Fancy Seeing You Here

[Saxafone]

It's often mentioned on here how the oddest chance occurances result in memorable soulful occasions, here's another ! Having bailed out of the damp & dismal uk for a fix of spanish sun and sangria 2 weeks ago, there were no expectations or plans of things soul - the price that had to be paid for some warming rays.

Day 3 arrives & bored witless in a small (but admittedly, sun-drenched) spanish town with the choice of ear-rupturing Baelaric beats or Dancing Queen and Mama Mia as evening entertainment, the following leapt out of a page of a Spanish Paper (I wasn't having much luck with the crossword and couldn't make head nor tail of my horoscope !) ;

El Palau de Altea acoge hoy la actuaci³n de Betty LaVette, la voz del soul americano

I still don't understand what the whole sentence means and no time or location was given, but next thing is that we're tearing along in the hired jalopy to a town called Altea, about 20 miles from where we were staying, by some fluke found a venue called El Palau and enquired as to the possibility of the said Ms Lavette appearing there, some time soon.

After lots of si si, squinting and ques and pointing at watches, it became apparent that Bettye was indeed on........ in exactly 5 minutos and si there were plenty of tickets available. Time only to neck a quick san miguel and we were ushered in, to be treated to a fantastic show with Bettye giving it large on her current and 60's songs backed by a brilliant band, with us sat a few rows from the stage. In short, Magic

Result........or so I thought, feeling extremely pleased with myself........until the subsequent inquisition...........so let's get this right, you brought us to spain without having any clue that Bettye Lavette (who we saw in London last year) was going to be on..........drove 20 miles straight to a venue you had never heard of, and 5 minutes later...........she's on stage, YES, that's exactly how it happened, see there was this spanish newspaper thing and I couldn't do the crossword and........ This is not working for you is it my dearest ?

If it was trial by Jury, I'd be a gonner.........great night, truly totally unplanned, but I'm still getting the old fashioned looks that tell me someone thinks differently !

Taff the Innocent

[Paul McKay]

Well Taff, you didn't really expect Wendy to believe you did you? I know Helen wouldn't have.......

[Saxafone]

Well Taff, you didn't really expect Wendy to believe you did you? I know Helen wouldn't have.......

Suppose not Paul, I've been under suspicion ever since that first time, many years ago, when I suggested a totally random June break at a certain Cleethorpes caravan site

Taff

Edited July 25, 2008 by Saxafone

[Jerry Hipkiss]

Brilliant story!

Hippo.

[macca]

Betty appeared not long ago in my adopted hometown of Pontevedra.

Last summer we had Mavis Staples, & the summer before that, Solomon Burke & Taj Mahal.

I've never been to Altea, but don't be suprised to find 'Giants of Blues & Soul' on

at summer fiestas across the country.

Percy Sledge is going to perform in two

weeks in Cedeira, a little fishing village in the North-West. How

weird is that? One of the nice things about 'patronal' summer festivals in Spain is that the concerts are

usually free, unless it's a big star like Ray Charles, who I saw in the local bull ring about 8 years ago for around 10 euros.

Next week we've got Johnny Winter but I don't think I'll be attending.

M

p.s. The sentence you don't understand means, more or less,

"El Palau de Altea (name of venue) welcomes today (the performance) of Betty Lavette, the

voice of American Soul. "