Jim Gearhart- Rhythm Guitar/Vocals,
Dan Bashore- Lead Guitar/Banjo/Vocals,
Mark "Bendy" Reed- Harmonica/Vocals
Influences
Doc Watson, Rev. Gary Davis, Willie Dixon, Paul Geremia, The Band, John Prine, Guy Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Van Morrison, Jimmy Buffett, and a host of others!
Sounds Like
Sounds pretty much like our description. When we do blues, we sound bluesy. When we do folk, we sound folky.
One time at Meiserville, a lady bought me a drink and said I sounded like Kid Rock. I thought that was hilarious! I don't think I sound anything like Kid Rock, but hey...If she liked us... that's all that matters!
One Man's Perspective:
Jim Dandy started when my(Jim Gearhart) wife introduced me to Dan Bashore. Before that great moment in time, I was just playing with myself(no pun intended)and never played in front of an audience before. I've played with other musicians before, but it always seemed that they were either just starting out, or into stuff that I wasn't really into. When Dan and I got together for the first time, I knew that I found at the very least a great jamming partner. So we commenced to picking old favorites and learning new stuff. Dan is a fingerpicker and a terrific lead player, I am a strummer and because I only ever accompanied myself, never learned to play much lead. However. our styles seemed to blend nicely together. He introduced me to Piedmont style Blues, which is incredibly fun to play.
Dan heard about this place that had an Open Mic on Wednesdays at a place called The Meiserville Inn. He suggested we try it out. I might want to mention here that Dan has played in cover bands in the Harrisburg area, so he is used to playing in front of people. This was my first time out, and I was more nervous than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Well, our turn to go up seemed to come incredibly fast and there we were. We did 4-5 songs. After each song it seemed my nervousness slowly faded away. Dave Blackledge complimented us on our sound. After all that, I was hooked! Although I still got nervous, it was never as bad as that first time and it went away more quickly. We are still regulars at the Meiserville Open Mic and Dave has become a great friend to us. If you want to check it out, it's on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month(they also have terrific food!)
After doing The Meiserville Open Mic(and a few others around the area)for a while, Dan and I got the idea of hosting our own. I have a friend that owned a restaurant that had a banquet room with a raised stage and track lighting above it. It seemed ideal for an Open Mic. Unfortunately, no one showed up to listen and few performers showed up. But there was two things that did happen. One, between Meiserville, jamming at the house and our Open Mic, Dan and I were getting a lot of practice and we were getting better. Two, Mark Reed showed up and blew us away with his harmonica! After a few times jamming with him, we knew we had to get him to join. A mutual friend at work gave Mark the nickname "Bendy" because he was always practicing Harp on his breaks. We all thought it had a good ring to it, so Mark "Bendy" Reed became the third member of Jim Dandy.
Hi honey! How are you feeling? Or in the immortal words of someone we all know and really aren't very fond of most of the time, "Hey...how you feel?" "See my new grackers?"
Hey guys...what's new? Haven't seen ya in a while..hope you are all ok. Happy Thanksgiving... (we are having Meiserville jam this week if you feel like getting out) Dave
