reet, petite, and gone

Just got back from Divaville. One of these days I will remember to announce the show on my blog before it happens. Here's the playlist if you're interested.

I had a great time, and the show went well if I do say so:

• No flubs, even though someone had reprogrammed the CD players to not auto-stop. (even better, Ross showed me how to reprogram them when he came in for his show, so next time I can fix it myself.)
• One near-disaster when I misjudged the time, took a bathroom break and made it back to the MCR with 30 seconds to go before a talkset and nothing cued up -- and Georg was listening and said he had no idea anything was wrong. Whew! I thought I must have sounded like I was gasping for breath after running up the stairs in a panic.
• Four requests, one from LA! And all of the requests were for artists I love and was thrilled to play. In fact one of the requests was for Sammy Davis Jr., who I had already played, and one was for Bobby Darin, which I had just cued up! That's only ever happened to me once before, and it's the coolest thing.

I played a couple of Louis Jordan tracks which I had never heard until that movie we watched a few weeks ago. I was able to find a 3-CD set on Amazon with a lot of those tracks for only $15 including shipping. Not bad at all! I played "Beware" then followed with "Look Out," the female answer to "Beware." Which was a lot of fun & I hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did.

I also did a set of W.C. Handy tracks, and was surprised not to find any Handy songs sung by Nat King Cole. This is a surprise because Cole starred in the Handy biopic. I thought for sure he'd have W.C. Handy songs popping up in all his collections, as with Eartha Kitt who also starred in the movie.

Also did a set of Duke Ellington since it was his birthday yesterday. My only goof was noticing the album Ella and Duke twenty minutes after the Ellington set! Whoops. I would have liked Ella's version of "Take the A Train" better than the one I played, I think. Oh well, I'll remember next time!