scott greeson music

Stunning and Blanco

One of our favorite tunes on our cd, Wabash Gypsies, is Llama Dance, which is now featured on our YouTube channel as a music video. We love how our music life and farm life have come together in this artistic video creation and feel blessed to be able to share it with you! We hope you enjoy the video, the tune and the llamas!

Click the link to check out the video at YouTube …
Llama Dance – instrumental tune by Scott Greeson and Kevin Ludwig (on YouTube)

Scott and I find joy every time we share our music with an audience. It doesn’t matter if it’s on a big stage in front of 1000s or in the grass for a small neighborhood. In September, we made our annual trek to Green Tree in West Lafayette, Indiana, where we played for the residents of the patio homes. My mom and her friends coordinate the event each year. And each year, it is a joy.

We join forces with our dear friend and fellow musician, Joe Peters, for a songwriters in the round format for entertaining the appreciative audience.

This year, one of the neighbors, Bill Fuller, wrote this wonderful poem that was published in the neighborhood newsletter. We have been given permission to share it with all of you! Thank you Bill, for your sharing your writing talent with this group of songwriters. We look forward to next year!

The Equinox was drawing nigh
And Summer won’t last long
But we enjoyed before goodbye
Some “down home” thoughts in song
By Scott, Vickie and Joe

As Fall begins to hold its sway
We know we’ve months to wait
We think about their words so gay
Whose tunes we found so great
As sung by Scott, Vickie and Joe

While Winter holds us fast inside
The memory grows dim
The snow is piled up far and wide
To wait a year is grim
Do you remember
Scott, Vickie and Joe

Then Spring relieves the Winter scene
We start to hear of plans
Forget the cold that’s in between
We’re ready to be fans
Of Scott, Vickie and Joe

Bill Fuller wrote a poem about the music of Scott and Vickie Greeson and Joe Peters

Scott Greeson picking debris from llama fleeces

Scott Greeson loves to fish about as much as he loves performing music!

We had the joy of visiting northern Minnesota in September for a fishing vacation. Scott absolutely loves to go fishing, and it is an extra special time if he’s out with his dad, Glen, who is a fisherman extraordinaire! Glen always seems to know exactly which lily pad you should cast toward in order to find a bass in the early mornings on the lake. We go back out on the water in the evening for blue gill, crappie and the occasional bass. And what a treat to enjoy Reva’s splendid cooking. 

We also enjoy the week away as a time to recoup from our busy routines of work, music and farm life. We usually get some songwriting done during the car trip to and from Minnesota as well. It is nice just having time together without the demands of others.

During this particular trip, we took our llama fleeces with us because we had located a fiber mill in Mondovi, Wisc., where we could drop the fleeces off for processing into rovings, yarn and felted batts (Mystic Water Fiber Mill). So during our stay on the lake in Minnesota, we spent some of our free time hand picking the fleeces to remove any second cuts or vegetable matter. They were already pretty clean to start with because of how we prepare the fleeces on the llama before we shear them, but it helps smooth the processing at the mill if you have any extra debris pulled out. So, we did our best.

I love to work with the fleeces. Llama fleece is so incredibly soft, and each bag of fleece has a little bit of aroma that matches the individual llama it came from. For those of you who love to press your nose into the face of a horse, llama or dog to take in a breath of your favorite animal, you’ll know what I’m talking about! The process of washing and carding the fleeces before turning them into products for knitters, spinners and crafters will remove any llama smell.

Can you believe I talked Scott into helping me with picking through the llama fleeces! Not that he isn’t a helpful sort of guy, but I hadn’t really thought I could talk him into this one. But here is proof! He was a great help.

We can’t wait to get the call from the mill that our fiber is ready to go in the form of felted batts, yarn and rovings. It will take our llama farm to a new place – to be able to say we are now utilizing one of their greatest products.

Every morning when I care for the llamas, I thank them for their hard work in growing such beautiful fleeces for us to use and sell to our farm customers. We’ll be shearing them again in the late spring for another round of lovely fleeces! Heartsong Llamas of Dawn of Promise Farm

Glen and Scott on the lake

We have several 4-H kids and their siblings who come out every week to take lessosn in llama handling and training. They are preparing the llamas for the show at the county fair in a couple weeeks. There have been a couple of days when the kids sat on the tailgate of the pickup or around the back door while Scott and I played/sang a few tunes for them.

Vickie with her llama lesson kids after a spring day of obstacle course training.

Last evening, there was a request from one of our youngest llama enthusiasts for a harmonica tune. So Scott got out his guitar, AND, the harmonica. We shared a couple of tunes with the group out in the barnyard. Both Philomena and Abby shared their harmonica playing skills with the attentive audience. We think we have some future harmonica players among us! 

Philomena waits with Llana to go in the show ring for junior showmanship.

In between the stormy weather, we had a few hours of sunshine for playing music at the Lafayette Farmers’ Market in Lafayette, Ind., on July 2. We send out a thank you to the appreciative fans who tapped toes to the music, bought cds and shared encouraging words.

Scott Greeson and members of the band, Trouble With Monday

One of the things we all enjoy about an event like the Farmers’ Market is the opportunity to share music with the youngest fans who often are fascinated by the accordion and the percussion instruments, or with getting to watch the fingers of our sax player, Mark, or a closeup view of Scott on the guitar strings. We can’t help but wonder if those are future musicians we talk to on the sidewalk at events like the Farmers’ Market.

Scott and Vickie playing music at the Farmers' Market

We followed the music on Saturday with a gig with the full band on Sunday afternoon at the Wolcott, Indiana Sesquisentennial. Both days delivered 90+ degree heat and 100 degrees of music fun! We hope you’ll come out to hear us play music at one of our upcoming events. Check our website for the upcoming dates and times. www.scottgreesonmusic.com

Mark and Scott with one of our young fans in the background.

Greg and Brad having a good time at the Farmers' Market.

Scott Greeson and Trouble With Monday played the VIP area at Verizon Wireless Music Center for the Kenny Chesney concert on June 24, 2011. Kenny draws in 30,000+ concert-goers when he plays this Indianapolis-area venue. Our band has been blessed to have several opportunities each year to play the VIP stage ahead of the country music artists on the main stage. 

My mom, Lucille Maris, has seen Scott Greeson and Trouble With Monday play 100s of times at all types of venues around the state, but she had never attended one of the shows at this big outdoor venue. She thought it was time to go on that adventure, so we took her with us to the Kenny Chesney concert. As we entertained several hundred concert goers while they enjoyed their dinners ahead of the main event, it was a delight for us to look out and see one of our most loyal fans on the VIP patio!

We played for about two hours to an appreciative audience. Afterwards, I took Mom out to the main concert area so she could experience the sights and sounds of a packed house at Verizon. Uncle Kracker and Billy Currington were Kenny’s opening acts and Billy was playing when Mom and I walked through. We love this funny photo that I snapped on my camera phone. We don’t know who that is with my mom. He jumped in for the photo opportunity. We have named him Random Guy. I bet it is the first photo he’s had taken at a concert with an 89-year-old music fan!

Lucille and Random Guy at Kenny Chesney Concert

Vickie and Scott Greeson remind music fans of the benefit concert on April 30, 2011 for Marine Corporal Matt Bowman, at 7 p.m. (The Connemara pony is Savannah.)

Scott Greeson and Trouble With Monday will play a benefit concert tonight (April 30, 7 p.m.) in honor of Matt Bowman, the Marine Corporal who is healing from extensive injuries he suffered in Afghanistan while on patrol. Many businesses, organizations and individuals have contributed their time, money and/or silent auction items to help increase the funds raised. Here is a list of the businesses that have graciously donated to the silent auction:

Haley’s Lock, Safe & Key, Buck Creek Pizza, Ace Hardware South, Christina and Company, LLC, Olive Garden, Payless, Lefevre Automotive, Dez Naliz, Sliger Commercial Brokers, Norandex, 555 Hair Studio, Walnut Street Traditions, End Zone, Promenade Self Storage, The Other Pub, It Figures Ladies Only Fitness Center, Arni’s Pizza, Family Christian Store, Great Harvest Bread Store, Artist Marietta Hatke, Henry Poor Lumber, Amanda Gordon, Smith Vacuum, Smith Office.

A big thank you to everyone for participating in the event, for attending the show, and for making the donations to Matt and his family possible!

A little rain, a little snow, and a little cold accompanied us to the historic, small Indiana town of Delphi, on March 5, 2011. We were checking out a possible venue for the next live show recording for Scott Greeson and Trouble With Monday. While in Delphi, we were treated to a lovely tour of the Opera House, in the Assion-Ruffing City Hall Building built in 1864. The Delphi Preservation Society is working on the building and is making wonderful progress. It is most certainly a labor of love that will be appreciated for many generations to come.

View of Delphi Opera House stage from the balcony.

We followed Anita, our tour guide, through the gallery featuring artwork by our friend Rena Brouwer, and many other artists, writers and photographers. We then headed upstairs through the theatre, where we felt as though we had traveled back through time. The Opera House had been closed in 1914 and used as storage for shops below, so as the generations marched forward, many didn’t even know this jewel existed on the third floor of this old building on the square.

Scott and I felt honored to stand on the Opera House stage where local and international figures have once performed. The beloved and world famous opera singer, Marie Litta, was the first star to take the stage for a Grand Opening that celebrated the 1882 remodeling of the theatre. Here is a link to a biography of Marie.

Vickie Maris and Scott Greeson on Opera House Stage

This same stage also felt the musical rhythms of cornet player Walter B. Rogers who was a Delphi native, and the poetic artistry of Hoosier poet, James Whitcomb Riley who made at least six appearances on the stage.

In the theatre, we marveled at the skills of those who made and installed the windows, at the resources of Indiana hardwoods that millworkers had been able to use to craft the beams (now exposed as the ceiling is being repaired), and the expertise of the artists who had designed the wallpaper. We took an up-close look at a muted mural that was painted by an Indiana photographer in the 1800s as a backdrop for the stage.  We admired performers’ autographs on the back stage walls, including that of Walter B. Rogers, and were wowed by the technology behind a gas-powered spotlight.

Scott Greeson and Vickie Maris in Opera House

Gas spotlight in the Opera House.

As Indiana artists, we had a sweet reminder today that you don’t have to travel very far in this beautiful state to enjoy the work of quite a variety of Indiana artists and craftsmen!

Stairwell from second floor down to the sidewalk. V.J. Maris iPhone images

Greg Brassie, Vickie Maris and Scott Greeson

We had the joy of playing music in the historic venue of the Delphi Public Library on Saturday night for the Coffee Beat. We love the variety that comes from playing as a seven-piece band on a large stage under lights to the intimate venue like the Delphi Library where we can see every toe that taps, every smile and even, every tear. Scott and I played music with our bass player, Greg Brassie, up on the Mezzanine of the library for a group of friends and fans.

Greg Brassie

Scott Greeson

One couple shared that they were fond of our days playing in  the Christian band Brand New Day, and they had listened to the Brand New Day disk that afternoon in preparation for the evening of music at the library. As we talked after the show, they told us about their favorite tune from the disk. Our gear was still set up, so we gathered the listeners back together and played the request for Suzy and Gordon. We were rather unrehearsed for that tune, but as we played, and watched the faces of our listeners, I was grateful — grateful for a well-written tune that rolls right off the tongue, and grateful for the privilege to harmonize with my hubby on such a lovely song of praise.

The cutest comment of the night came from our 10-year-old audience member who told us, “I’m really glad you didn’t play any 70s or 80s music. Yuck. I brought my mp3 player in case I didn’t like your music, but I didn’t have to use it!” Phew! No one had to revert to mp3 players during the show to save the evening. So cute.

Vickie Maris Greeson and Scott Greeson

Tunes from the Wabash Gypsies cd, a project which features instrumentals by Scott Greeson and Kevin Ludwig on guitars, are now making their way through the Internet radio airwaves.  We’re excited to let you know that the disk is  being incoproated into the play lists of GotRadio – Guitar Genius. If you visit GotRadio Music Room web page, you can find the station under Soothing and then Guitar Genius.

I like to listen to this station through iTunes radio (click on Ambient, then click on GotRadio – Guitar Genius) when I’m working at my desk. As I was heading out to a meeting, I started to pull the office door shut, but stopped, when I realized that the tune coming through my computer speakers was one of our own – Jan’s Journey, the last tune from the disk! (And for you accordion enthusiasts out there, Jan’s Journey is the tune on the disk that also includes an accordion track!)

In the days that have since passed, we’ve heard several of the instrumentals from the Wabash Gypsies project playing at GotRadio – Guitar Genius. We invite you to check it out.

Vickie

Prayer Without Words Airs on Internet Radio