When I was invited to attend this year's tribute to Jimmy Heap and The Melody Masters, I had no idea what to expect other than some enjoyable music.  Boy.....did I ever underestimate what the evening would be!!

Before I went, I looked up Jimmy Heap on the internet (where else?).  Most of what I found were places to buy the music of Jimmy and the band.  However, here are 3 good sources of information for those of you interested.

Ray Campi Interview of Jimmy Heap

Answers.com

Artist Direct article

I knew some of the band members like Jim Grabowske and Ray Tesmer.  But, I was in such a trance enjoying all the music, I didn't get the names of everyone that played or sang.  Thanks to Richard Long for filling in some of the names for me.  The band playing was part of The Texan Pioneers which is made up of Jim, Ray, Paul Schlesinger, Dave Bedrich, Bill Dowdy, and Thomas Durdin.

For the tribute, though, there were a lot of others.  Some of the ones I knew or was honored to meet were Del Puschert playing a rousing saxophone and Rod Moag from KOOP radio singing and playing the mandolin.  Besides all the musicians, Jim also introduced me to photographers and music lovers, Ted and Linda Branson.  Linda and I had seen each other at a lot of different venues and it was nice to finally meet.

I was ecstatic at the videos I got except for a few times someone walked between the camera and the stage (how dare they!?).  However, for some reason the translation to the web has them a lot darker than they are on my computer.  The music is still great, but if you want to see how great the video really is, I guess you'll just have to come visit and let me play them for you!!  :)

By the way......I've already made plans to go to next years tribute!!!!!!   You should, too!!