After missing 2 sessions I am back. Joining me this evening were Jen, Ken, Dan, Artie, Suzan, and we welcomed a newcomer, Iyla. Suzala, our founder, dropped in for a brief visit.

The theme was brand names in songs or commercial jingles. I really thought there'd be more variety but cars (Chevy's) and Coca Cola seemed to predominate.

We started off with TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME (Ken). Simple and brief as a wink but it did have a club favorite: the C-CMaj7-C7-A7 walk down.

Next was CROCODILE ROCK (me). I first tried this a bit under 3 years ago just after I started playing. I figured if this 7 year old could play so well, I could learn to do it too. Well, I am still not as good as she was then but a whole lot better than when I first tried. By the way she's 11 now and has moved on to a guitar. Still a sweetheart though.

The next 2 (from me) were Jimmy Buffet songs. CHEESEBURGER IN PARADISE AND MARGARITAVILLE. Both went fairly well. True parrot heads know to raise your arm and call out "SALT SALT SALT" at the end of this line in the chorus of MARGARITAVILLE:

(G) Searching for my lost (A) lost shaker of (D) salt (D7)

Dan treated us to a solo performance of the Tiparillo Cigar jingle. Good work Dan.

We sang an easy Bologna Song (Oscar Mayer) and the Slinky toy song (both from Ken). The slinky verse was a little tricky but we did fine on the chorus.

PALISADES PARK (Dan) was good. I am sure we've done this in the past.

Also from Dan, George Harrison's AWAITING ON YOU ALL, did not work out so well. BUT, Dan gave us a good C#m cheat: fingers on the first fret of the G and C strings, open on E and don't play the A string.

Jen gave us Paul Simon's KODACHROME which was a lovely song to play after Ken found a better chord sheet.

The Beatles COME TOGETHER (Ken) has some odd freaky lyrics and sounded much better when we played in Ken's 'happy ukkie' style.

In Bill's absence we played The Beach Boys FUN FUN FUN which was, ahem, fun.

Ken thought Wison Pickket's MUSTANG SALLY would work but in the end it was too challenging and we gave up.

Also from Ken, Don Henley's BOYS OF SUMMER was not so good. No one was familiar with the verse.

Someone came up with the idea to play the Eagles HOTEL CALIFORNIA which I call the hit of the night.

And we also did extremely well with Janis Joplin's MERCEDES BENZ (Ken).

And finally the Eagles TAKE IT EASY (Dan), a very good ending to the evening.

Our next theme is a repeat of TV Theme Songs. We last did this 3 years ago. I am confident that it will be fun to do again.

Until then, you keep strumming,

-- Arlene.