ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 11, 1997 TAG: 9704110007
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG THE ROANOKE TIMES
TWO OF THE CARS in front of Trinity United Methodist Church in Roanoke are speckled with Grateful Dead stickers. The others are more typical family cars, sticker-free save an occasional: "My son/daughter is an honor student at (insert name of school here)."
It's 7:30 on a Friday night, time for open mike performances at the Third Street Coffeehouse in the church's downstairs.
Put out your cigarette before entering and mind that the strongest drink you'll be able to order is coffee. The focus here is music and that's the way the musicians - some with 10 years experience, some with 10 months - like it.
They pluck out "Amazing Grace" on the electric guitar, taking their time tuning, though they're usually allotted only seven minutes each on stage. They play Joan Baez covers or songs they wrote themselves, about lost love or employment. They get lots of applause.
"This is one of the only places I know of where I can play," said Rob Connelly, an eighth-grader from Martinsville who performed recently with friend Jay Ward. "People act like they feel. It's a really happy atmosphere."
Tonight, the coffeehouse is celebrating one full decade of existence. The mayor has agreed to attend a ceremony to be held before the evening's performances. Old-timers and newcomers are expected to fill up the room that has the feel of a mountain lodge. There will be a tent outside to hold some of the overflow; the coffeehouse has a capacity for 99 people at a time.
"I absolutely love it here," said Megan Smith, 19 and a student at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg. A graduate of Linda Clark's guitar school in Martinsville, she's played at the coffeehouse seven times so far.
"It's like a reunion every time I come," she said. "People ask me if I've been writing more. One night, a man gave me his business card and asked if he could help book me somewhere."
The crowd at the coffeehouse is encouraging, she said, more so than anyplace she's played - "not that I can play in bars; I'm not legal yet."
So she makes the hour trek to Roanoke every few months. Often, her father accompanies her, grinning and snapping pictures.
The main acts, who perform after the open-mike period, line up to play here. Tonight's featured performer is Nashville-based songwriter Tanya Savory, whose album "Better Shade of Green" is enjoying radio airplay and kind words from music critics.
Marian McConnell, one of the organizers of the coffeehouse this year, says she has acts booked through January 1998 - despite the fact that there is no set pay.
"We literally have a plastic hat to take up a collection," McConnell said. "We give all of that to the performer."
McConnell scouts out the open-mike performers and sometimes will book them as main acts later in the year.
"We don't want any kind of four-letter words or negative music," she said. "We're not really into any heavy metal because this is a coffeehouse atmosphere."
Which is not to say the audience members snap their fingers by way of applause. They clap their hands or whistle.
They drink coffee or root beer. (Proceeds help the church with the electric and heating bills.)
They look at the ceiling, decorated with the footprints of the Boy Scouts who met here in the early part of this century.
"They put some black stuff on the bottom of their feet and were turned upside down so they could put footprints on the ceiling," said Genie Rees, president of the coffeehouse board. "They've been there ever since."
The idea for the coffeehouse came from Dr. Luther Lowe, a retired physician and a church member, and the Rev. Doug Turner, pastor of Catawba Valley Baptist Church.
"I was in Albany, N.Y., on vacation and happened upon a coffeehouse there underneath the sanctuary of a church," Turner said. "I kept that in mind, hoping to find a similar place in the Roanoke Valley. I was walking down the street one day and noticed a person working on the door under Trinity United Methodist. I asked if I could go inside and a voice came from the depths and said 'Come in here and help me fix this place up.'''
The voice belonged to Lowe, and together, the two of them fixed up the place that Lowe had known for years.
One of the footprints on the ceiling, circa 1923, is his. "When you reached first class, they put your footprint on the ceiling," Lowe recalled.
Lowe said he "had never heard of a coffeehouse before until Doug Turner stuck his nose in one day when I was down there trying to get rid of the termites."
But he was hip to the idea. His Sunday school class helped raise the money for new lights, the bathroom fixtures and furniture.
"We needed a place where people could go and feel welcome regardless of social status or marital status, just a place where they could drop in and have some snacks and listen to music and get to know people," Turner said.
Though it is not necessary to belong to a particular faith to attend coffeehouse performances, "we felt and still feel peace comes from knowing Christ so we held - and still hold - Bible classes there" on nights when the coffeehouse is not in session. "We also wanted to provide an outlet for music."
Thus, the Southwest Virginia Songwriters' Association recently chose the coffeehouse as a meeting place.
"It's a nice safe environment, I think, for a bunch of songwriters to get together and go over each other's work," said Mike Pearrell, president of the group. "There's a good comfort level. As far as performing, the audiences are attentive and appreciative. It's a pretty safe place to go if you're an open miker like I am."
Though it's in a church, only about 20 percent of the music is religious, said Rees, the coffeehouse president.
The coffeehouse is open on Friday nights, and likely will keep to that schedule, though the staff recently opened up on a Saturday night, just to see how it would go.
"We had to close the door and put a sign on the door - we couldn't let any more in," Rees said.
Over the 10 years it has been open, "we never really had any problems," said Rees, who has never performed at the coffeehouse, but does sing in the church choir. "I think part of it is that 'no smoking and no drinking.' You don't have to worry about people drinking too much and getting into fights."
Third Steet Coffeehouse's 10th anniversary celebration begins tonight at 7 with ceremonies in the basement of Trinity United Methodist Church, Third Street and Mountain Avenue Southwest in Roanoke. Songwriters will perform in the round at 7:20 p.m. and featured performers take the stage at 8:40.
LENGTH: Long : 125 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CARY BEST THE ROANOKE TIMES. 1. Seated beneath theby CNBfoot-printed ceiling (done over many years by Boy Scouts) the
audience at the Third Street Coffeehouse in Old Southwest Roanoke
applauds a Friday night performer. 2. J.T. White onstage at the
Third Street Coffeeshouse. color. 3. Board members Libby Peay and
Jack Peay at the coffeehouse entrance (above). 4. Coffeehouse
president Gene Rees sells coffee to patron Lisa Murphy.