Cheap and Easy to perform in Sopchoppy Saturday February 12, 2011 February 12, 2011
Sopchoppy, Florida 32358
Cheap and Easy to perform in Sopchoppy
Saturday February 12, 2011
Powder your nose & put on your party dress for the Tallahassee-based duet, Cheap and Easy
Cheap and Easy is the collaborative effort of guitar slinger/songwriter Bodega Bob Homme and vocalist/bassist Sugar Harris. The duet's earthy blue-collar party entertainment is rich in humor and anchored by roots-level Americana, Blues, & Country music.
Cheap and Easy, rated one of the top duets for close performance venues in the southeast, delivers a performance that is a treat of foot-tapping hand clapping back porch music spiced and seasoned with jokes, stories, and the comfortably intimate stage interaction of the two performers. Cheap and Easy recaptures the closeness of that roots-level style of variety entertainment that embraces the audience as participants in the performance and not merely observers of it.
This dynamic duo will be performing at Sopchoppy’s Eclectic Music and Art forum—The Frog and The Hummingbird Co & Butterfield’s Roadhouse on Saturday February 12th 2011.
This relatively new award winning venue located at 118 Municipal Ave and the corner of Rose St in Sopchoppy Florida has become esteemed for just this type of high caliber audience interactive and up close and personal type of performance. This enchanting establishment provides music and art aficionados the opportunity to fully appreciate the arts in an old fashioned listening room/coffee house ambiance that merges the moods and nostalgia of yesteryears speakeasies with modern day fusions of décor, specialty dishes and a broad ranges of music and arts styles all infused with Salli and Gabriel’s warm and welcoming personalities. Proprietors Salli Squitieri and Gabriel Butterfield proudly host and present ‘back by popular demand’ Bodega Bob and Sugar Harris of Cheap and Easy
Cheap and Easy when not working regional clubs, coffee houses, and home concerts that comprise the bulk of their performance schedule, can often be spotted keeping their skills sharp and fresh by working the crowds as street musicians at special events throughout the southeast
In short, Cheap and Easy delivers the perfect combination of humor and foot-tapping music for any intimate venue! Homme & Harris are both lifelong performers - most recently with the successful regional acoustic trio, Trigger Happy
The pair formed Cheap and Easy in 2009 to recapture the closeness of roots-level variety entertainment that places the performers among the audience rather than in front of them, that embraces the audience as participants in the performance and not merely observers of it. The pair's renowned rhythmic sensitivity and stage intimacy gives party and close performance venue attendees a treat seldom encountered in the polished world of acoustic stage performance.
Cheap and Easy's repertoire of Americana, Country, & Blues music ,blended with their well-crafted, and often quirky original songs, a love of performance, and their nascent ability to observe and report the humorous foibles of the human condition forms the foundation of the duet's back porch blue-collar entertainment.
Sugar's steamy alto voice, Jazz roots, and long term love affair with the rumble and articulation of the lower register, coupled with Bodega's barroom-bass vocals and raw, street level energy acquired in the rough and tumble watering holes of seaport towns around the world are the ingredients that combine to make Cheap and Easy one of the area's best bets for good-time entertainment!
Naomi "Sugar" Harris
Sugar Harris is the daughter of the Japanese child star, Fukiko Hirai, and the granddaughter of string prodigy, Emily Vera Wetmore, a concert violinist at age 16 with the Elmira Symphony Orchestra. Sugar is a native of the Daytona Beach music scene. Raised under the inspiration of her brother, Russ Wetmore, an orchestral and marching band composer who once composed for Michael Jackson, she developed an early love of cadence and rhythm. Her first instrument was the violin but she quickly transitioned into woodwinds where she mastered the clarinet, flute, and saxophone.
Serendipity intervened in her teenage years in the form of a broken clarinet. Being without an instrument at practice, she was instructed by her band director to "pick up that bass clarinet and learn how to use it!" The deep resonance of bass instruments lured Sugar to the dark side forever!
Her love affair with the bass clef drove her into the arms of the electric bass guitar. Popping bass behind a variety of local coastal and central Florida bands from Christian to Classic Rock brought her to the attention of the Daytona Beach jazz scene where in the mid 1980s she laid bass lines behind jazz combos from Daytona Beach Community College, The University of Central Florida, and Stetson University, culminating in the offer of a full-ride music scholarship from Stetson University.
Sugar has been an active member of the Tallahassee music scene for many years now, most recently with the successful regional trio Trigger Happy. Her jazz roots and the influence of such composers as Benson, Klugh, Methany & Jordan are apparent in her aggressive bass lines and often non-traditional patterns. Sugar's accurate harmonics and rhythmic punch form the low end structure upon which the Cheap & Easy sound is built. Her steamy alto vocals and outrageous sense of humor give the duet's music and stage show a vitality that is hard to match.
Bodega Bob has been slingin' a six string since the age of fifteen. Raised in the border territories between West Virginia and western Pennsylvania he cut his teeth on Hank, Johnny, Lester & Earl. In a bizarre and humorous twist of fate, Bodega was introduced to Polka recording stars Wanda & Stephanie and Frankie Yankovich and blew trumpet on the Polka circuit for several years with the Moleks in such bands as the Silver Stars and the Polka Dynamics
Around age 17 he was introduced to the Motown sound and spent the 8-track years in the backseat of his Chevy with the local Hillbilly girls and Ike & Tina, Smokey, Archie Bell, Sam Cooke and Aretha. Finally, at age 19, in a desperate attempt to escape what had become his only working gig at the time - playing lead horn in a Polka band - Bodega fled the Hillbilly Territories and joined the US Submarine Force.
During his Vietnam & Cold War era Navy career, Bodega played guitar in liberty barrooms across two oceans and five of the seven seas. His experience as an acoustic street musician in Spain & Africa provided him with a rich and earthy outdoor sound that removes any barriers between the audience and the musicians. Over his musical journey, Bodega has performed with such diverse personalities as Christian Music vocalist & recording artist Jamie Lambert, Irish balladeer Eddie Delaher, Memphis recording artist Wendell Craig, and most recently as the front man for the successful regional trio Trigger Happy.
After his discharge from the Navy, Bodega worked as a bassman with the Southern Rock & Roll band, Sunny Side Up in the Pittsburgh & Tri-state area. A subsequent move to Daytona Beach exposed Bodega to the influences of Gregg Allman & Floyd Miles. After eight years of the rich Daytona Beach blues scene, he relocated to Miami, the home of Milton Campbell, Jr. (Little Milton).
Bodega's original songs range from the funny to the gritty and his love songs are more reminiscent of whiskey and wet spots than flowers and Hallmark verses. His affinity for the box guitar and his barroom-bass vocals form the crux of Cheap & Easy's earthy sound.
Salli Squitieri and Gabriel Butterfield strongly recommend reservations for this upcoming performance on February 12th, 2011. Doors open at 7:30 PM. Performance ends at 10 PM. Assorted Beverages, Light Fare/Signature Plates and Dangerously Delicious Desserts are available at nominal cost. The Gift Store is open during events and Table top games are also available. Salli and Gabriel are also requesting that everyone brings one non-perishable food item for the local food bank and/or one pet need for CHAT. For more information contact: frogandhummingbirdco@yahoo.com
or phone 305-304-2226
Added by butterfieldsociety on December 30, 2010