Musically the material fell somewhere in between singer/ songwriter and modern country.

Phil Madeira & David Mansfield

Dean & Tami's Basement O' Sound

East Brunswick, New Jersey

August 7,2016

For a number of years now Professor Dean Zimmerman and his wife Tami have been generous enough to open their home for a series of basement concerts. Such acts as The Lost Dogs, The 77's, The Choir, Daniel Amos and others have graced the home with their performances. This Sunday evening offering brought in the duo of Phil Madeira and David Mansfield for an night of song and story. For those youngsters who might be unfamiliar with these two names, let me give you a very brief rundown. I first became aware of Phil Madeira many years ago in his role as the keyboard player for the Phil Keaggy Band on the album "Emerging" as well as a stint playing Hammond B3 Organ for Emmylou Harris in her band. David Mansfield was a member of the "Rolling Thunder Review' of Bob Dylan fame which was followed by his time in "The Alpha Band", which consisted of David, Steven Soles & T-Bone Burnett. Enough of the history lesson.

A young local artist, David Robinson, shared a brief set of tunes very nicely. David and Phil come on at about 7pm and played a two hour set of Phil's material as well as a few cover tunes. The audience of about fifty loved every minute of the concert. Phil, besides being an excellent musician is also an accomplished storyteller and David was a perfect foil to the storytelling. Phil, musically handled all of the vocals as well the primary guitar work. David took on the role as support player on guitar, dobro, fiddle and mandolin magnificently. The ease with which these two professionals played off of each other was an absolute joy to watch. Were parts improvised or did these guys know each other so well that they could just sense where the other player was going? Which ever it was, it was done with taste and skill. Musically the material fell somewhere in between singer/ songwriter and modern country. What ever label you want to give it, I for one would call it very satisfactory.

Chris MacIntosh

aka Grandfather Rock