Pierce Pettis and Reverie Road
The Last Good Kiss, Old Town Tavern, Pierce Pettis, Jim Marshall, Dis Bar
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This issue includes five favorite grocery products, one of the most influential crime novels ever written, one of Ann Arbor’s most beloved townie bars, a songwriter's songwriter from Alabama, a Viking with three NFL career records, and a bar with a built-in alibi. I hope you like the picks and pics.
We saw Pierce Pettis and Jan Krist perform at Trinity House Theatre on Friday and Reverie Road at The Ark on Tuesday. Reverie Road is a Celtic powerhouse ensemble, uniting founding Solas members Winifred Horan (fiddle) and John Williams (accordion) with former Gaelic Storm fiddler Katie Grennan and Steinway Artist Jazz and Raga pianist Utsav Lal. They were outstanding, and the show was a delight.
My brother David is featured playing with the late Freddie Hubbard in this November 1977 PBS Special.
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Fave Five 139: Pierce Pettis and Reverie Road
Montana Mystery (The Last Good Kiss), Townie Tavern (Old Town Tavern), Alabama Agrarian (Pierce Pettis), Purple People Eater (Jim Marshall), and Dis Bar.
Fave Five List: Favorite Grocery Products
Here are five items that I try to buy whenever I run out of my supply.
Spicy Mango Lemonade - Trader Joe's - I love this great blend of sweet and spicy lemonade with a kick that lends itself to slow sipping.
Mediterranean Style Hummus - Trader Joe's - The best-tasting hummus I have found in a store.
Sweet & Spicy Pecans - Trader Joe's - Can you tell that I like sweet and spicy together? I mix these with almonds and raisins for a sweet and savory snack.
Fresh from Meijer Spicy Guacamole - Meijer - I like this better than all other packaged guacamole.
White Corn Restaurant Style Guacamole Tortilla Chips - Kroger - When I dip one of these into the spicy guacamole shown above, it results in guac overload.
Book Best Bet
The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
I bought this book a long time ago and appreciated the writing and liked the story.
From Amazon:
One of Time Magazine's 100 best mystery and thriller books of all time
One of the most influential crime novels ever written, by a legend of the genre.
Tough, hard-boiled, and brilliantly suspenseful, The Last Good Kiss is an unforgettable detective story starring C. W. Sughrue, a Montana investigator who kills time by working at a topless bar. Hired to track down a derelict author, he ends up on the trail of a girl missing in Haight-Ashbury for a decade. The tense hunt becomes obsessive as Sughrue takes a haunting journey through the underbelly of America's sleaziest nightmares.
James Crumley
From Wikipedia: James Arthur Crumley (October 12, 1939 – September 17, 2008) was an American author of violent hardboiled crime novels and several volumes of short stories and essays, as well as published and unpublished screenplays. He has been described as "one of modern crime writing's best practitioners", who was "a patron saint of the post-Vietnam private eye novel" and a cross between Raymond Chandler and Hunter S. Thompson. His book The Last Good Kiss has been described as "the most influential crime novel of the last 50 years."
Restaurant Recommendation
Old Town Tavern 122 W. Liberty Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Barb and I dined here before Tuesday’s Ark concert. It’s just a block away and allowed us to park in a nearby lot and walk to dinner and then to the show.
Smoked brisket, topped with pepper-jack and pickled onion. Served on a ciabatta bun with a side of BBQ, chips, and a pickle spear.
From the restaurant: The Old Town has continued the tradition of being a bar or saloon at the present location since 1898. In 1972 Jerry Pawlicki bought Merkel’s Friendly Corner and renamed it the Old Town Tavern. Jerry built the bar, bar cabinets, tables and booths. He laid the hardwood floor and preserved the original tin ceiling. In the early days of Old Town it was a blue collar bar, opening at 6am to accommodate the 3rd shift workers from area factories. For 40 years the Old Town has welcomed the Old West Side residents and all of Ann Arbor as well as University of Michigan students, faculty and staff. In 1998, the business was passed to sons Chris and Steve. The Old Town is the last survivor of the of the “Townie” bars. Gone is the Del Rio, Mr. Flood’s Party, the Second Chance, and the Full Moon.
Marvelous Musician
We saw Pierce perform on Friday in Livonia. He performed in our home on November 22, 2008.
In 1989 I loved "Legacy," the title track of the Windham Hill new folk compilation, and I have bought all his subsequent albums. I saw him at the Borders store in Novi, Michigan, at The Ark in Ann Arbor, at Green Wood Coffee House in Ann Arbor, and on June 14, 2019 at Trinity House Theatre. Pierce is a member of the New Agrarians with Kate Campbell and Tom Kimmel, all of whom have performed individually in our home.
From Wikipedia: Pierce Pettis (born April 14, 1954 in Fort Payne, Alabama) is an American singer-songwriter. Chase the Buffalo, undoubtedly the most lyrically rich album of the High Street years, established Pettis firmly as a songwriter's songwriter.
From his site: As a staff writer for Muscle Shoals Sounds Studios, his track “Song at the End of the Movie” found its way to Joan Baez’s 1979 album Honest Lullaby. Pettis hit the road and became a member of the “Fast Folk” movement in New York in the mid-1980s. He released one independent solo album, Moments (1984) before signing with High Street Records, a division of Windham Hill. There, he released three albums: While the Serpent Lies Sleeping (1989), Tinseltown (1991), and Chase the Buffalo (1993). His relationship with Tinseltown producer Mark Heard transcended the album. After Heard’s untimely death in 1992, Pettis committed to including a song of Heard’s on every one of his own albums, a practice that continues to this day.
Pettis was a staff songwriter for PolyGram from 1993-2000 and when his High Street contract ended, Pettis signed to Compass Records where he has released Making Light of It (1996), Everything Matters (1998), State of Grace (2001), and Great Big World (2004). Pierce Pettis’s songs have been recorded by artists including Susan Ashton, Dar Williams, Garth Brooks and Art Garfunkel. His album, That Kind of Love on Compass Records was released January, 2009. Father’s Son, Pettis’s newest solo project for Compass Records Group, was released January, 2019.
Legacy
Nod Over Coffee (by Mark Heard)
That Kind of Love
State of Grace
My Playlist
Sports Star
Jim passed away on Tuesday. He was a much beloved player holding records for fumbles recovered, consecutive starts, and total games played on defense.
Jim Marshall, Iron Man Defensive End for the Vikings, Dies at 87
Marshall started every game for the Vikings over the franchise’s first 19 seasons, making four Super Bowl appearances as part of Minnesota’s formidable defensive line, known as the Purple People Eaters.
From Wikipedia: James Lawrence Marshall (December 30, 1937 – June 3, 2025) was an American professional football player who was a defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) for 20 seasons, primarily with the Minnesota Vikings. He recovered an NFL career-record 29 opponents' fumbles. He also holds the league career marks for most consecutive starts (270) and most games played (282) by a defensive player. The Vikings retired his No. 70, and he was inducted into the Vikings Ring of Honor.
Marshall played college football for the Ohio State Buckeyes, before leaving to play for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL). He was selected by the Cleveland Browns in the fourth round of the 1960 NFL draft. Marshall played one season with the Browns before being traded to the Vikings. In 1964, he recovered a fumble and returned it 66 yards in the wrong direction into the Vikings' end zone, where he threw the ball out of bounds, resulting in a safety for the opposition San Francisco 49ers.
Picture Pun
And She’s Not There.
