Best request you ever received

Subject: Best request you ever recieved
From: berk
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 01:41 PM

Have you ever got a request that was unexpected? What were some of the best? I was pleasantly suprised three weeks ago, when in between the requests for "Wild Rover" and "The Unicorn" a younger woman requested "Kilkenny Ireland". It made my night.

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: C-flat
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 01:50 PM

I've been asked to play "Bohemian Rhapsody" on a six string!

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: Maryrrf
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 02:00 PM

I enjoyed getting a request for "Lark in the Morning" not too long ago! Very unusual and it's a song I like to sing.

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 02:05 PM

People usualy ask me if I can sing something from Ireland - Because they would not be able to hear me then. Second best is being asked if I can play dominoes...;-)

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 02:05 PM

The best request I ever received should probably not be repeated in public!! :>)

A

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: SharonA
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 02:05 PM

Anytime anyone requests a song I wrote, I'm thrilled and proud and humbled all at once.

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 02:15 PM

Ya.. I'm with Sharon...

Or another is if they request a song that they know -I- do really differently from anyone else in the area... Like my Bluegrass/Klesmer version of Leonard Cohen's "Closing Time"

I also really like it when someone steps up and requests, "Hey many, can I get ya a drink?"

:-)

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: gnu
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 03:00 PM

Anytime someone asked, "You know the one you did earlier.... ?" That's when I know they really did like it.

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 03:36 PM

When a very nice woman came up to the stage and said "Can I take you to lunch tomorrow"? I practically passed out!

Can't remember the BEST request, but the worst was when a guy asked repeatedly for James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James". I played it, and he once again made the journey to the stage to tell me, "You're no James Taylor"! I still laugh, when I think of that one.

Rick

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: GUEST,Marion
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 05:22 PM

Once when I was busking in a town in the Ottawa Valley, there was an old man who stopped to listen for a while then asked for Maple Sugar. Nothing unusual about that - Maple Sugar is practically the anthem of Ottawa Valley fiddling, and 95% of the requests I got were for either Maple Sugar or Ste. Anne's Reel.

After I played the tune, the old man told me that he was a cousin of the late Ward Allen (who wrote the tune), that they had grown up together, and that he was with Ward the day when they were at a sugar shack and Ward was inspired to write the tune. I persuaded him to play a few tunes on my fiddle, despite his claim that he hadn't played for years and couldn't anymore.

Coolest thing that's happened to me while busking.

Marion

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 05:41 PM

Last week, my gospel quartet did a concert at a small church. Our other baritone, Frank, sang "He Looked Beyond My Faults And Saw My Needs." He sings it with such raw emotion that we can't look at him when he's singing or we break down. He reduced many people to tears, and after we did the next song to end the concert, the Pastor of the church came up and asked if we would do "He Looked Beyond My Faults" a second time. That is the only time in my life when I've ever experienced someone asking to repeat a song. So, I played the guitar introduction and Frank sang the song with even greater power. At one point, he couldn't sing because he was so moved and I knew that if I looked over at him, it would be all over. So, I just kept playing a pattern on the same chord until he was able to recover his composure and finished the song. When he finished, everyone was stunned.

I don't expect to ever have an experience like that again.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: Noreen
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 05:52 PM

Wonderful, Jerry. Thank you.

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: harvey andrews
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 06:33 PM

Peter Sellars told a wonderful story of when he was drummer in a jazz band playing Birmingham Town Hall. A couple waltzed past the stage and the man asked; "Can yow play "Jealousy"? When he came round again Sellars said; "We don't know it." He came round again. "Jealousy!" Sellars shook his head. Again he came round. and shouted; "Will you play "Jealousy"? Sellars shouted back "We've never rehearsed it!" Back he came again, stared malevolently at Sellars and said; "Shitface!" Sellars said he never played drums professionally again.

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 06:51 PM

Jerry, that's wonderful.

For me, I guess it was the time a fellow asked me to sing Don Lang's song, "HERE'S TO YOU ROUNDERS"--a song I had on my first LP--even before Don Had recorded it himself. The fellow told me that that song saved his marriage. I'll never forget that one.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: kendall
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 06:58 PM

I'll try to narrow it down. One time, after a folk festival, a young attractive woman came and said her family owned an island in Greece, and that she was on her way there, and, wanted to know if I would like to join her. I didn't know her from Adam's off ox, and didn't dare go. Today, I would! Another time at a Bluegrass picking party, one of my critical brothers asked me to do the talking blues I wrote about the lack of real country music.

Subject: RE: Best request you ever recieved
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 07:52 PM

Sharon got it right on the button. I'm sometimes asked to play "that song of yours, the one with the chorus...". It's called Annie Won't You Stay and it's a true story about me and a girl called Annie Weichler (from Chicago) when we met in Dartmouth, Devon, UK one summer along time ago.

There's a young folk group here in the UK called Suntrap and I'm under standing instructions to play it whenever they come to our club.

As an amateur and a not very prolific song writer, it's about as good as it gets.

Pete J