We met Ben a few years ago in Key West when he was playing at Captain Tony's. Up until June, when he decided to sail his boat to the Exumas, he was the best entertainment Key West had to offer.
Ben's a lot of fun to listen to, because he's good at what he does. He plays well, he knows a lot of a wide variety of songs and he just comes across as a really nice guy. Even when we we hadn't been to Key West for a year, he remembered us when we walked into Captain Tony's.
Earlier this year, when we went to Key West to get married, we spent a lot of time listening to Ben play. We also spent a lot of time just hanging out with him, and we left the realm of groupiedom and became his friends. We're hoping we can get to the Exumas next spring to visit, but since he was back on his parents' farm in Kansas for a short period, we decided this was the closest we would be for a while. With that in mind, we decided to drive 750 miles to watch him play in a bar on the outskirts of Kansas City.
Last night we caught his show, and it was well worth it. After his show ended, we sat in the bar and talked until closing time. That still didn't seem like enough, so we wandered over to Denny's and spent another couple hours just sitting around, eating and talking.
We ended up getting back to our hotel, exhausted at about 4:45 a.m. I think it was later than we even stayed out in Key West, but we had a great time. Unfortunately, morning came all too early and we're packing up to make the trek to southeast Missouri this afternoon.
2 comments:
One of the coolest things EVER was finding Ben Taddiken at a great beer joint -- Kelley Bros. Brewery -- a few years ago in a little California burgh called Manteca, just before he headed back 'cross country to Key West.
We found ourselves going back week after week after week to hear Ben sing and play. I don't think there was a song, no matter how obscure or popular ("Santaria"? "Billie Jean"? "Southern Cross"?) that he couldn't pull out of his *ss and perform beautifully.
Amazing voice, terrific personality, and a genuinely great human being, right down to the "RELAX" tattoo.
DJ
Ben sang our wedding song!! Even though we couldn't get him to Cabbage Key where we got married we had the DJ play Taylor from an iPhone as we danced to our first song. Ben is an awesome friend and a great guy. Every time we hang out it makes me want to move next door to him in Key West...wife hasn't approved that yet.
Thanks Ben and Thanks Libbey for letting him hang out with us every time we' are down.
Bram and Candice.
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