[Dixielandjazz] Retirement Home Gig

[Roy (Bud) Taylor]

Nursing Home patients are about as appreciative of music as fans can get.  I
commend you for doing the gig and suggest you work a couple in each season.
It is also a great place to rehearse some kinks out of tunes because they
won't care if you replay a number just to make sure you have it working the
way you want.  They are also tolerant of less than perfect vocalists (like
me).

A tune we always play for nursing homes is Melancholy Blues with the
vocals.  Those lyrics mean so much to many people who have been parked there
by families too busy to spend much time with them.   I repeat them here for
all you list mates to reflect:

Way down, in my heart deep,
Those weary blues begin to creep.
Every evening, when the sun goes down.

Those friends I used to know,
Never stop to say hello.
By my window, they keep me weeping.

And that is why I'm melancholy.
I'm just as blue and lonesome...
As I can be.
Please tell me why..oh why,
Should I be jolly?
When nobody...nobody cares for me.

Like the flowers need the sun,
They crave the dew when the day is done.
I need someone to tell all my troubles to.

And that is why, oh why, I am so melancholy.
I got those mean old Melancholy Blues.

A great tune to improvise on and means so much to the Nursing Home crowd.



-- 
Roy (Bud) Taylor
Smugtown Stompers Jazz Band
Traditional Jazz since 1958
"we ain't just whistling dixie!"