Gallery Concert With Josh Rose and His Friends
Originally Published in The Lowell Ledger
It has been said in the best of circles that you meet the coolest people at Lowell Arts. This truth was driven home in a delightful fashion to a near capacity crowd at the latest Gallery Concert: Love and Other Songs last Saturday night. The evening was a songwriter showcase put together by local musician Josh Rose (speaking of cool people yours truly met at Lowell Arts).
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| Josh Rose |
When he isn’t teaching Chemistry and AP Chemistry to his students at Lowell High School, Josh is perfecting his songwriting and performing skills. Well, according to him, he is always composing songs in his head.
“Writing songs is what I do. Constantly. When I am teaching classes, there are songs running though my head. No matter what I am doing, there are songs being worked on in my head,” Rose told the audience.
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| Annie Bacon |
Josh gathered three of his songwriting friends and treated the audience to a rotating selection of their work in the style of a songwriters in the round performance you might experience in Nashville. Michelle Held came over from the Detroit area, she currently lives in Dearborn. Annie Bacon made the most of her drive from her home in Ann Arbor by spending the afternoon in Alto with another musical friend working on their musical before coming to Lowell Arts. Filling out the bill from Grand Rapids was musican and producer Michael Crittenden – whom you may know from his band Troll For Trout. Rose met Bacon and Held at a writers retreat and has been friends with Crittenden for years, giving Michael credit for introducing him to the West Michigan musical scene years ago when Josh moved here from the UP. Crittenden produced Rose’s recently released CD, “Foreverland.”
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| Michelle Held |
The commaraderie and affection the four musicians shared was highly evident from the onstage banter and encouragement back and forth as each musician played songs in rotation, with occasional background vocals from the others or some supplemental keyboards from Crittenden filling in.
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| Michael Crittenden |
The best part of having musicians in this kind of format is that it affords each one of them space to give some background to the song they are about to perform. The overarching theme of the night, Love and Other Songs, was aimed at love songs tieing in with Valentine’s Day, but the “other” songs figured strongly in the mix. The little stories between songs ran the emotional gamut from a tearful dedication to a friend who had recently passed to large doses of humor with shout outs to Lou Reed, David Bowie, and MC Hammer, the latter of which included a demonstration that folkies can rap. The result was a most excellent way to enjoy the considerable talents of four Michigan musicians in a wonderful gallery setting.
As the TV ads, say: “Wait there is more.” The audience was given a small taste of the musical in the works by Annie Bacon. She is collaborating with Alto musician, Kyle Rasche. For one of Bacon’s songs in the second part of the show, Kyle jumped on stage for a duet from the musical.
To cap off the evening the four musicians paid tribute to composer extraordinaire Burt Bacharach, who passed away earlier in the week. Their song choice was perfect: “What The World Needs Now Is Love” the mega hit Bacharach wrote with Hal David in 1965.
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| The Finale |
Thanks Josh, for introducing the audience to three more cool people at Lowell Arts. There are three more gallery concerts scheduled this season. All are on Saturday nights at 7 pm. March 25th , The Bluewater Ramblers. April 29th – The Wild Honey Collective and May 6th, Edye and Mike. Full details at www.lowellartsmi.org. More chances to meet more cool people if you ask me.
PS - A contingent of Josh Rose fans/students attended the concert complete with signage.
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