Wednesday, December 09, 2009

World Class Dirty Old Man

When the first real blast of iron cold arctic air hits every winter, I have this little mental trick that I like to do as I make the frozen trek from the parking garage to my cubicle. I go back in my mind to the last perfect weather day of the year.

That happened to be a few days after Thanksgiving this year.

We were home from our annual Thanksgiving tour of Kansas so we decided a casual family dinner out would be a good way to decompress. We hit up one of our favorite neighborhood eateries, had a nice supper then walk (in my case hobbled) around the local strip mall. We ended up stopping at Foo's for a desert nightcap.

We took our custards to Foo's backroom to enjoy them in the couch lounge area. We were the only people in the room with the exception of a mid-40ish aged guy in the corner setting up a microphone and amps, one-man-band-style.

Presently, he got out his guitar and harmonica. He announced his name, which I missed at first, then proceeded to give us a free private concert.

Harry Hewlett played a set of original songs, his sound very Country Americana, a kind of Hank Williams Senior vibe. Not my cup of musical tea, but it was pretty entertaining for an intimate show over butter-pecan frozen custard.

Hewlett himself has a great sense of humor that comes through in the lyrics to his original songs. A quick Google search pointed me to his début album "World Class Dirty Old Man" at CDBaby.

His sense of humor also came through when he didn't get pissed or irritated at me for turning on my cell-phone light and holding it in the air while I yelled "Play some Free Bird!"

We left before his set was over, but by then another family had made their way into the room. We sent our 7-year-old up with a 5'er to drop in his guitar case. He gave us a shoutout as we left.

According to what (little) info I've been able to find about Hewlett, he plays coffee houses, restaurants and other small rooms around town pretty regularly. If you seem him some night, tell 'im Emawkc says hey. And request some Free Bird.



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2 comments:

  1. Hey there Emawkc this is Harry Hewlett. Found this blog/post by accident, just searching the web. Foo's is a long time ago for me. Noisy place with all those chairs and kids. I moved to Dallas in 2012. Thanks for the nice comments. Look me up sometime on Facebook.

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  2. Hey Harry, thanks for stopping by. Foo's isn't the optimal place for a performance (like you said, lots of kids, and quite echoey) but I'm glad we saw you there.

    Hope you're doing well in Dallas!

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