Review of the Green Mill House Band
by Sue Kelly (I-94 FM Eau Claire)
Lying dormant after years of discontent and overkill, my respect for musicians and the craft of performing has been renewed. With John Nielsen and the Green Mill House Band, my faith in live music has been revived like a stopped heart to an electric paddle.
It’s a Thursday night in Eau Claire Wisconsin. I’ve had an excellent meal with a few adult beverages. I am in the midst of three mature professionals, picking up guitars and assembling a traveling stage to form a band that covers “everything from Johnny Cash to Led Zeppelin.” The GMHB is John Nielsen, Frank Aragona and Tony Campbell.
While John worked fluidly to get the sound system set up for the show, Frank donned his fedora, tuned his guitar and joined Tony and me as we talked about ‘music business’.
Bassist, Tony Campbell has been playing stringed instruments since he was fret-tall to a cello. For the last thirty-six years he has made his way to several bands (he currently plays in seven groups) and has the right to call himself a professional musician.
John first picked up the guitar only 8 years ago. His wife of over 25 years, Nancy, told me that she didn’t even know he could sing until then. John says with pride that Nancy is his roadie, groupie, manager, wife and best friend. Hearing something that admirable from a guy who’s about to sing ‘Good Hearted Woman’ is enough to make even the coldest of hearts melt. Nancy and John are just two people who enjoy music. And given the friendship between them, if Nancy didn’t like it, John probably would not pursue it.
The bar begins to fill up with some regulars and a few people out to celebrate a birthday or two. We all settled in and the group sat down, the house music was silenced and I was in for an entertaining show to say the very least.
The really cool thing about this clan is that before the show they hand out their set list. It contains each and every song they perform together alphabetically. The presence of repeat customers is always a sign of admiration. Given the fact that many people started bringing up their requests is proof that the guys draw a regular crowd.
John starts out on vocals. He is fun, doesn’t take himself too seriously and clearly loves to be able to just play and sing. His rendition of Lukenbach Texas even had him lowering or raising his voice depending on whether he was singing Waylon’s or Willie’s part. The crowd got it and chuckled at his Willie voice.
The sound in the bar was miraculously tight and assuming you wanted to have a conversation, you could do so without being blown away by over singing and drums. There was no drum kit in this little group and, to be honest, it was nice to just hear the voices, the banter, the bar conversations and the strings.
Someone in the crowd shouted U2! And that’s when we heard from Frank Aragona. Frank’s voice is like a poem and John and Tony’s accompaniment was the scroll upon which it’s written. “With Or Without You” started out with an incredible instrumental that got everyone’s attention. After a few lines of crystal clear and harmonic instrumentals, Frank began singing. In most cases the story would ends there. Anyone trying to cover an iconic voice like Bono’s has a long bumpy road ahead of them. Frank, however, seemed to have conceived, engineered, and personally hand-paved this road. His cover of the song was clear perfection and left me with goose bumps. The crowd just stopped, listened and watched as if the magic would disappear if they looked away. I was hooked and knew I wanted to see these guys again!
It takes a lot of courage to pick up a guitar when you’ve already lived a ‘normal’ life off the stage. When you take the plunge and put yourself out there AND do a great job of it, you deserve the title of Professional Musician. I highly recommend seeing these guys.
Sue Kelly
