{"id":243592,"date":"2010-06-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-25T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/grassroots-concert-series-draws-top-tier-acoustic-folk-talents\/"},"modified":"2010-06-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-25T07:00:00","slug":"grassroots-concert-series-draws-top-tier-acoustic-folk-talents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/grassroots-concert-series-draws-top-tier-acoustic-folk-talents\/","title":{"rendered":"La serie de conciertos de base atrae a talentos ac\u00fasticos y folcl\u00f3ricos de primer nivel"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Pearson
\nReportero SDUN
\n<\/strong>
\n

\"Grassroots<\/a>
Jesse Winchester is scheduled to perform at Acoustic Music San Diego on Sept. 10 at 7:30 p.m. (Courtesy Richard Dowdy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>The first impression one gets looking at the outside of the Normal Heights United Methodist Church, across the street from Adams Elementary School, is that it looks like a run-of-the-mill Sunday gathering place, complete with a fellowship hall and a main church. <\/p>\n

But the Normal Heights United Methodist Church serves as a different type of gathering place for live music lovers year-round. The church hosts the Acoustic Music San Diego (AMSD) Concerts series, a labor of love Carey Driscoll started in 2003.<\/p>\n

Driscoll, who originally moved to San Diego in 1965, launched AMSD Concerts because he was a fan of Jack Williams \u2013 a singer-songwriter with a 51-year career in music who\u2019s played with John Lee Hooker, Big Joe Turner, Jerry Butler, Hank Ballard, and the Shirelles, to name a few \u2013 and he wanted to see Williams perform, Driscoll said. <\/p>\n

\u201cStarting with that show, I had to learn the ins and out of booking artists as I went,\u201d he said. \u201cI applied my music knowledge and sales experience \u2013 whatever it took to the get the job done. What I did learn along the way is that this is not something easy to do as a one-man operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the 250-seat AMSD Concerts is a one-man operation with no ties to Ticketmaster or Clear Channel \u2013 the major promoters and ticket sellers for nearly all U.S. concerts \u2013 Driscoll gets the word out the old-fashioned way. He makes sure each concert is listed in the calendar of events sections of local newspapers and he sends e-mails to his ever-growing list of contacts.<\/p>\n

In the early days, some of the AMSD shows he managed were coups of a sort \u2013 they included original member of The Byrds Chris Hillman, John McEuen of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band fame, and Country Joe McDonald. But Driscoll also landed some household names, such as Judy Collins (who\u2019s now performed twice for AMSD); Janis Ian, scheduled to perform September 3; and John Sebastian, who has shows booked for October 23 and 24.<\/p>\n

Maria Penny, 70, who lives in Clairemont, is one of AMSD Concerts\u2019 e-mail subscribers and regular attendees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just love the venue,\u201d Penny said. \u201cThe acoustics are great, and the variety of artists he brings in is more in the folk tradition, which is the music I grew up on. And it\u2019s getting harder to see those artists anywhere these days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cindy Myhra, 57, who also attends regularly, said what she loves most about the shows is that alcohol is not sold at AMSD Concerts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat way you don\u2019t have some obnoxious jerk sitting next to you talking all night and yelling out, \u2018Play Freebird,\u2019\u201d Myhra joked. \u201cI\u2019ve been to 82 (AMSD) concerts and it\u2019s just one of the best, intimate settings in existence, or at least anywhere in San Diego in my opinion. You get to talk to the artist after the show, get your picture taken with them \u2013 it\u2019s just an all-around great experience.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Pearson SDUN Reporter The first impression one gets looking at the outside of the Normal Heights United Methodist Church, across the street from Adams Elementary School, is that it looks like a run-of-the-mill Sunday gathering place, complete with a fellowship hall and a main church. But the Normal Heights United Methodist Church serves […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1321,"featured_media":243593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Grassroots concert series draws top tier acoustic, folk talents","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1321"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}