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Colorful group sings the blues for fun of it

By ERNEST HOOPER
Published November 3, 2006

One server is dressed like a Playboy bunny, another as a naughty nurse.

At the bar is a woman who turned her Twister game into a dress, wrapping the mat around her body and putting the spinner on top of her head. There also is a guy in a Frankenstein monster mask, another dressed like Harry Potter and a third wearing a blond mullet wig.

Oh wait, that's his real hair.

It's Halloween night at O'Brien's, the popular Irish pub in Oak Park Plaza at Kings Avenue and Lumsden Road in Brandon. A festive atmosphere fills the bar as people masquerade as their favorite personas.

Yet for another group sitting near the stage, there is no pretense. Every other day is Halloween for them. They masquerade as machinists, mechanics and college students, but they reveal their true personas every Tuesday night at O'Brien's.

They are musicians, true life soldiers of the blues. The open mic night at O'Brien's every Tuesday allows them to shed their work-day images and unleash their musical souls.

"I love to play. It's that simple," said Judie Cademartori a 39-year-old drummer who works in purchasing and control for Interpack Machinery in Tampa.

"It's my outlet, my getaway from the day-to-day rat race. Some people go work out. Some people play basketball. I play music."

Cademartori says she started playing drums when she was 3. Her older sisters helped her write a letter to Santa asking for drums, and ever since then she's had a beat in her heart and sticks in her hand.

"My parents saved that letter," Cademartori said. "I still have it, crooked S's and all."

Like many in this impromptu entourage, Cademartori spent the last two years drumming on Tuesday nights at the Smoking Dog, a Riverview bar that built its business around blues music. When it closed last month, jam session organizer Tommy Bell moved it to O'Brien's.

Bell plays in a number of groups and literally performs somewhere every night. On Mondays, he's at O'Brien's as the drummer for a hard-charging blues group called Ed Zeppelin. On Wednesdays, Ed Zeppelin plays at Po' Boys in Valrico and offers a more acoustic set.

Yet it's the Tuesday night gig that Bell calls his favorite.

"The talent level is excellent," Bell said. "The key to having a successful jam session is you can't have the band limping through and people not paying attention.

"With this one, we whipped it into shape and the Smoking Dog just proved to be a good location at the right time of the week. Now people get bit by the bug and they keep coming out. We get to know their favorite songs and how to work it out."

Bell credits the late Wayne Aldrich for starting the open mic night at the Smoking Dog. The owner of Ruskin's Full Moon Music Store, Aldrich hired Bell to be an emcee of the original night at the Smoking Dog.

Naturally, an Irish pub doesn't quite have the blues vibe of the rustic Smoking Dog, but it compensates with a bigger crowd and, quite frankly, a younger, more attractive crowd.

Now Bell and his Tuesday night band, the Belecasters, set the tone with a few rousing opening numbers and then serve as mentors to the younger artists. Everyone learns from everyone.

With Mike "Guitar" Murray and Bell on guitar, Bill "The Professor" Bryant on drums and George "Cuddles" Felts on bass, the group gets the crowd going on this night with tunes such as Stevie Wonder's I Wish and the Temptations' Can't Get Next To You.

Then comes the first jammers. The group includes Cadematori and Andrew Gohrman and Rob Osenton on guitar. A year ago, they were strangers. Now they are linked through a love of blues.

"I'm a singer/songwriter and I do a lot of folk and acoustic stuff," said Osenton, a University of South Florida student from Decatur, Ala. "Coming out here allows me to crank it up and play some lead guitar.

"With the blues, everybody sounds different. It's all three chords, but I can hear one note and tell you if it's Albert King, Howling Wolf or B.B. King. It's soul baring."

Gohrman, 22 and an assistant manager at Jiffy Lube in Seffner, has built enough of a resume to play with several local bands. Yet he continues to join in on the jam sessions out of appreciation for Bell.

"When I was younger, Tommy played at the old Brandon Brew House on Monday nights and they would let me sit in with them," Gohrman said. "I was awful and the songs would fall apart, but they were nice enough to let me grow and learn."

Chemistry is organic at these jam sessions. It breeds friendships, creates music-sharing groups and strong support networks. Sometimes it results in new acts.

Glennda Northcutt, who grew up playing piano in a Thonotosassa Baptist church, moved away from her childhood passion for music and worked in the medical field. At some point, however, she decided to do what she loves instead of just doing work.

Now she makes her living as a musician, and part of her income comes from a partnership she formed with Keith "Dr. Ditty" Dittmar, a guitarist who masquerades as a machinist at B&M Precision. They met at a jam session, connected through vocal harmonies and are now available for parties and special occasions.

"There's an inner circle and you see who you connect with," explained Northcutt, who was dressed as Elvira. "Music is food for the soul."

While Northcutt and Dittmar served up a rocking rendition of Eric Clapton's Tulsa Time, Craig Ferguson, the woman dressed as a Playboy bunny, served drinks and food to a burgeoning crowd.

"Yes, I'm a girl named Craig," she explained.

Ferguson, a 23-year-old Saint Leo University student, said the open mic night has worked well for O'Brien's. It's brought in a mix of old and young, and she said it's not uncommon for some middle-age woman to pull a youngster on to the floor.

She also gave me permission to tell everyone she's fabulous and beautiful. Of course, I didn't get permission from my wife to tell everyone Ferguson is beautiful, so by tonight I may be in trouble.

However, if I end up in the dog house, I'm sure there's a blues song that can perfectly capture my sad mood.

That's all I'm saying.

[Last modified November 2, 2006, 11:00:58]