Lagniappe Time: Part 2

Posted on May 28, 2025 by portfoliolongo.com

Mason Alexander Ault

OK, so I got to spend some lagniappe time with Mason Alexander Ault, who performed the following at the 5/22/2025 Bob Dylan tribute show:
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
To Ramona
It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
Just Like A Woman

“Lagniappe” is a concept and a term I became familiar with while living in New Orleans. In Cajun culture, “lagniappe” (pronounced “lan-yap”) means a little something extra” or a bonus. It’s often a small gift or extra item given by a merchant to a customer, usually as a thank you or to show appreciation. it’s kinda’ like the notion of a “baker’s dozen.” Lagniappe time, then, is being able to spend a little extra time with live performers sketching freehand on my iPad Pro mainly in the Sketch Club app. I’ve illustrobloged elsewhere on the subject of lagniappe.

Also performing were the following:
Bob Stewart
I Pity The Poor Immigrant
Girl From The North Country
Mr. Tambourine Man
When I Paint My Masterpiece

Albert Rouzie
Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power)
Man In The Long Black Coat
Highway 61 Revisited (Mason-harp)
Blind Willie McTell (Todd-harp)

Caitlin Kraus – See Lagniappe Part 1
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Albert-guitar)
Masters Of War
Queen Jane Approximately
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright

Steve Zarate
Subterranean Homesick Blues (Todd-harp)
Love Minus Zero/No Limit
I Want You
Mama You Been On My Mind
If Not For You

Todd Burge
Jokerman
You’re A Big Girl Now
Gotta Serve Somebody (Steve/Caitlin/Mason/Albert-b/g vox)
All I Really Want To Do

Bruce Dalzell
When The Ship Comes In
Tomorrow Is A Long Time
Dark Eyes
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

(Closing songs)
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
The Times They Are A Changin’
My Back Pages
~
🎼 🎶 🎸 🥰

(Photo by Bob Stewart, showing Todd playing harp as Albert sings a lesser-known Dylan song called “Blind Willie McTell.”)

John Horne, Guitarist (Athens, OH)

Posted on July 30, 2024 by portfoliolongo.com

Here’s John playing at Jackie O’s in Athens, OH. He said it was ok for me to use the photo reference from FaceBook that this quick, freehand, digital (iPad) painting is based on. Check‘em out (here and here) and in person to partner with his countless fans, colleagues, collaborators, and clients. He’s one of the big reasons why I’m so glad to be back in Athens.

John Horne – rendered on an iPad Pro in Sketch Club using an Apple Pencil

Saturday Practice

Posted on November 13, 2021 by portfoliolongo.com

The iPad painting below was supposed to be Joni Mitchell. It started out as her, and then it kinda’ became someone else. Ok, what’s this all about? Well, it started when Joni Mitchell wrote, “For Free,” a lovely song about an experience she had at an intersection on foot while “waiting for the walking green,” while she happened to hear some nearby guy playing a clarinet “real good” and “for free” all before the “signal changed.” Fast forward, I heard a newer rendition of that song performed by David Crosby and Sarah Jarosz (listen below via YouTube). I fell in love with the song, especially this newer rendition. I’m intrigued by the encapsulation of such a spacious and almost timeless experience into such a brief and situated moment; and, I just love how David and Sarah sing together. What a beautiful song! What a beautiful songwriter! So I looked for some images of Joni Mitchell, you know, to thank her and to get some Saturday practice. And I found a photo that called my attention:

[Joni Mitchell revisits her earliest recordings in “Joni Mitchell Archives — Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967).”Credit…Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images]

So here’s what I came up with on my iPad Pro using Sketch Club:

Here’s David Crosby and Sarah Jarosz performing Joni Mitchell’s For Free. I inserted the lyrics below.

For Free
Joni Mitchell (1970)
(Ok, you’ve made it this far, so check this Rolling Stone piece.)
I slept last night in a good hotel
I went shopping today for jewels
The wind rushed around in the dirty town
And the children let out from the schools
I was standing on a noisy corner
Waiting for the walking green
Across the street he stood and he played real good
On his clarinet, for free
Now me, I play for fortunes
And those velvet curtain calls
I’ve got a black limousine and two gentlemen
Escorting me to the halls
And I play if you have the money
Or if you’re a friend to me
But the one man band by the quick lunch stand
He was playing real good, for free
Nobody stopped to hear him
Though he played so sweet and high
They knew he had never been on their TV
So they passed his music by
I meant to go over and ask for a song
Maybe put on a harmony
I heard his refrain as the signal changed
He was playing real good, for free

Found another digital Croz painting

Posted on August 22, 2019 by portfoliolongo.com

I can’t remember exactly when I I’d this, but I know it was in 2018. It looks like I did it in Sketch Club with a tweak or two in iColorama…on my iPad Pro, of course.

Guitar Hands

Posted on April 30, 2018 by portfoliolongo.com

A distorted quickie done in Sketch Club on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil and then tweaked a bit in iColorama.

click on image to enlarge

50 Some Odd Years

Posted on May 29, 2017 by portfoliolongo.com

There’s been a guitar – or two – in my life for a half a century.

On a weekend visit from college in the late sixties my big brother brought home the first guitar I had ever handled. He could tell I really liked it. A couple of years later he gave me that guitar!

These kinds of drawings are so weird. I started it with a left hand on a fretboard and no idea of how it would unfold or where it would go. It’s done now, waiting in my camera roll for me to insert it into this post; and now my heart is overflowing with emotional memories.

My brother was a central, nearly heroic figure for me throughout the first ten years of my life; actually, that hasn’t changed. Back then, by the time my periscope was up high enough for me to appreciate him as my brother, he was already making plans to go off to college; oh, and this devastated me. I remember an exchange we had one evening in the nearby church parking lot while shooting hoops. As he outlined some of the highlights of this plan, the football scholarship, the name and location of the university, and so on, I burst in tears and tried my best to put into words why this was all so unacceptable. Looking back, I knew he understood because he found a way to help me understand how I could manage without him between visits home and why it was the right move for him to make at that time in his life.

So when he gave me that guitar, he gave me a part of his heart that has been a part of my heart for fifty some odd years…and counting.

Made with Paper by Firth Three on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil

Jorma Kaukonen: The Secret Is in the Thumb

Posted on December 20, 2014 by portfoliolongo.com

When we lived in Athens, OH, we were right up the road from the Fur Peace Ranch, where Jorma Kaukonen and other extraordinary maestros take beginner-, intermediate-, advanced-, and master-guitar players and move them along to their next levels over the course of a few jam-packed days, breaking now and then to strap on the gourmet feed bag, in a down-home, country retreat setting. It’s much more than a guitar camp, check it out.

Ann got so tired of hearing me play the same old stuff that she secretly registered me for a weekend at the Ranch! That was back in the late 1990s.

There were folks from all over the country, mostly good, some great guitar players!

One thing Jorma said about finger picking that I’ll never forget, “The secret is in the thumb!”

How true! How true! Fortunately, I learned a few things that have made an enduring difference.

What brought back this memory? I saw a Facebook post that the short documentary, Fur Peace Ranch: It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This!, has been selected for a screening at the New Jersey Film Festival on Saturday, January 31, 2015! Check out the preview.

Jorma: