I’m thrilled to have a guest article from one of our hosts, Denise Williams, of Hillbilly Haiku.

~Music from the heart, not for the charts~

Mike & Rebecca, loyal supportersI was looking at my mailing list and wondering why in a year’s time of presenting house concerts, relatively few have come to one of our shows. Another host commented that he’d recently had a friend confess he really wasn’t sure what a house concert was all about. I could understand that because I still remember my initial impression when our friends in Texas told us they hosted house concerts.

Back then, I figured that Billy Bob (not a real artist) from down the block came over with his family band and they did a repertoire of familiar cover songs in a somewhat boozy sing-along type affair. Karaoke at home, for all intents and purposes.

I had also run across a mention of a Living Room Concert on Janis Ian’s website. For $14,999 Janis would do a show in your living room for up to 40 people, with a rather long list of guidelines and limits. The money went to Janis’s charity. In my ignorance I assumed anyone I’d really care to hear would charge quite handsomely for playing somewhere as small as a private home.

Then in 2006 we took our first trip to Texas and visited our friends who were hosting house concerts. That evening, Canadian singer songwriter Romi Mayes, accompanied on dobro by Dan Walsh, presented her original songs and they were GOOD. And she was funny - she actually told stories about her life and how the songs came about. And Dan played great!

David Celia, April 2008

We were hearing live acoustic music, good music!?, in someone’s living room. I was blindsided - I had no notion whatsoever that I could so enjoy a house concert by artists I’d never heard of. When the evening was over, we got to speak with the artists, we ate from the potluck and had a beer with them, they signed their CDs for us, we took photos together, we exchanged email information. In the back of my mind I was already trying to figure out how I could have this experience again.

Upon returning home, I started doing research on house concerts. When I found www.concertsinyourhome.com, I realized house concerts were a legitimate and growing phenomenon. It took a year to screw our courage up and begin presenting, but now a year later I can’t help wanting to let the world in our secret.

For music lovers, house concerts are nirvana! In a club environment, you are fighting the bar noise, the talkers at the next table, the pool table racket, the waitresses trying to take orders, etc, etc. Even at concert venues like the Ryman, I have been driven within an eyelash of physical violence when some nearby inebriated dullard insists on shouting over the music I’m trying to enjoy.

hillbilly friends and neighbors

At a house concert everyone is listening, and you’d be amazed at how much these artists will share when folks are actually listening! Our evenings start earlier and end at a reasonable hour for those who appreciate that. And there is a shared social interaction that occurs between music fans when they gather and share a potluck spread, talk about their favorite music, exchange recipes, share upcoming anticipated concerts, that is so natural and sustaining. I’d even say magical. Music has that power!

But by far, the biggest surprise of house concerts for me, is the quality of musicians who will play in someone’s living room for a nominal $15- $20 per person and an appreciative, attentive audience. From artists that I revere and admire and have followed for years, to artists I may have only recently discovered but whose music is SO much better than what I find on contemporary commercial radio or TV. Artists who make music because it’s in them and has to come out, not the sort of Nashville Music Row writing-to-a-formula-for-hits type music that leaves me empty at best and often disgusted

The living room is a viable music venue… Before it was a commercial commodity or an advertising support medium, music was a communicative channel, connecting kindred souls, reaching out to new opportunities, and calming the savage beast, so to speak. Small, intimate gatherings honor and celebrate those functions.
–Bill Littleton, songwriter

You’ll thoroughly enjoy the music we present, or the evening is on us. What have you got to lose? We’ll even introduce ya to Spartacus Hamlin, that crazy biker/Luthier dude. See our upcoming concerts on the Tennessee page. — Denise