MAY 2026 & BEYOND!
HOWDY Y'ALL! Finally... May has arrived & things are warmin' up here in Maine! The list of opportunities to catch some awesome shows, inside or out, is getting longer now. Playing 2 of my fave venues soon: THURS, MAY 14th I'm back at LENNY'S in WESTBROOK & I'm backta CADENZA in FREEPORT on SATURDAY, JUNE 13th! I am soooo looking forward to these shows & more.
Details, Links & Musings are listed below in this order:
1. TARGET GIGS (Full Details)
2. CURRENT CEREBRAL WANDERINGS
1. TARGET GIGS (Full Details)
THURSDAY / MAY 14th / LENNY'S / WESTBROOK ME / 6:30 to 9PM / 207-591-0177... After closing for renovations & a transition to new ownership, Lenny's reopened in March! I was one of the first performers back on stage at this sweet "feels like home" spot. It was a fabulous night per usual. I hope you'll join us for the fun, the food, the music & the continued welcoming in of Jill Piker & her team. And THANKS for remembering the suggested donation for music is $10 pp in "Phil" the tip basket ("Phil" is short for "fill it up please!")
SATURDAY / JUNE13th / CADENZA / FREEPORT ME / 7PM / 207-560-5300... (doors at 6:15!) Cadenza has become one of the best listening rooms around. Being part of the LIVE audience here is an intimate & lovely experience.... Plus, they have beer, wine, coffee & other beverages & snacks... also, you can order food from Brickyard Hollow next door & they deliver it to Cadenza! Reservations are strongly encouraged. A word of caution: please don't wait until the last minute, hoping to buy tickets at the door, as the doors may not open... staff needs to be paid before performers & there have been times when low presales dictated that the owners had to cancel or reschedule shows. This hasn't happened to me yet & I hope it never does. This is one of my fave rooms to play, unlike any other... so thanks in advance for reserving your seats ahead of showtime! Here's the ticket link. They are still livestreaming these shows... the livestream link is here. Donations during the stream (or anytime!) are always greatly appreciated at:
Pay Pal: PayPal.Me/anniclarkmaine or
Venmo: @Anni-Clark
2. CURRENT CEREBRAL WANDERINGS
April was a month of many surprises, some good, some not. On April 2nd I revisited an old haunt of mine... I went back to the Suds Pub in Bethel ME where I used to play frequently back in the 80s & 90s... had not been there in quite a while. I was hoping to surprise my pal Denny Breau who had been running the open mic there on Thursday nights for decades... brought my guitar & was ready to play some tunes with him. The surprise was on me... Denny had given notice 2 weeks prior that he was passing the torch to Jim McLaughlin, the music director at Gould Academy down the street. Coulda been a bummer, but Jim turned out to be an amazing keyboard player & singer & I got to play a few tunes with him, which turned out to be a pile of fun!
Anni w/ Jim McLaughlin at Suds Pub, Bethel ME, 4/2/26
I decided to hang out & enjoy the other musicians. At one point, a young performer climbed on stage, sat on a stool & started singing well known songs while his partner accompanied him on guitar beside him. I was immediately pulled in... this young man's voice had such resonance & emotional integrity in it that I was soon asking folks nearby about him. It turns out he was Brady Chapman, the son of Sammy Chapman. OMG. Sammy Chapman was one of the first players & singer-songwriters I met when I went to my first open mic in April 1979 in Naples ME. Think about that... 47 years ago. Sammy & I & members of the group of musicians he was hangin' with became fast friends. We'd hang out whenever we could, exchanging chords & song ideas. Sammy wrote some fabulous songs & I learned several of them & put them into a set list I was creating, hoping to start playing my own shows soon. 5 months after I met him, I got my first gig. I quit my day job a 1 ½ years later & I never looked back. So... the hard part is this... Sammy died in a freak wood chipper accident back in 2013. Horrible. I went to his Celebration of Life... all the local musicians were there. It was heart breaking. If I do my math right, his son Brady must have been in his 20s then & I must have met him briefly at that very sad event. Fast forward to April 2, 2026... here's Brady singing his ass off at Suds Pub. I just had to go tell him how much I missed his Dad & how much he helped me believe in myself as a singer-songwriter 47 years ago. It was a very special moment walking up to the stage to share that with him.
Anni & Brady Chapman at Suds Pub, 4/2/26
Wow. That stuff doesn't happen every day right? So even though I went there to surprise Denny Breau, all the surprises were on me. Next big surprise was that it kept snowing here in southern Maine in April. It stayed cold & dark & some days it was mixed precip that made it tough to get around. Ahh well... April snow should not be such a big surprise... it's happened many times before. A really GOOD surprise came a few days back when I woke to a Monday with time off, the sun shone bright & the temp reached 60 degrees here on the southern coast of Maine. I just had to pull my bike outta the shed, pump up the tires & take that first bike ride in '26 on the Eastern Trail near my home.
A bike break near the marsh, Scarborough ME, 4/27/26
That day offered up another very cool surprise when, while I was taking that break, sitting on a trailside bench listening to the birds & enjoying the sun & the breeze on my face... my good friend Lisa Ronco rode by on her bike, saw me sitting there & stopped. We had a fun bit of a hang.
Anni & Lisa Ronco, Scarborough ME, 4/27/26
Lisa & I rode a while together on the trail & agreed that some day soon we would meet on our bikes on purpose & make a day of it! You know, ride from there to the beach, grab some lunch, hear some music perhaps. Someday soon...
And with that in mind, I'll close out wishing you all some sweet surprises ahead. A great surprise for me would be to see some of you soon on the trail, at the beach, on a mountaintop, on the streets &/or at an upcoming show. Thanks for tuning in to my ramblings... your support means more to me than you can know. Take care of yourselves & each other.
Peace,
