Don Middlebrook
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  • Beach Bar Serenade

Beach Bar Serenade

Don's new album, Beach Bar Serenade, is now available to order! Don will be sharing the lyrics to some of the new songs, and some stories and pictures, too, here on his website.

Our first installment is the first cut on the CD, the song "Luckyville"...which goes a little something like this. Oh, that's Roger in the picture...bet you can guess where some of Don's inspiration came from? 



Luckyville USA

In 2005 I had the privelege of playing the Laid Back Attack in Seattle, Washington, an annual fundraiser put on by the Seattle Parrottheads. During my stay, I was treated royally by my host family. I never quite got over their name. It was Fred and Kay Lucky. It truly felt like a sitcom to stay with people I didn't know with the name of Lucky. We had a ball and I told them, one day, there would be a song about their happy homelife. I would call it Luckyville.

Fast forward to 2008. It's crazy how these things go. Luckyville had always stayed in my head, but boom, three years later the song all came together. In early July, Roger, a buddy I've known for years in Saugatuck came up to me with that big smile and that great, I love life, attitude and said to me," need a hand? " I recognized the voice and turned, then laughed because I knew it was Roger, someone that has always kept that humor even though he has lived his life with one arm. This time he was wearing a t-shirt that said, Caution, I Swim In Circles. A bulb went off in my head and I said, Roger, you live in Luckyville. The next day I saw on his Harley, just getting the most out of a summerday, and life. It wasn't two weeks later, my buddy, Paul from Wisconsin who has a contagious spirit of life surprised me by visiting the Luau Lounge in E. Lansing. He was compelled to show me pictures on his laptop of he and his friends and their wives during one of my shows three weeks prior. He asked me," what do you see here?" It was he and four of his buddies, all smiles and their beautiful wives, prepped for music and a good fun night. I replied "that you guys and your wives are all having fun." He said," it's more than that, it's a photo of us at your show this last July and notice all the girls are in their halter tops." "When you're in town, Don, we call it a halter top Saturday Night and all of us guys get lucky." He looked at me and said, "Halter Top Saturday Night"' sounds like a song. And Luckyville was taking form.

Throughout the summer, my buddy Jerry from Livonia, was bugging me to listen to Alan Jackson's Tropical Depression. When I finally did, I shook my head, said, "Jerry we don't need no stinking depression, I need to get you to Luckyville." But thanks Jerry cause now I had my bridge.

This CD, Beach Bar Serenade , covers three of my favorite artists, Jimmy Buffett, James Taylor and Kenny Chesney. One that I wanted to honor and could not in a song was Dan Fogelberg. As you listen to Luckyville and I sing, "Everyday's a Souvenir" that's for Dan. Souvenir was the title of his early breakthrough album and my college mutt was named Souvenir in honor of my high respect for his music, Dan was a great singer who stopped singing too soon.

And I would be remiss if I did not dedicate Luckyville to one of my favorite singers, Rusty Higgins. My eyes and ears of Jackson, MI. I'd also like to dedicate this song to my cousin Mary Hinkle, who in 2008, changed her zip code.