Just playin’ folk: Acoustic musicians find a home at LV Little Theatre

Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2003 | 8:21 a.m.

When Nancy Godfrey decided to invite nationally known folk artists to perform in Las Vegas, it could have been dubbed a momentary lapse of reason.

After all, prominent acoustic performers are noticeably absent from the city not known for coffee shops and socially conscious verse.

But that was last year. That was before Godfrey, a lighting technician for Siegfried & Roy, had an itch to hear the storied sounds of contemporary folk artists on nights she wasn't working.

"Nobody ever books someone I want to see on a Wednesday or Thursday night," Godfrey said while sitting outside Cafe Espresso Roma.

Mostly, though, such performers never set foot in the town.

"They just drive on through because there's never been a place to land," Godfrey said. "So I said to myself, 'If you're going to see people you really want to see, you're going to have to do it your damn self.'"

And she did. In its first year, the "Acoustic Routes" concert series that Godfrey created with her husband Kevin Kozoriz, has booked solid names.

Longtime singer/songwriter James Lee Stanley opened the series in September. Contemporary folk artist Todd Snider performed in November. On Wednesday legendary songwriter/recording artist Tom Paxton takes the stage at Las Vegas Little Theatre on Schiff Drive, where the concerts are held. Michael Smith, Cheryl Wheeler and Christine Lavin will complete the series.

"It's quite a range of performers," Godfrey said. "Between Tom and Todd, we are probably bracketing folk music as we know it today."

Godfrey, who bought her first Paxton album in the late 1970s, is elated about Paxton coming to Las Vegas.

"Tom Paxton is about as close to a legend you get in the music business," she said. "You say Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary and Tom Paxton in the same breath."

So how do you get a longtime influential American folk hero to come to Las Vegas?

Call his people. Even though you might get nothing but dead silence on the other end of the phone.

"I got a lot of that in the beginning," Godfrey said with a laugh. "I got a lot of, 'Oh my God, somebody is calling from Las Vegas.' It's like no-man's land when it comes to acoustic music."

But in taking the attitude of, "we can use my dad's barn and my mom can make the costumes," the highly former engaging hippie was confident her plan would work.

"At any given time," she said, "there's a chain of circumstances that can make stuff happen."

In a way, that chain began 25 years ago when Godfrey found herself in the 1970s attending college in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Godfrey, who had grown up in Southern California listening to The Beatles, Peter, Paul and Mary and Jefferson Airplane, hung out in Santa Cruz coffee shops listening to folk artists such as James Lee Stanley.

A huge Stanley fan, she would wear out his album "Three's the Charm" on her turntable.

Two decades later, with Santa Cruz long behind her, Godfrey was looking through her old albums and came across "Three's the Charm" and wondered what the singer was doing these days.

She found Stanley's website and learned he was still making music. Godfrey fired an e-mail telling him she him she was a fan from Santa Cruz in the '70s. He wrote back. She wrote back.

Not long after Godfrey and Kozoriz drove to Los Angeles to meet the singer for coffee. The event inspired her to seek out her own acoustic music performances in Las Vegas. Stanley would open the series.

Putting it together

Already having the technical background, Godfrey called her friends at the Las Vegas Little Theatre, with whom she worked in the past, to see if she could use its 160-seat theater to stage the performances.

Through a friend, Godfrey connected with now-defunct Mars Music, a musical instrument store, which agreed to sponsor the sound gear for the shows. (When Mars Music went out of business soon after, it sold her same system used in the first show for a discount price.)

Next she called around to find the going rates for the performers.

She searched beyond her knowledge of contemporary artists by hitting the websites of artists she knew, which led her to websites of the venues they played. From there she would see what other performers were scheduled, then researched their music.

"One of my goals is to keep the ticket prices as low as possible," Godfrey said. "The goal between my husband and I is to break even."

In September, Stanley, an unknown in Las Vegas, took the stage to small turnout.

"It was lean," Godfrey said. "During his encore he actually named everyone in the audience (of 28). He met everybody in the lobby during the set break."

When Snider played in November, he filled half the house and performed on the New York apartment set for Las Vegas Little Theatre's production of "I Hate Hamlet."

"A lot of the Parrot Heads came out of the woodwork for the show," Godfrey said, adding that Snider recorded on Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Records.

"He started singing his first song, when he got to the first chorus, the audience started singing along. He got this big smile. He played for 2 1/2 hours.

"There's something about this kind of music that, it sounds cliche, but that it connects with your heart. It connects with your emotional side as opposed to your intellectual side."

Local acts

Godfrey didn't forget about local artists. She and her husband hit open-mike nights at local bars to find performers to open shows.

"Having locals as opening acts serves a double purpose," she said. "It connects local audiences with local performers and gives those performers a chance to play with ... the artists.

"It's starting to bring the performers out of the woodwork."

Kozoris, who works front desk at The Mirage, found out that a co-worker of his was an accomplished banjo player.

"It's just trippy," Godfrey said. "I got a phone call yesterday from someone who manages someone local who I never heard of. It's so cool how quick the word gets out."

Stanley is opening for Paxton. Local artist Michael Soli is opening for Cheryl Wheeler. Anne Donohue opened for Snider.

Godfrey's dream performers for the series include, among others, David Bromberg and David Wilcox. Godfrey doesn't expect a shortage of potential performers.

"There are hundreds of first-rate performers out there ... They're talented musicians. They're gifted songwriters and they're hysterically funny because they're talking about life.

"In the '80s, it was the kiss of death to play Vegas. Now (that) the taint of Vegas is gone, it can happen."

archive