House concerts are growing in popularity across the country

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BY JEFF KORBELIK / Lincoln Journal Star

Cars begin filling up the street outside Rebecca Carr’s small house in north Lincoln around 7. The sun is down, and the air is crisp.  But the house … it’s warm and inviting.

Coffee is brewing in the kitchen, and an assortment of mismatched coffee cups wait on the counter.

Nearby is a tray full of cookies.

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Patrons watch Dave Moore perform during a house concert as part of the Lincoln Association for Traditional Arts. (Jill Peitzmeier)

Patrons watch Dave Moore perform during a house concert as part of the Lincoln Association for Traditional Arts. (Jill Peitzmeier)

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Dave Moore performs at a house concert

Iowa City singer-songwriter Dave Moore performs a house concert for the Lincoln Association for Traditional Arts. (Jeff Korbelik / JournalStar.com)...

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People, as they tend to do, gather in the kitchen. They visit. Talk about the weather. Catch up on happenings in their lives before making their way to the living room, which is empty of furniture save for the 20-plus folding chairs arranged in church pew-like rows.

A small, beige-colored couch is pushed up against the back wall and one folding chair, at the front of the room, faces the rest.

This is where Dave Moore will sit.

And perform.

“A music lover and her friends getting together … It all kind of makes sense,” Moore says, minutes before taking “the stage.”

“This is one of the few good things to happen to live music,” he says.

The “this” Moore is referring to is the house concert, a phenomenon of sorts that’s growing in popularity across the country, especially in the Midwest and Great Plains, where venues for singer-songwriters are few and far between.

Artists, both established and up-and-coming, play them regularly, using nothing more than acoustic guitars and strong voices.

The concerts give them a chance to showcase their music, the kind of fare in which lyrics and storytelling are front and center.

 For many, these house concerts account for as much as a fourth of their musical income.

The artists enjoy the interaction, the give-and-take with a roomful of 20 or so people intent on them and their music.

“(House concerts) are really saving a lot of us,” singer-songwriter Jeff Black said in a phone interview from his home in Nashville, Tenn.

Black is a Lincoln and Omaha favorite, regularly stopping in both cities when he tours.

He’ll play a mainstage concert at The Loft at The Mill for the Lincoln Association for Traditional Arts (LAFTA) in January because his shows now draw more people than Carr’s living room can hold.

“You could go to the major cities and the cool clubs where everybody plays, but there is a lot of space between those places,” Black said.

Why not fill those spaces with opportunities to expose your music to more people — to present yourself to those who may not have the time, money or wherewithall to drive the big city?

In Lincoln, Carr has organized a house concert series for LAFTA since January 2000 and hosts four to five such events a year. She attended her first house concert when she lived on the East Coast.

So why does she open her house to strangers?

“For the music,” she said. “These are the people I want to see, people I enjoy listening to.”

It’s also why Jerome and Diane Brich host concerts in their home in Omaha. They’ve been doing it since May 2000, working closely with Carr to double book artists.

“The people are here for the music without the distractions,” Brich said. “It’s not a smoky bar. People aren’t talking as they would in a bar. It’s about the music.”

Black, for one, appreciates what Carr and Brich do.

“They’re doing it for the sake of the music,” he said. “They’re coming together to do something besides turning on their TVs and inviting friends over.

He also appreciates their taste in music.

“They seek out the music they love and don’t accept what Clear Channel or whatever corporate conglomerate hands them,” he said.

Dave Moore, hands in his jeans pockets, awaits “off stage,” the hallway leading from Carr’s front door to the living room.

He’s just enjoyed a home-cooked meal — mushroom soup, a salad with pear slices and apple pie — and is ready to play. A dinner and a warm bed, free of charge, are some of the advantages to playing house concerts.

Moore wears a rumpled blue plaid shirt, a pack of smokes resting in the front pocket. His grizzled look, complete with tussled dark hair, complements his instrument — a battered old Gibson guitar — and his down-home bluesy sound.

Known for his salt-of-the-earth songs and prowess on guitar, harmonica and accordion, Moore is a house concert regular and has a following thanks to regular appearances on Garrison Keillor’s popular radio program, “A Prairie Home Companion.”

He’s warmly received by the small contingent who have come to hear him tonight. He takes his seat, pulls on his guitar and one of the six harmonicas he’s brought and begins to play.

Moore has been in the music business for more than 30 years, growing up and living in Iowa, where he’s become a bit of a legend.

He’s known for his solo performances as well as his work with fellow Iowa singer-songwriter Greg Brown.

He played his first house concert about 10 years ago in a Minneapolis suburb. He called it an “odd” experience.

“It was a little intimate,” he admitted. “I was used to separation, being on a stage and having a PA (public address) system.”

He grew more comfortable after performing a couple more of them.

“I began to appreciate the intimacy,” he said. “When you break it down to its core, it’s about playing music for the people.”

Black and singer-songwriter Cosy Sheridan, who will perform at Carr’s in May, acknowledged that’s the case as well.

Sheridan, like Moore, needed to get used to the idea of playing in someone’s living room. She played her first house concert 13 years ago in San Francisco.

“I remember being quite nervous,” she said.

So much so, a friend of hers placed a microphone stand in front of her to replicate a club or coffeehouse setting.

“I didn’t have the separation I was used to,” she said. “There were no footlights. The people were on stage with me.”

Black, on the other hand, felt right at home. Growing up, he was known for bringing his guitar to outdoor gatherings with his friends.

His banjo-playing father told him stories about how he and Black’s guitar-playing uncle would “roll up the rugs and move back the furniture.”

“There’s a sense of romanticism with it,” Black said. “It doesn’t have to be Carnegie Hall. Though it wouldn’t upset me to play there, too.”

It’s intermission at Carr’s house, and people again congregate in the kitchen. A few check out Moore’s CDs on a table in an adjoining room, while the performer heads outside for his break.

Carr hurriedly brews another pot of decaffeinated coffee.

Organizing a house concert, according to the host, is easier said than done.

Step one is having a place big enough to accommodate one. Carr has had as many as 48 people when David Mallett performed a couple of years ago. That was too many, she said.

Step two is booking the performer.

“The trick is finding a national caliber artist who is willing to do a house concert on their off nights,” she said.

The key to that is cross-booking. Carr works with presenters across the state, including the Brichs in Omaha. Moore played Lincoln on a Friday and Omaha the next night before heading back to Iowa City.

Step three is audience recruitment, making sure people show up  to hear the artists perform.

“It’s the part I like least,” Carr said. “If it’s someone people haven’t seen before, it takes a little more arm-twisting.”

Some folks, Carr said, don’t feel comfortable coming into someone’s house where they might not know anybody else.

That’s understandable.

It’s why she tells her patrons to introduce themselves to each other in order to make people feel more at ease.

“It’s not just about the music,” she said. “It’s about community, too.”

Moore feels right at home interacting with the audience and preceding several his songs with stories.

One song is about his teenage daughter. Another relates to his work with disadvantaged youths. He sings a funny Greg Brown cover about the two of them  competing in a battle of the bands.

He talks extensively about Keillor, mimicking the voice of the author and public radio personality.

Keillor, he said, has a habit of calling Moore just days before he needs him for a show.

“You can’t say no to Garrison,” say Moore, who’s incredibly grateful for the exposure “A Prairie Home Companion” affords.

He concludes the night with a sing-along to “Good Night Irene,” pulling out his button accordion. He then comes back (from the hallway) with a two-song encore — both requests.

Afterward, he parks himself on a folding chair and visits. Talks as long as people want to talk.

“What LAFTA does here … it’s a good thing for live music, especially in an era when live music needs all the help it can get,” he says.

Eventually, people filter out the door into the chilly night, to their cars parked outside the small house.

Many will be back when the next traveling musician with songs to sing and stories to tell makes him or herself at home. 

Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.