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Music in the Nave will again tap into local talent April 6 at 7 p.m. when its features George Potts in an intimate cabaret concert in the St. Andrew’s Church parish house.
Pott is a well-known figure in the community, both through his presence in the perennially popular Fife ‘n Drum, the restaurant started by his father-in-law, renowned pianist Dolph Trayman, and through his own career as a folk musician.
“When I came to Kent in 1976, Dolph would be at the Fife six nights a week playing,” Potts recalled. “He was looking for someone to play bass. I didn’t know his material and I had to learn all those great American Songbook songs. With Dolph, you really had to know what you were doing. He made me step up my musicianship a great deal.”
That was one side of the musical coin, but the other was his love affair with folk music. “We are all products of our generation. I’m 73 years old, and I have never lost interest in finding new music, but when I was young, I wanted to be married to Joni Mitchell and to write like Paul Simon. I tended to be more interested in folk singers.”
For more than 30 years he has played with Salisbury’s Joint Chiefs, an Americana group that has performed extensively throughout the region. “I’ve written some songs for the quartet, but others didn’t quite fit their style,” Potts said. So, when the whole world shut down for Covid, he retreated to what had once been his daughter’s bedroom and started writing and recording his first solo CD.
“I wrote eight of the songs on the CD, but two other songs are already well-known, ‘Your Lying Eyes’ by the Eagles and ‘I Meant to Go to Memphis,’ a song about people who reach an age where they look back at the things they never did.”
Potts completed composing and recording and released the CD in 2022, where it climbed to 20th on Folk Music charts. “When I first heard the album, I completely fell in love with it and I thought we need to let people hear this,” said Matt Harris, chairman of St. Andrew’s Music Commission and the Concert Series.
“This album is very intimate and has a breadth to it that would never make you think he had done it by himself in a little room,” Harris said. “His song ‘Lonely Town’ speaks to this age of anxiety, while ‘Travel Dream Motel’ is about chambermaids — something no one writes about. It is completely fresh. I feel the songs together make an artistic statement.”
Harris said Music in the Nave, which previously focused only on classical music, has widened its scope, starting with another cabaret evening with Kent resident Steve Katz, a founder of Blood, Sweat and Tears.
“When we had Steve Katz, we had to turn people away and this is another guy of same generation with years of history of playing rock and folk. When Steve Katz appeared, we decided people sitting in pews was not the right vibe for this kind of performance. Our pastor suggested a cabaret feel with wine and cheese.”
Guests will again be seated at tables that can seat eight people. “It’s a good size,” said Harris. “If you are coming by yourself or with a friend, you don’t feel forced to mingle, or you can have a table for a whole party. And we are having it early enough so you can have dinner before or after.”
It will be the kind of “listening room” that artists crave, said Potts, who reports that he had to adjust as a young musician to playing in restaurants where the focus was on dining and visiting rather than listening to the musicians.
“You have to get used to that,” he said. “Before I moved here, I worked full-time as musician and when I was younger, it would bother me. But then I realized I would rather be playing than sitting at home.
“One thing about Music in Nave is that it’s totally about listening,” he continued. “There were clubs like Amazing Grace that were listening rooms, where people went to hear amazing music and everyone was into listening.”
Such experiences are harder to find today when music can literally be carried around in your pocket, he said. “Before recordings, people had to sit and listen. Even in the '70s everything was played on a record or tape, or you listened to it live.”
Similar changes have taken place in the recording industry. Sometimes artists never see each other as they collaborate on a recording, sending around soundtracks that each player adds to. Potts said there are advantages both to having a group of artists in one room and being alone.
“Each time I play with different band, it’s like different parts of my brain are firing. It creates I don’t know what in your brain — you are in the moment and, if you are playing with musicians you enjoy, you are always throwing musical sparks. It’s like we finish each other’s musical sentences.
“But I don’t think of it as apples and oranges,” he said. “When recording as an individual, it comes down to making your own spark.” Modern software allows a musician to be “as inventive as you want. Recording at home is like going down a rabbit hole,” he said.
On “Ends and Odds,” he collaborated with mandolin player Gordon Titcomb, who has performed with artists such as Arlo Guthrie and Paul Simon. Titcomb will perform with him April 6.
“It will be fun,” Potts concluded. “We will be doing mostly my own material. I’ve written things since the CD that I will perform. I don’t know any musician who doesn’t enjoy that experience.”
Tickets for the evening are $10 and can be purchased online at https//bitly/georgepotts or at the door.
Kent Good Times Dispatch
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Pamela Osborne
I once had a friend, now cooking in heaven, who served exactly the same meal every time I went to his house. He was pretty offended if anyone remarked or complained about it, which I gathered had happened. He had all the steps down pat though, could put it together in his sleep, and had no plans to make any changes. His wife had no plans to take over, either, dish duty was her niche. I was fine with all this, since I never had that meal anywhere else, but I have to ask: Weren’t they bored?
I’ve been thinking about this as spring and various holidays approach. One thing I’m pretty sure of is that when it comes to what they expect to see on the festive table, most people sitting around it don’t exactly have open minds. How else to explain the cries of shock and horror that mark the absence of, at Thanksgiving for example, a casserole of canned sweet potatoes sloshed with orange juice and topped with a blanket of melted marshmallows? Which, okay, has earned its place and its admirers, people like it and I’m not here to say never.
I have a vintage “Joy of Cooking” that has little poems and quotes at the start of every chapter. “A definition of eternity: Two People and a Ham”, says one. Ham, lamb, turkey (again?), and so it goes. People expect them to be on their holiday table no matter what because they always have been, and they probably always will be. Eyes may glaze over, eyes may roll, nothing will change: we know what we want and we’re sticking to it. What’s on the side, I would suggest, is your only chance to ring in anything different. With that in mind I offer the following, which I first had in a Persian restaurant, Mohsen, when I was visiting a friend in London a few years ago. Mohsen is a very modest restaurant, sort of a luncheonette, but it’s full of Persians and the food is terrific. The name of this dish means “sweet rice,” but it isn’t particularly sweet. It is offered at weddings and other special celebrations, and is Really Good. It will go well with the ham or lamb or whatever other main dish is on your table. You’ll like it, I promise, and, best of all, you can do most of the work ahead of time.
Shirin Polo
Oranges Buy several, let’s say half a dozen. Organic only, you’re going to eat the peel.
1/2 c. sugar
1 c. water
1/3 c. slivered blanched almonds
1/3 c. slivered unsalted pistachios - you’ll have to sliver them yourself
1 and 1/2 c. uncooked basmati rice
Optional: saffron, an onion, raisins or sultanas
Using a vegetable peeler, cut just the (washed) orange-colored peel from the oranges. Don’t cut into the bitter white pith, just the outer layer is what you want. Flatten the pieces onto a cutting board and cut them into very fine slivers with a very sharp knife. You want a cup of slivers, lightly packed. It will take a while to do this, and it’s worth it.
Put the zest into a sauce pan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Cook at a medium boil, uncovered, 5 to 7 minutes; drain. Do this again with fresh water; drain again.
Put the sugar and 1 c. water into the emptied saucepan, bring to a boil while stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the zest, reduce the heat to low medium, and cook until the liquid is reduced to about three tablespoons, stirring occasionally. Using a slotted spoon, remove the zest — which should look fairly transparent at this point — to a plate. Spread it out and let it cool. This can be done the day before; keep it refrigerated until you need it. Let it come to room temperature before adding it to the dish. If you keep the syrup, you can add it to ice cream, etc.
If you want an onion in your dish, sauté it, thinly sliced or chopped, in a mixture of a few tablespoons of butter and oil, until it is lightly browned and softened. If you want saffron, dissolve a pinch in a few TB. of water, keep aside. If you use raisins or sultanas they should be fresh, not hard and dry.
Mohsen did not use any of these optional ingredients. I called them a few times when I was figuring this out, because online recipes for shirin polo use a host of other ingredients, carrots in particular. But no, they said, only the ingredients listed above. I have used some of the optional ingredients listed and they were good, but the dish stands very well on its own without them. I usually don’t fiddle.
Cook the rice, mix in the onion (and its butter/oil) and raisins, if you’re using them. Put this into a buttered serving dish and, if you’re using the dissolved saffron, drizzle it over the rice. At this point, a few hours before serving, you can cover this and keep it on the counter. Later, put a few dots of butter onto the rice — a tablespoon or so, more if you’ve doubled the recipe, but don’t go crazy — and recover. Heat at 300 to 350 degrees for about half an hour or so. It should be hot. Before serving. spread the orange peel over the surface and sprinkle with the almonds and pistachios. You will want sea salt (Maldon) and pepper at the table.
This recipe will serve five or so, depending on what else is on the menu. The photograph shows a double recipe, more than enough to feed ten. If you double it, use only one and a half times the orange peel and nuts. I think you will be surprised to see how so few ingredients can synthesize into something so very good.
Pamela Osborne lives in Salisbury.
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Millbrook Arts Group
Mar 27, 2024
Judith O’hara Balfe
The final installment of Millbrook Arts Group’s Winter Concert Series will host Mark “Boot” Calkins, Emily Beck and Marc Berger at the Millbrook Library on Saturday, March 30, at 5 p.m.
All MAG concerts are free and open to the public. As Bob Buttons, MAG board member, said in his opening remarks, “Music builds community, and we have a wonderful community.”
Above: Joana Genova, Heather Braun, Nathaniel Parke and Ariel Rudiakov of the Taconic String Quartet performed at the Millbook Library on Saturday, Feb. 24
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Judith O’hara balfe
Parishioners from St. Joseph-Immaculate Conception Church, Grace Episcopal Church and Lyall Community Church met at the Thorne Community Center on Palm Sunday, March 23 to pray together. Palm Sunday celebrates the tradition which holds that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on an ass, and a crowd of people waved palm fronds at him as he passed. At 28 years old, Bella Bella, a miniature donkey from the Two By Two Animal Haven Inc., Pleasant Valley, has been a part of this event for the last ten years. From left: Father Hartley Bancroft, Pastor of St. Joseph-Immaculate Conceeption Church, Makena Freeslick, 15, who attends Millbrook High School, Bella Bella, Father Matthew Calkins and the Reverend Thomas Fiet, Pastor of Lyall Church.
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