing, the audience member then transmitted live via cellphone Edwards’ performance of the song to the spectator's wife, Marsha, who was not at the show. And yes, he performed Sunshine, giving it an interesting syncopation makeover.
After Edwards' final number of the regular set, I witnessed something I'd not seen at a Series show before: an immediate -- and unanimous -- standing ovation with more hoots and hollers. Would he come back to offer a clearly appreciative and satisfied audience an encore, and could it possibly top everything else he'd already done this night? Yes ... and yes. Edwards sung, a cappella, a stirring, spine-tingling (there's that phrase again) environment-awareness song that he dedicated to the recent observance of Earth Week.
Bottom line, the show became my new favorite of the dozen or so performances I've seen now in the series. As always, click on the images to see larger versions. The final image is from the compelling a cappella encore.
To view a
full gallery of images from the show, follow the link in this sentence.
DAVID WILCOX, Feb. 23, 2013
Ohio native
David Wilcox, making his first visit to the Series in three years, delivered a mix of fun, quirky and serious tunes that had the audience warming to him increasingly with each song. It helped that he set up many of the songs with back stories, and many of the anecdotes were laced with life-experience humor.
He introduced one of those songs -- a serious reflection on fatherhood based on his relationship with his own father -- with a humorous tale involving his then-very-young son Nate (now a college student) and the boy's fascination with a toy light saber. Wilcox animated Nate's motions, using his forearm to slice the air, delighting the crowd (see second photo below).
In one of his promotional emails before the show, Mark Butterfield had said this would be Wilcox's last visit to the series. He didn't explain how he knew that, or if Wilcox had told him he wouldn't be back, but after Saturday's show, I don't see how Wilcox could avoid Indy in the future unless he simply stops doing tours.
To view a full
full gallery of images from his show, follow the link in this sentence.
TOM RUSH, April 27, 2013
Singer-songwriter
Tom Rush, who performed at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 1505 N. Delaware St. (and not the Wheeler Center), has a repertoire that dates to the 1960s, and he has performed at many high-profile folk festivals through the years -- alongside James Taylor, Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell, to name just a few. Yet amazingly, his 2009 CD
What I Know was his first studio recording since 1974.
Rush's selection of songs at this 2013 show proved wildly entertaining. Among them were The Remember Song, The Fish Story Song, Ladies Love Outlaws and Let's Talk Dirty in Hawaiian. And as entertaining as the music was, Rush's yarns, which he spun freely to the delight of a healthy-sized crowd, were equally wonderful.
My "acquaintance" with Rush's work goes back to the summer between my junior and senior years in college in Wisconsin. I was still kind of reeling from a breakup with a gal for whom I had fallen hard my first year in college. Album-oriented rock stations were just becoming trendy then, and I latched onto a new one in Milwaukee, WZMF-FM, which would hold a formidable position in Milwaukee radio for 20-some years before suffering the fate of many such stations nationwide -- a change in ownership, format and call letters.
Late at night back then, when everyone else in the house had retired for the day upstairs, I'd lie in bed in the basement listening to new music being introduced on WZMF. It's where I first heard album cuts by such artists as Traffic, Blind Faith, the Allman Brothers, Rush, Rod Stewart and Faces and the first time I'd ever heard of solo performers Mississippi John Hurt, Jerry Jeff Walker, Lightnin' Hopkins, John Denver and John Prine.
One night, the station played a melancholy ballad about a guy lamenting the uncertainty of life ahead without the woman who had not only just left him but punctuated the split by departing on an airplane flight right before his very eyes -- "Goodbye, dry eyes, I watched her plane ... fade off west of the moon," as the lyric goes.
Then after the 3-and-a-half-minute tune appeared to fade, there appeared these compelling, solo acoustic guitar arpeggios, transitioning into a 4-minutes-plus instrumental ballad. The powerful storyline simpatico I had experienced moments earlier subsided as I sat up, in awe of this guitar romp, eager to find out who was responsible for it. The performer of both was Tom Rush, and the songs were
No Regrets and
Rockport Sunday. Until Saturday, I'd gone some 40 years knowing nothing about the background of those compositions.
Like I do for all the Indy Acoustic Cafe shows that I photograph, I contacted Rush a few weeks in advance of his show to make sure he had no objection to me photographing his performance. The groupie in me came out in my inquiry email, and I divulged to Rush the effect his
No Regrets / Rockport Sunday had on me in my college days. He acknowledged my email and told me photography would not be a problem at the show. He complimented the photos he had seen in my
gallery of the Acoustic Cafe Series. He did not say anything about what I had told him about
No Regrets / Rockport Sunday. I couldn't help but wonder if that meant he'd played them so often that he'd grown tired of them and wouldn't play them in Indy.
At Saturday's show, after a thoroughly enjoyable set and a half of songs and anecdotes, Rush jokingly mentioned that he now was going to play "a medley of my hit." I felt a rush (no pun intended) of excitement, because I was familiar enough with his discography to know that, unlike contemporaries Taylor, Browne and Mitchell, Rush had no Billboard single hits. But I did know that No Regrets was one of his best-known and most-covered tunes.
Rush then told the audience a story that confirmed my suspicion. He said he had written the song to impress a new love interest in the 1960s. (One might question the logic of how a song about a breakup would impress a new love interest, but when I was that young, my mind unfortunately often worked in similar, reverse-psychology fashion, so I had no trouble relating).
He also told how at an East Coast festival where he performed the song many years ago, a woman stood near the stage signing the lyrics for the hearing impaired in the audience. He stopped in mid-performance -- and couldn't continue, he said -- when he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, the woman using a horns-on-head gesture at the point where the lyrics were "strange faces in your place can't keep the ghosts away." The woman apparently had misheard the word "goats" for "ghosts."
Incredibly, years later in Wyoming, before taking the stage at another outdoor live performance, Rush said, he noticed the same woman off to the side, again signing lyrics. When he came to No Regrets during his show, he told the audience the story about the "ghosts" and "goats" snafu ... and got his revenge. He did not say whether the female signer took it in good stride or otherwise, unfortunately.
Inspiration for the acoustic-guitar instrumental Rockport Sunday, Rush said, came simply as he sat one Sunday along the Massachusetts coastline, watching the ocean's waves lap against the rocks, and he composed the tune to try to convey what that moment sounded like.
Interestingly, the two songs' sequence on Rush's late-1960s album The Circle Game on the Elektra label is the opposite of how I first heard them on WZMF. The vinyl and CD have No Regrets following the instrumental. I'll always know it the other way around, which is how the songs appear on the Elektra compilation album Classic Rush, which is what WZMF was using when I first heard them.
DAVID LINDLEY, May 2, 2015
After the Tom Rush show, I stayed away from the Indy Acoustic Cafe Series for a while, although I did attend a show in October 2014 by Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett, both members of Little Feat, but I did not photograph it.
At this point in time, series coordinator Mark Butterfield appeared to be having difficulty finding a place to hold performances on a permanent, regular basis. I don't remember what the problem with Wheeler Arts Center was, but the Tom Rush show in 2013 had been held at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, and the Barrere-Tacket show was held at Hedback Community Theater, 1847 N. Alabama St.
When I saw that
David Lindley was coming to Indianapolis for the series, I decided I'd attend, but when I contacted Lindley ahead of time -- as I did for all the performers I was interested in shooting -- he said that Butterfield had told him that some members of the audience at previous shows apparently had been bothered by the guy walking around the performance room taking pictures, so Lindley asked that I not shoot his show.
I dropped Butterfield a note after talking to Lindley, and told him I wouldn't shoot any more shows because I didn't want to imperil the series. Butterfield never acknowledged my email or responded.
I did attend the Lindley show, but as I sat there in the far right area of the front row, I thought it incredulous that several people in the audience were taking pictures and/or videos of the performance with their phones, so ... I decided I wasn't going to be left out. The four photos from this show in this post were taken with my iPhone.
Lindley's was the last series show I attended. I didn't learn until 2024, well after I had moved to Raleigh, that Butterfield brought the curtain down on the series in 2017.
GUITAR/INSTRUMENT CLOSEUPS AND ODDITIES
Vance Gilbert's shadow (above, and the stage before his and Griffin House's show (below)
The stage before Darden Smith's show (above) and Smith in performance (first two below)Callaghan on guitar (above) and on keyboards (below)
Shawn Mullins on acoustic guitar (above) and Paul Blanchard on electric guitar (below) Ellis Paul on keyboards (above), a change of pace from his usual fret work (below) Nicholas Barron
Patrick Fuller (above) and with dad, Craig (right below)
Rory Block
David Lindley's footwear and set list (above) and Jonathan Edwards' lack of footwear (below) as noted in the main section of this post above.
AUDIENCE SHOTS
Above, I included an audience reaction shot from the Darden Smith and Ellis Paul shows, but I took quite a few other audience shots through the course of my visits to series shows. I present a few more of those below. The first two gives you an idea of the stage and seating format that existed for most of the shows.
They especially illustrate that narrow but long seating area. Until 2012, the stage was were I was standing when I took that shot, and seats were set out backward, which meant anyone sitting in the back had horrible sight lines.
From the David Wilcox show
The "Can You Hear Me Now" sing-along from Amy Speace's show
Above and below are from the Craig and Patrick Fuller show
Above and below are from the Ellis Paul show. The one above is during an audience participation tune. I previously showed you a frame from when Ellis went out into the crowd to play up close and personal near the end of the show. I took a couple dozen shots during that venture, and the one below is the one and only one in which I dared to use flash.
From the Shawn Mullins/Callaghan show
Above: From the Darden Smith show. Below, during a break in the same show.
Above and below are from the Vance Gilbert/Griffin House show, the one above during one of the performances, and the one below at the conclusion, just as the artists were meeting audience members while selling CDs (in the far left corner).
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