House Concerts

One of the fringe benefits of being a luthier is getting to meet a lot of outstanding musicians. A wonderful way to get to hear many of these artists is in the intimate setting of a house concert. We now are in our second year of "KingsLight House Concerts" here at our home. We are doing this out of love for the music and not to make money and it's been a lot of fun so far. All donations go to our performers (we usually suggest a donation of $10. pp) . Tune in here for info on upcoming concerts.

to see Kalamazoo Gazette feature article (1/16/2005) on Kingslight House Concerts - click HERE

for upcoming concert info go to www.stbarn.org and click on coffeehouse concerts

This FIRST KingsLight House Concert was a wonderful evening of very touching songs - a great listening crowd and some fun jamming afterwards.... Micaela (my daughter) also performed some of her songs along with Benjamin and I got to sing a few harmonies and play a llittle bass.

Buddy Mondlock - Singer /songwriter with a beautiful lyrical style (has toured with Art Garfunkel ) - from Nashville - TN

A great night of music - starting off with Micaela and Benjamin and then Buddy took to the mic with his high / soft voice and tasteful guitar playing and the atmosphere became tuned to his words and music for the next two hours. Beautiful stuff! Micaela sang on "Slow Retreat" with Buddy -- which made her Papa proud.

John and Viv - John Dillon and Vivian Nesbit from Taos, New Mexico - Love songs of the southwest - on guitars / flutes / percussion

We had a LOT of custom made guitars in the house for this concert... Between John Dillon's SJ cutaway and double O and John Kingslight's acoustic bass and jumbo, Viv's beautiful vocals and Native American flute playing , and John's soulful singing - a lot of beautiful music was made this evening. Micaela and Benjamin did a great opening set - including their new song "Kalamazoo" and we all joined in for the finale together on Dillon's "Fast Movin' Train" - Lot's of fun.

Eleni Kelakos - Our guests were quite enthralled with Eleni - her stories and songs and her beautiful, enchanting voice that can range from Joan Baezlike depths to Joni Mitchellesque heights. We (Micaela/Benjamin and I ) had a wonderful time playing and singing along on several of Eleni's songs which we had practiced beforehand... for all of 30 minutes... It really did go well!

“Kiya and Miriam delighted us with stories and songs and even a
"stump the band" game show. Such energy - with excellent musicianship -- I just wish I had remembered to turn on the air conditioning... it got a little warm. Had fun playing some bass too and Micaela and Benjamin had some new songs to open the evening.

WOW! These folks were awesome! Beautiful, tight harmonies and arrangements... such creativity. We all thoroughly enjoyed this night.

“What a consummate performer James is ! Beautifully crafted songs, Dynamic vocal range, Funny stories ! We had a great evening at the Kingslight house. James played on my Kingslight #10 for a few songs. He's a very good house guest too... we enjoyed James' company a lot.

January 20, 2005, 8PM ( Thursday )

Small Potatoes

Rich Prezioso and Jacquie Manning from Chicago, who call themselves "Small Potatoes" gave us a wonderful night of everything from wild, wacky cowboy songs to beautiful celtic melodies played on guitar, bodhran, pennywhistle and some resophonic guitar. Great folks to hang out with too! Micaela delighted us with some new songs to start the evening . Great turnout. I don't think anyone was disappointed.

Steve Jadwisiak on guitar, Steve Guerrero on bass and Dave Gore on percussion played their hearts out with some awesome arrangements of originals and some covers. Steve G and Dave also jammed with Micaela on a few of her songs -- and sounded like they'd been doing them for years. Wonderful turnout for a great night of music! Steve Jad plays a Kingslight guitar (#13) and Steve G uerrero loved playing on the fretless acoustic bass (#18) which he made sound fantastic!

In what may have been our last "house" concert - we had a great "odd couple" of a duo.... Jim Photoglo and Freebo. Their contrasting styles - Jim with his high tenor precision and Freebo with his freewheeling baritone and both with their excellent musicianship on guitar and bass - made for a perfect blend. Both Jim and Freebo used my #18 fretless acoustic bass for the entire concert and made it sing! We had a surprise opening act also with Allison Downey entertaining us with 3 of her songs.