On September 4, 2015, I drove to my friend’s house outside Pacific, MO. He hosts Henry House Concerts. When I drive to the house concerts, I’m usually riding the fence on if I’m about to play music in front of people or not. Usually, we wait until the main artist arrives and makes sure they don’t mind. Verlon Thompson had arrived before me and gave the ok, so I began warming up.
I played three songs, two which were brand new. A few days prior, I played It’s A Shame at The Wolf and it went over well and I decided to end with that song. Well, of the songs I played, I didn’t remember the lyrics and did some performer magic to act like I didn’t mess up the song. Since I mentioned the song being new and my worries with the lyrics, I mentioned the situation afterwards.
Verlon Thompson
When Verlon took the performing area, he said not to worry about thing like forgetting lyrics. After 30 or more years, he has lots more songs to forget the lyrics to–and that “real person” presentation is what impressed me most about Verlon. He’s such a nice guy.
While performing, Verlon gave me a shout out as a “musical brother” and afterwards we talked about performing, guitars, fingernails, life, and whatever topic the conversation possessed.
Verlon is a seasoned songwriter and performer. He played guitar with Guy Clark for years. Here’s a sample of Verlon.