Guitar shines on Masquers stage

SOAP LAKE - She might not have stuck to the schedule, but Bonnie Guitar kept her audience delighted regardless.

The Soap Lake resident and legendary musician put on a holiday musical celebration as a fund-raiser for her town's Masquers Theater Saturday evening, performing before a sold-out crowd.

Guitar kept her fellow musicians and the audience on its toes as she performed a mix of Christmas music, Hawaiian music, familiar classics, obscure oldies and some of her most famous works, including "Dark Moon."

In between performances, she kept the audience entertained with clever banter and remarks made off the cuff:

"Before you start arguing about it, I'm going to tell you, I'm 84," she said. "Some people think I'm 100 but I'm 84. I heard people behind me when I'm walking to a place to sing say, 'Oh, she's 92 this year.'"

"I'm doing this off the top of my head - I lost the sheet that tells me what to do," she said at one point.

She would often pause to think about what to perform next throughout the evening, much to the amusement and delight of her audience.

At another point, Guitar described sitting at a table while a nearby table of elderly people complained about aging and their ailments.

"One old lady sitting at the end of the table said, 'Well, count your blessings and thank God for it all, because we can still drive.'"

Coulee City resident Jim Davis was in attendance because Guitar is his second cousin.

"I really enjoy her music," he said. "It's timeless, it's always entertaining and I don't care how many times you hear her, it always sounds fresh."

Creston resident Deb Copenhaver said he has known and loved Guitar for 40 years. She played at the grand opening of his restaurant in the 1970s, and they have been friends ever since. Guitar even gave him a shout-out at the concert's conclusion.

"She's so talented, and she sings our kind of music," he said.

Post Falls, Idaho, resident Sue Spreen was in attendance because her husband Jerry is one of the Spokane Melody Singers.

"I enjoyed the atmosphere entirely and obviously the people around here think a great deal of Bonnie," she said. "I loved listening to her because the songs she did and the way she sang them just sounded good to me, suitable to my appreciation of music."

Seattle-based Shane Tutmarc and the Traveling Mercies and the Spokane Melody Singers shared the stage with Guitar during the celebration.

Shane Tutmarc, a member of Guitar's family from her marriage to Paul Tutmarc, said it was only the band's second time in Soap Lake, the first being earlier this year to hang out with Guitar.

"I think we're really glad to be involved with it," he said. "To play with Bonnie wasn't something we even thought we could dream about, so it's really cool to be involved. She had been a big part of us forming our sound and what we're doing, and the family musical history, so to be able to play a show with her is kind of the ultimate for us."

Shane's cousin Ryan Tutmarc said the band normally plays in clubs or bars, whatever it can get.

"It's really fun to be here, it's really different for us to be able to play a show like this," he said.

During the show, the band performed one of Guitar's songs, "Get Your Lie the Way You Want It," some of their own, and then Shane Tutmarc performed a song written for the band by Guitar, "Angel Face."

"She called and said she had this wild idea about doing a Christmas program, would we consider singing with her?" longtime Spokane Melody Singer Paul Lillengreen explained. "We thought, 'Wow, that sounds good.'"

Spokane Melody Singer Dwaine Williams felt Guitar's songs flowed together and the audience responded well.

"They seemed to enjoy some of the music we provided as well," he said. "It was really neat just to listen to her and all the repertoire she has. It's pretty amazing, all the words and all the music she remembers from all these years gone by."

None of the musicians took away money from the concert, Guitar said, with everybody paying their own way to get to the theater.

Soap Lake residents Don Johnstad and Alex Timoshuk performed alongside Guitar for the evening, along with The Tutmarcs, consisting of Greg and Doug Tutmarc.

Timoshuk said he participated because of Johnstad, who is a longtime friend of Guitar's.

"She warned me she would play in any key and any song," Timoshuk said following the show. "You just have to keep up. So she kind of did warn me. She'll start a song when she wants to, and then pull out a song you never heard before. And then if you did rehearse it, she'll change the key on you because she just likes the sound of the chord she just picked out."

Timoshuk, a resident of Soap Lake for about eight years, said he would perform with Guitar again if asked.

"I find it more interesting than your run-of-the mill type band playing because of the fact she knows all the chords, and then some," he said.

Theater artistic director Beverly Hasper felt the show went fantastically.

"I just feel Bonnie has such a fantastic stage personality," she said. "She just knows how to make it flow and it's very gracious."

Due to the large response, Hasper said the theater could have sold tickets to two shows.

"The next time we do Bonnie again, we're going to plan on two shows instead of one," Hasper said. "And I think we will be planning on another one with Bonnie, I don't know when yet."

"I tell you something, this is the night of my life," Guitar told the audience in closing. She pointed to her involvement with the performers on stage with her. "It's brought me a whole new world and I like it, so just look out, I may be around a while."