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LIFE
Dave Lavender: Steve Free adds one more show to his 27 gigs this month
Yep, it's my birthday today, and sad to say, I can't continue the line that Daymond John (founder of FUBU) told me once about his age being "in his very early 30s."
Fellow Scioto County native Steve Free, who's chalked up more miles than John McCain and Barack Obama, sent me a great link to a Web site that lets you find out what was the No. 1 song on the day you were born.
For me, it was Edwin Starr's "War."
Good god, y'all. Go online at www.joshhosler.biz/ and click onto the link "Number one song on any date in history" to find your own No. 1 hit.
"Come home" to Camden Park
Speaking of Free, the hardest working man in the folk business, he will have chalked up 27 gigs this month, and he ends his hot August run with a three-day 2 p.m. stand at the family-run, family-fun, Camden Park.
Turn at the sign of the happy clown for a good shot of folk-rocking live music from Free, who just released his best project to date.
Free's CD, "Coming Home," features 13 original tunes that cover the kind of ground that could only appear on a work by Free.
Free, who produced the project and plays classical guitar, harmonica, acoustic guitar and Native flute, pays homage to his Native American roots on "Ho Wa Ne Ba Ke Che" tosses in some Buffett-broiled island tunes, such as "Leaving for the Island" and "Party on the River" and leaves room in the inn for some real heart-felt songs about home and family.
"Everybody's Friend," the first single from the Fraternity Records CD, was penned about his brother who passed away.
According to Free's better half, and one heck of a flute player herself, Susan Sammons, the single is now being played in 15 countries including most of Europe, as well as Israel, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Fraternity also shipped the single to more than 200 Christian country stations in 35 states.
Check out more about Free online at www.stevefree.com.
Sleepy Joe blows up
For the past couple weeks, I've had a flat-out smoking, rockin' blues CD out of San Francisco stuck in my CD player.
"Time for a New Dance Floor," an indie disc put out by a veteran group of Bay Area players called Ray and the Detonators, has some smoking blues joints like "Walk, Stumble Crawl" and "Rock Until They Roll Me Away."
We're giving it some love here because eight songs were written by Huntington native guitarist and songwriter, Joe Wiles, known with a guitar in his hand as Sleepy Joe Lee.
Fronted by Ray Bushbaum, who's got a John Hiatt-esque growl, the band has members who have played with everyone from Delbert McClinton and Bonnie Bramlett to Canned Heat and Frank Myers and the Country Earth Band.
Wiles, who now lives in Fairfield, Ohio, said in an e-mail that he's stoked about the eight cuts.
"I almost always write tunes with a break for a hot picker to solo and Ray and the Detonators hit that nail. It's a great album, in the pocket all the way, from some major league caliber players. I couldn't be more thrilled," he said.
Check out the Detonators at www.myspace.com/rayandthedetonators.
Deja vu all over again
Getting further and further away in my middle age from traveling long distances and paying hundreds of dollars to see "big bands," it was a nice treat to get the new 16-track live disc "CSNY: Deja Vu Live" that was an audio companion to the band's new documentary film that came out this summer directed by Neil Young.
Although I saw Neil Young once over yonder mountain at Farm Aid, this is probably the closest I'll get to a live CSNY show.
The name, of course, pays homage to the band's seminal second album released in 1970 in the height of the Vietnam War. The disc includes a pack of powerful live songs recorded during the band's 2006 Freedom of Speech Tour that criss-crossed North America.
It's invigorating to see Young, who penned "Ohio" immediately in response to the Kent State shootings in 1970, and the boys, still so boldly exercising their dissent to war and as Black Sabbath called them, war pigs.
Giving some birthday back
In celebration of my old-school birthday today, I'm going to give a reader all the new CDs I've mentioned in today's column.
Be the first person to call me at 304-526-6686 with the right answer to this question: Which member of CSNY wrote "Teach Your Children?" and you'll literally have some Free music, some CSNY, the Sleepy Joe Lee tunes and a few other new discs of the birthday boy's choosing.
Dave Lavender writes about music for The Herald-Dispatch. Contact him at 304-526-6686 or lavender@herald-dispatch.com.
Harry Connick Jr. 
Erik Meyers 
MU Theater: "The Glass Menagerie" 
Capital City Art and Craft Show 
Festival of Trees and Trains 
4th annual Holly Berry Festival 
Ashland Christmas Parade 
World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions 
51st annual Model Railroad Show 
Planetarium Show: "Reason for the Season" 
