San Antonio: The Saga Continues . . .

(further hazy recollections of Elton John-Boy): By the time the next ACE/NETC meeting rolled around in San Antonio (2005), lots of changes had taken place. Larry Jackson from Kansas State was rounding up instruments ahead of time. People brought stuff. They even had a room set aside for playing at night. And we knew how to work the hotels by this time, so we grabbed their white baby grand piano and wheeled it into the room with us, hoping they wouldn’t bill us for using it. They didn’t care. And it was cool. Lots of people coming in and out of the group, playing different instruments, all kinds of stuff. That’s when they let me start hangin’ around with ’em.

What a line-up – Owen “Big Money” Roberts, the Guelphian Troubadour; the Mandolin Twins (“Ammond Brother Jim” Coats and “Reno Robert” Moore); Kyla Kruse, fresh out of the coffee club circuit in Central Illinois; Robert “Steady” Casler on tubs; Ron “Wildside” Thomas on a borrowed fretless bass; Larry “Action” Jackson on electric guitar; Chris “Fingers” Dicus on electric keyboard; Tom “Walk the Line” Knecht doin’ some side man vocals; and Jeff “the Lap” Hino throwin’ down some brilliant National steel guitar stuff.



From there it just mushroomed. There was the “X-tension Chords Unplugged” at the Don Strange Ranch (Coats, Moore, Kruse, Hino, Dickison, Sams) and a whole bevy of musicians accompanying the Development Fund auction and playing after hours.

To be continued (will this madness never end?) . . .