Kevin Welch at Blue Rock Studio Wimberley, Tx

Cool Houses Austin

So what do we do on a Thursday night in Wimberley? Well, if you are lucky enough to get an advance reservation, you find yourself out at Blue Rock Studio (www.bluerocktexas.com) for a house concert. Blue Rock is situated on a bluff overlooking the gorgeous hills and the Blanco River. Billy and Dodee Crockett will be on hand to welcome you to hear their latest recording artist/ guest in a small, intimate setting in what appears to be a huge living room. Actually, it is a live recording stage! Blue Rock is so beautiful because it has a studio set-up that resonates both superb professionalism and an intimate setting with its audience and artists. Both the recording artists and the audience members feel incredibly blessed when we get to come out to Billy and Dodee’s place on the Blanco River. The first thing you notice as you drive up the long driveway to Blue Rock is the incredible stonework evidenced everywhere and that this appears to be an 1800’s frontier Garrison! But then you go inside and your jaw drops about a mile as you take in the most serene and artistically decorated private home/studio you could ever imagine.

This past Thursday, singer/songwriter Kevin Welch was their featured guest. The show was just superb. Kevin was on stage solo with an acoustic guitar, a self-dreprecating sense of humor, and a repetoire of songs and stories that had the audience riveted to their seats. I think we were all stunned by his moving performance. It was just like sitting down with one of your best friends and listening to how he wrote a song about the events that occurred down life’s highway. The stories are sometimes about his own life or inspired by stories he has heard along the musician’s road. One such story was collected in a Scottish pub when Welch was on tour in Scotland. We were all immersed in the tale of Scottish poet, Robert Burns (1759-1796), and the imagined joy Burns felt as he rode his horse up to a Highland castle to steal away his lady love for a new life overseas. Everyone in the audience shared in that joy, that sense of adventure and optimism which happens when one goes against all odds for one’s dreams. That seems to be the gift of Kevin Welch. He awakens in each of us our own dreams, our own rememberings of life’s best adventures and most importantly, he reminds us that we all have our own stories to tell and like him, many more dreams to ride after. To hear more of Kevin, please visit his site: www.kevinwelch.com . For more info on Blue Rock, go to (www.bluerocktexas.com) and my heartfelt thanks to Rodney Bursiel for the wonderful picture of Kevin Welch (www.rodneybursiel.com) which he so graciously shared for this article.