Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Who said you can't go home again?


Just a year after taking up guitar, I had mustered enough courage to perform in public, and one of the first places I strutted my stuff, so to speak, was a coffee house by the Long Island Railroad station plaza in Kew Gardens, Queens. Back then when I was still a teenager, the place called itself the Interlude, and each Thursday night they held their weekly hootenanny. Today we would call it an open mike. Whatever you called it, it was an opportunity to make a fool of myself for the length of time it took to single three songs, and believe me when I say I was very adept at making a fool of myself back then, which was from 1963 until about 1965.
Well, believe it or not, the Interlude is still going strong, although its has changed both owners and names several times since then. It is now known as the Bliss Gourmet Cafe, and after an absence of 45 years I finally made my return this past March to open the very first Kew Gardens Music Festival. I began with a song I often performed back then and I still perform just as frequently today, Woody Guthrie's "Hard Traveling.
I hope I'm no longer making a fool of myself.
Steve Suffet performing "Hard Traveling" by Woody Guthrie at the Kew Gardens Music Festival in Queens, New York City. March 7, 2009.

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