The next edition of Music in the Stacks at the Camp Verde Community Library on Thursday, Feb. 13, at 5 p.m., will feature performances by Ed Cooper, Paul Gazda and Bernice Lewis.
“It’s a lovely evening sponsored by the Camp Verde Community Library, which is a beautiful facility and everybody should be supporting live music right now, because we won’t have any if they don’t,” Lewis said. “The only way for us to get our work out is places like the library, where you can come and sit in a comfortable environment.“
Lewis has been performing original folk and acoustic music for over 40 years as well as being a published poet. She splits her time between her homes in Clarkdale and Massachusetts, saying that she draws inspiration from her travels around the country and the world, and the Grand Canyon is “her religion.”
“I reached the point because I’m a little I’m not a kid anymore, so I’m really not pondering my love life. I’ve been married for 40 years, and I could ponder it, but it gets boring,” Lewis laughed. “So I sing about things from a female perspective. I have a lot of songs about Arizona and the Grand Canyon because I love it here.”
Lewis said that she plays primarily original songs and described her music as a blend of genres, including folk, acoustic and some rock ‘n’ roll influences from her early days playing in bars. “I have a couple of cover songs that I can pull out of my bag of tricks,” Lewis said. “But the thing about [the round format] is, it is not always a good idea to plan what you’re going to play ahead of time, because it’s nice to piggyback off the last person if you have repertoire.”
Cooper, based in Sedona, is a regular at several venues across the Verde Valley. He plays a hollow-body electric guitar and adapts hit rock songs from the 1960s through the 2000s to his solo format, and has been performing at wineries and breweries for around 10 years.
“It’s a round robin performance where one person plays a song and then passes it on,” Cooper said. “I do a lot of Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Grateful Dead … and I create versions of them that work as solo performances. Which is quite a challenge, because capturing what’s great about those takes a lot for me to translate that into a performance as a solo guy with his guitar. But the level of talent for this show will be great and you get to see multiple musicians.”
Cooper will be joined by Gazda, a longtime resident of the Village of Oak Creek who usually performs covers of songs such as Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” as well as “a lot of songs from the ’60s and ’70s, that’s the era I grew up with,” as well as original songs. He started playing at the age of 16 in Utica, Mich. “In 1971, [Gazda] joined a full-time rock band and began writing songs,” a CVCL press release stated.
“Unfortunately, after a year of gigging on the road, he found that life on the road did not agree with him, so he shifted his creative focus to another of his loves … creating art. A reunion of his high school band in 2015 rekindled his love of music, and the next year, he and Bob Chadwick started a band that would become The Eclectics. Since then, he has enjoyed the fun and musical growth of playing local open mics, concerts and gigs.”
Gazda said that his original works reflect influences ranging from Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles to Buddy Guy and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
For more information about Music in the Stacks, contact Carson Ralston at carson.ralston@campverde. az.gov or (928) 554-8391.
